1994: "Forrest Gump" dir. Robert Zemeckis

A mold on a block of All-American cheese. A popular staple, but aged poorly.

Metacritic Score: 82/100

IMDB User Rating: 8.8/10

My Rating: 2.5/5 stars

I’ve been pretty rough on the ‘90s so far. Shockingly, aside from American Beauty (1999) of all films, they’ve all been watchable but not necessarily pillars of film. This viewing was one that surprised me the most on a rewatch in adulthood—frankly, I barely eked through it.

Robert Zemeckis’ Forrest Gump is chock full of everything that is wrong with this country in the type of film you watch with your white Conservative aunties around Thanksgiving while they hoot and holler about the American Dream. I’d imagine there isn’t a person left in this country that doesn’t know what this film is about, however it’s like this: Forrest Gump is an American simpleton, who coasts through life as an American patriot without an inkling of what is going on socially, politically, or economically around him as he achieves the highest of American honors. He’s a sweet boy who loves and does things just because he is told to do them.

Many might try to argue that Forrest isn’t painted as someone on the spectrum at all, that he’s just simple, he’s just dumb. But what they don’t really like to recall is that in the original script, Forrest hallucinated Curious George everywhere he went as his best friend and companion, which only emphasized that inaccurate sort of arrested adolescence that is often ignorantly associated with autistic adults. Also unrealistically, Forrest never learns, never has a moment where the film lets him prove that he does know anything at all, that just because he is disabled, he still can be the smartest person in any room or have any worldly insights. This movie celebrates ignorance, and celebrates turning blind eyes to racism and abuse. Forrest is named after a founder of the KKK but he muses that his ancestor was part of a club where they “wear robes and ride horses”. He is utilized as a weapon in Vietnam and celebrated for his ability to kill as they abuse his ignorance for power. He becomes a decorated veteran, star of the football team, wealthy, a company founder, a celebrity, an exposer of the Watergate scandal, an investor in Apple, a father to a nuclear family. And we laugh at him, because it is all by “accident” that even someone so idiotic could have it so good in America.

Problematic plot aside, I also just found the revisionist history elements to just be corny as all hell. Elvis does his signature dance because he stayed at Mrs. Gump’s B&B and saw her little kid with a mental and physical disability dance around kinda funny? He had a personal hand in racial integration and the message of John Lennon’s “Imagine”? He is a good southern boy who becomes a good southern man because he turns a blind eye to a country that is abusing him. Not to mention his ignorance of Jenny’s abuse, from her father, from men all throughout her life, and Forrest is never able to understand even how his own penis works in college until she teaches him because he is dumb and she is and will always be a harlot and will have a bad life because of it.

I could keep nattering on, it’s a long movie full of “We Didn’t Start the Fire”-style recaps of grand ol’ American history. But I shouldn’t have to say anymore to tell you that in the 21st century, we can leave this Best Picture behind. It’s not even funny. Sometimes problematic movies are worth looking back and reflecting on, and that’s easier said than done when they’re at least written or composed well, but I didn’t even think anything about this movie at all was interesting as an adult. I do promise there will be films with 5 stars on this blog, we’re getting there (The Godfather parts I and II, I’m looking at you), but unfortunately the late ‘90s were when Best Pictures really started to become Best Rich People Campaign winners.

P.S.: if you’d like, I do short-form reviews on all films I watch on my Letterboxd profile. Sometimes they’re silly, but other times I am so captivated by films that are not on this list that I have to review them on the spot! Please feel free to message me with any films you’d like me to give my insight on.

Also, I will never ask for paid subscribers, as you reading this helps me out as much as I have entertained you :). That being said, if you would like to be so kind as to donate should you like to help me complete my last year of college, then I do have a Kofi set up here. Thank you so much for reading regardless of how you support!