A Boomer Fantasy: Why is FORREST GUMP So Controversial?
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- Опубліковано 9 лип 2024
- 30 years after its debut, it's a look at the making of, history, and impact of Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks' "Forrest Gump," a baby boomer historical fantasy creating 30 years of nostalgia. But how does it represent the turbulent 60s and 70s? Is it really as conservative as people say? And how does the original, cynical novel compare to this celebratory adaptation?
#forrestgump
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Sources:
www.nytimes.com/1994/09/01/mo...
www.boxofficemojo.com/year/1994/
www.washingtonpost.com/local/...
www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news...
web.archive.org/web/201001091...
www.rogerebert.com/reviews/fo...
www.jstor.org/stable/1225535
www.indiewire.com/features/ge...
theconversation.com/the-end-o...
www.ncpedia.org/anchor/united... - Фільми й анімація
What’s your favorite 90s movie?
My all-time favorite film Nightbreed came out in 1990
Boyz N' The Hood, I guess.
Trespass (1992) by Walter Hill.
Gotta be Heat for me.
Toy Story (1995) Woody is Tom Hanks best role, I don't care that it's animated!
I did cross country in high school. During that four year period every single car would yell “Run Forest Run” at us when they passed. Every single one.
Every... Single... One! it was the only thing people could think of when they saw someone running. I ran home from school nearly every day and if someone had their windows open you could just sense their excitement that they would be the first person to ever think to yell this out.
@@synbiosblade That happened to me all the time. I hated it.
And if u were on a bike theyd yell “go lance!!” I was one of those kids yelling out the window haha. Unfortunate, it’s a bit of a lost art, don’t see that much now bc ppl are so whacked out and wound up they might pull a piece and shoot ur whip up
Y'all had it easy. Us skateboarders got the old "skater F--slur!" Every time, and maybe swerved at while they laughed.
@@williamdixon-gk2skBro us roller bladers had it worse, not even the skaters respected us 😢
Bubba's death scene has perhaps one of the saddest lines I've ever heard: "If I had known this was gonna be the last time me and Bubba was gonna talk, I'd have thought of something better to say." 😢
Lieutenant Dan & Bubba are legends!
Amen to that.
I revisit that movie every couple of years and yeah, that scene will get you. I always remember to have _plenty_ of Kleenex handy. Especially for the end when he's talking to Jenny's grave. Whew...
I remember watching that scene with my siblings as a kid. I was 6 and my older brother was 8. We both cried.
As a kid when he says "he was supposed to be a shrimping boat captain, but instead he died right there by that river in Vietnam" it changed how I saw war. I was still interested in military science but it wasn't some fun, cool, real life action movie after that.
I’ve never thought of Forrest Gump as any sort of “Conservative” movie. Or even “Liberal” movie. It’s a comforting movie because Forrest lives through it all and does great.
It is extremely conservative tho, if you're comforted, you're conservative too
Let's put it this way - Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck loved this movie.
Plus, In the movie, Forrest mentions that he was named after Nathan Bedford Forrest who was a Confederate general in the American Civil War and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
@@RebelCauseFilmsthe movie itself could be interpreted as conservative I suppoose, but Forrest himself was the antithesis of a conservative character. He was supportive of integration, didn't look down on people, and was very charitable. Conservatives today would criticize him for being "woke".
@@deeanna8448 he wasn't supportive, he was just 'colorblind,' which is yet another conservative philosophy. Forrest Gump is a prescription to keep your head down and follow orders, with the reassuring fantasy that greatness will happen to you by the grace of god if you do.
Totally agree. Too many people are so obsessed with politics they attach it to everything and seem unable to enjoy life without it. Sad.
Forrest Gump is just Quantum Leap in chronological order. 💀
AI incoming
Lmao
Valid
😂☠️
I love this assessment.
I saw Forrest as a somewhat impartial observer of those defining historical moments. Always impacted by them - for better or for worse - but essentially adrift in an ocean of constant change. He was a stand-in for me, the regular, boring person without power in the world. To have attributed a political bias to him would have rendered him unrelatable to huge swathes of the audience.
Yeah, this is pretty close to my interpretation too. I also think there's a theme of how chaotic and unpredictable the world is.
Gump's successes and failures are mostly a matter of luck. People around him are constantly making plans, talking about how things "should" be. But life doesn't care about your plans or ideals.
It could be viewed that his impartiality is just acceptance of the status quo.
@@RumchugMusic but there was no static status quo in the movie
@@RumchugMusic Please stop....
american "jozef mak", basically
The problem with doing Forrest Gump today is that 2024 is not a "happy ending" the way the 90's were. People in the 90's had hope in the form of the cold war being over and unprecedented international trade and profit. in 2024 we're still in the middle of an ongoing depression that the war, job outsourcing, and the housing market drove, and which COVID made even worse. Where's the hope and optimism in 2024? Can anyone honestly say they believe next year will be better or that we're heading in a definitively positive direction?
i remember back in 2019, a year where my life first started to feel good, that 2020 would be a good year...
i lost my girlfriend, lost my adoptive grandpa (he essentially raised me), lost my actual grandpa, my mother lost her house, my grandma started going blind and i lost every friend i thought i had... this all in the span of 6 months.
i still haven't gotten over 2020 being such a disastrous year, for me, and everybody else
There always was, and will be hope, after all hope is the last thing that dies
And the movie didn't exactly had the most "happiest" of endings per say
@@zeynaviegasi hope things get better for you bro, dont give up ❤
"People in the 90's had hope"
People really need to stop viewing past decades through rose-tinted goggles. Like, this constant idealisation of the 90's that keeps cropping up everywhere is _exactly_ like how people in the 80's had a raging hardon for the optimistic style of the 50's and I don't doubt people in the 2050's will talk about how great the 2020's were.
This decade is shit, the last decade was shit, the 00's were shit, and the 90's and every decade prior were shit too.
@@dungeonsanddobbers2683 I never idealized the 90's. I was actually alive back then, so I do in fact remember what it was like. You can't even remotely compare the attitude in the 90's to today. The biggest issues in the 90's were gang culture, stranger danger, and children being on drugs. The job market was exploding and we were still years away from the giant housing bubble of the 00's.
This guy : Forrest Gump is divisive. Everyone watching : Forrest Gump is divisive??? wtf.
Like really wut? It was just a good movie with a dorky character that just happened to be in the middle of historical political events.
only people with some intelligence know this movie isnt divisive.
But...but.. He's not mentally challenged...
It's called ACTING
@@TheHikeChoseMethe only people that find it divisive or problematic are the modern activist types that like projecting modern race and gender politics into everything and everyone.
the only way I can think of this movie being divisive to you if you have terminally online political obsession and need your media to pacify your bainrot
My dad always got mad at forrest Gump because he too got shot in the butt in Vietnam and never got ice cream for it.
You got the best quote wrong. It’s clearly this one:
JFK, while shaking Gump’s hand: “So, how does it feel to be on the All-American Team?”
Forest: “I gotta pee.”
Bout 18 Dr peppers
Best product placement of All Time.
@@viscountrainbows2857 but they also showed the side effects
The movie is saying that life's a bitch, terrible things happen, but you go on. Good or bad. And hopefully you can do it with a decent attitude
No, it doesn't. "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get." Life is more chance than we care to admit. Good and bad things happen with random precision
Unless you read the top of the box... Gump is a dumb movie to smart people, a smart movie to dumb people.
@@tskmaster3837And I like that it’s a smart movie to dumb people, how else would I enjoy a film?
@@tskmaster3837 "I'm a Smart Person"
My grandfather was born in 1934. He remembers Pearl Harbor and WWII as a kid (being 11 when the war ended). He joined the Air Force, worked at the Pentagon during the Cuban missile crisis, and fought two combat tours in Vietnam flying unarmed F4s doing reconnaissance. He retired as a full colonel in 1985.
He says 1) America peaked on September 10th, 2001 and 2) Things are worse now than at any point in his life.
What a time to be alive.
I appreciate what your grandfather said, and I certainly won't say it's wrong, but I think America had many peaks and declines, the first peak being 1861, before the North invaded the South. A steep decline followed, only rising again in the 1910's. The next peak was November 21st, 1963, not rising again until the late 70s. He was absolutely correct that America hasn't been the same since Sept, 01.
@@realtyranny3310 good point. By the way, he's still alive and in decent health, so if you or anyone have any questions for him I'll be glad to pass them along.
@@realtyranny3310*South attacked the North.
The articles of Confederation felt no need to paint black people as anything less than chattel that must remain chattel, because they didn't anticipate a future where they would be revealed for how awful they were.
John Brown, however, did.
@@PanAndScanBuddy Southern states withdrew from the Union. If Washington D.C. would have respected their choice, there would not have been a war.
@@realtyranny3310yea and thank god they fucking didnt
The movie's biggest lesson for me personally is that life is so much easier to navigate when I drop the neurosis and over analysis of life and follow my instincts and trust that there is a part of me that knows the way.
Yep, that is the wisdom Gump represents.
Bit of a criticism but the speech that Gump gives at the DC march is "Sometimes, when people go to Vietnam, they go home to their mamas without any legs. Sometimes they don't go home at all. That's a bad thing. That's all I have to say about that." Sucks that general cut it out idk why they chose to do it they way they did
Yeah no general of that era would have don that... Which IRL that's an anti war message not an anti Vietnam message.
I'm Gen Z and this was one of my favorite films as a kid
Late Gen Z and it's still one of my favorites.
same, this movie was american history to me haha
Same! But it's my favorite film I honestly feel like I'm forest gumpin through life rn 😂
I'm Gen X. Most of these times were way before my time, or I was too young to understand. I actually think I would like the film less if I was a boomer, since it seems to making light of serious times.
It's pretty simple and sounds rendundant and obvious, but this movie is about Forrest. It's about how someone with a mental impairment is just as human as anyone else and is capable of all the complex emptions that come with that.
"I may not be a smart man, but I know what love is."
The political aspect is more or less part of the setting; that's how Gump views it. It is abstract and unimportant to him, except that it is connected to Jenny.
If you think the politics are unimportant then that's because they serve you - congratulations, you're a conservative. What you do now that you have realized this is up to you.
@@RebelCauseFilms thanks dad
all of your replies make you come off as a deeply miserable person. I understand your view points but you seem rabid
@@MrAweezeyou're welcome, son. 😉
@@RebelCauseFilms LOL, we've mostly had Democrat Presidents the past 30 years. Liking the status quo doesn't mean you are a conservative. Our present society is this way because of Democrats.
I always crack up when people call this movie conservative propaganda, because I saw an analysis a rightwinger did explaining why he believed it was leftist propaganda.
Crazy that "Forrest Gump" of all movies is apparently too nuanced for chronically online film critics to understand.
How can it be right wing when Forrest is the least racist character in the whole film??? He sees desegregation happen & goes to the girl: "Ma'am, you dropped your book" like he would with any woman. He takes Bubba so seriously it's how he starts shrimping, then when he makes his fortune, gives Bubba's share to Bubba's family. He listens to the Black Panther talk about his views, & probably understands it, as when the man talks of brothers dying on the front lines, he sees Bubba dying in front of him. The only reason he ends up having to leave is he won't stand for Jenny's boyfriend hitting her, meaning he also stands against DV & sexism. He wants Jenny to achieve her dreams, & doesn't want to see her used, as in the naked guitar scene. "He tried to grab you" "A lot of men try to grab me". And it's summed up after Dan's party fails: "He didn't want to be called crippled, like I didn't want to be called stupid". His whole attitude to the bad stuff is he wouldn't like it happening to him, so why let it happen to another person?
Conservatives are the people who won't sit next to Forrest, or the ones who explain desegregation to Forrest with racist slurs beginning with C & N, or the ones abusing Jenny because they can, or the ones taking advantage of Forrest or bullying him as he grows up
@@elaineb7065Man, you seem to really hate them fellers
@@darknessml6145 The bullies & racists, I hate their acts & attitudes as I can't stand bullying in any form. My blood recently had the second boil in as many months as I signed another petition to stop the bullying of trans people by authorities
@@elaineb7065 except they has more rights than the all others. Typical hypocritical cultist
@elaineb7065 you would not like it here in the inner city of Baltimore then. My husband was the only white kid in his school and was jumped every other day for being the white kid. I also seen the boys selling drugs on corners throw things at a trans woman walking her dog. It's terrible here. I can't wait to move far away from the city.
This video: Forrest Gump is controversial
Everyone with more than 2 braincells: wtf
Forrest Gump is without a doubt my favourite movie as an autistic person the movie always really struck a cord with me because of how it portrays Disability Forrest's "low IQ" is in my eyes supposed to serve as a stand in for any mental disability be it Autism, down syndrome etc so that anyone with a disability can relate to it and Forrest in spite of his Disability is able to do so many amazing things with his life he meets multiple US presidents, becomes a Ping Pong champion, A war hero, a football star, Starts a successful company, runs across the entire country, marries the love of his life and has a son. Seeing that as a teen really made me feel like I could succeed and that my disability wasn't a barrier to living an amazing life.
I love this
THIS! this is the reason why it is also my favourite movie, i could not have put it better myself!
@@MattDraper I personally feel a main problem with Forrest Gump criticism is that a lot of the criticism and praise seems to only focus on one side of the film. I personally feel that the film tries to analyze the topics that it depicts in a light hearted way. The film depicts both the positives and negative of the decades it depicts and that seems to me like the most rational approach. For example the counterculture isn't shown in a negative light, as the protesters that accompany forest during his speech are shown to be friendly, his only when we are shown Jenny's boyfriend that we see the negative side of the counterculture and it makes complete sense as the counter culture had terrible people too, an example being the weathermen underground.
Did you succeed, then?
But Forrest legitimately had a low IQ but ridiculously high amount of luck.
And Forrest "marries the love of his life"? No. He didn't. She sexually assaulted him and then left him to deal with the result.
I’m still frustrated that this was the only Alan Silvestri score nominated for an Oscar. The man has turned out some absolute classics and deserves way more recognition than Hollywood has been giving him.
For clarity I do think this one is probably his best and certainly deserved its nomination (even though Lion King rightfully won that year), I just wish that scores like Cast Away and Avengers: Endgame had been nominated as well.
Practical Magic is another good one
As for the movie itself I think trying to look for a heady, intellectual message is to miss the forrest for the trees. It’s a fairytale set in American history. If the film has any message it’s simply that if you work hard and love yourself and the people around you then things will work out. Whether that’s conservative, liberal, or any other part of the political spectrum is up to the viewer. Anything more is trying to impose an ideology from without onto the film.
He is one of the absolute best in the industry. His ability to mix genres is something that I don't necessarily hear from other major Hollywood composers. The man needs another award or two.
He already deserved a nomination for Back to the Future score.
FORREST GUMP was a huge industry political gem. Zemeckis had been nominated a few times before for other (better) films and been passed over. The film's whimsical tone and popular appeal made it irresistible and dangerous to pass him over again. Keep in mind the central competition at the time was PULP FICTION, which has stood the test of time far better. So GUMP was a virtual no-brainer as the awards sweeper that year. So they gave it to Silvestri because fuck it, everyone gets an Oscar for this movie!
I think the thing everybody's forgetting is that the film is a joke. Yes it's nostalgic, but the film's central premise is basically: "what if every major national historical event of the last 30 years was caused by a clueless simpleton accidentally Jar-Jar Binks-ing his way through life...and he had no idea?" It causes you to review the events of your life in a new context and laugh at how silly it is. And that's pretty much it. Why else is the only real emotional core of the film the star-crossed bond between Forrest & Jenny?
I think it's extremely difficult for people born in the last 25 years to grasp just how low-stakes politics was in the 90s. Some of the biggest controversies of the decade were around rap lyrics, video game violence, and drug laws. Some of the most important moments in American politics barely got any coverage because their consequences weren't noticed until much, much later. Hell, just look at how George Bush was depicted on SNL before 9/11: all the horrific context we have today is missing because nobody knew it was there, and what you see is the result of that (blissful) ignorance.
People hate forest gump? News to me it’s a fun movie with a lot of heart and good acting. Tom hanks played the role with a lot of dignity. I also don’t think it’s a movie that only glorifies that era its also a very cynical movie that’s critical of America. Anyone that thinks it’s some conservative propaganda despite being maybe the most centralist movie of all time just shows how polarized politics has become
I was thinking the same thing. Why would anyone have a problem with this movie?
@@mrwednesdaynight This days people in all the world has problems with everything. That's the reality, and is sh*t😅.
My film history prof did not like Forrest Gump. I don't think he enjoyed the saccharine sentimentality of it, said it was a film with no message.
A bunch of my classmates did not enjoy this take lol.
Yeah I just come around to learn that there's people who hate this movie, and it's one of my favorites, maybe I'm not the proper person to judge since I'm not american and I wasn't alive back then, maybe it's more or less the same problem with Gone with the Wind.
Edit: at least Forrest wasn't racist, he lived around black people since early age, when Alabama is famous for being one of the most racist states.
@@sofiaciel7599A film with no message? That's far from the truth, there's a lot of life lessons to learn and history too, I genuinely admire Forrest's Mom, it reminds me so much of my own Mother trying to find a "normal school" to which I could attend, it really costed me to adapt, I'm saying this as someone who has Asperger's Syndrome.
Momma always said the UA-cam algorithm was like a box of chocolates. Ya never know what you're gonna get!
"Momma always said the UA-cam algorithm was like a box of chocolates. Ya know what yer gonna git, but every now and then somethin' crazy shows up and you think 'what the hell is this?'"
"Pop quiz, hot shot. You keep going to award ceremonies all year. You keep losing to 'Forrest Gump'. What do you do? You go to the MTV Movie Awards" - Quentin Tarantino
Thank you! I thought I was the only one who remembered this!
@@Theomite If Forest Gump is a Boomer Fantasy then Pulp Fiction is a Boomer...
As a child of Boomers, you really are underselling how big this movie was. Great video
As a child of a child of Boomers, this is a classic.
Y'all never grew?
The Vietnam scenes actually point out something real....."McNamara's Morons".
Yeah, I feel like the difference in how the film treats Jenny and Forrest is the epitome of that Toni Morrison quote. Jenny goes against the flow, and is punished harshly for it. Forrest floats like a feather on the wind, always doing what he's told, and succeeds without hardly trying. That's a ringing endorsement of the status quo if I've ever seen one.
Yeah, hard to call it unpolitical when they attach every vaguely leftist movement or idea to Jenny and every bit of the status quo and right wing idea to Forest. Maybe the author and director all thought that while making it, but that just highlights how entrenched those politics are in our society.
That's why's so accurate😊@@altrocks
Hahaha Jenny does not go "against the flow", she adopts every single popular trend that comes along mindlessly and treats Forrest like dirt over and over again. You probably think adopting every single belief forced down our throats when we're young is "going against the flow" too, considering how firmly entrenched the Cult of Woke is in our culture. Being left wing is not going against the flow, it's going with it. Right wingers are the ones constantly fighting the inexorable pull of that merciless god, Progress. The wheel of history must turn, and those that are crushed beneath its turning are called "right wing", because they refuse to get with the program and adopt the new status quo. Jenny's promiscuity and obsession with activism are pretty true to form for the left too, so how can you call it a ringing endorsement of the status quo simply because Jenny gets AIDS? HIV is a real virus, catching it and potentially dying of AIDS was a real side effect of living a promiscuous lifestyle for a lot of people, especially in the late 20th century before better treatments were developed to keep HIV from developing into AIDS. Also, if it is supposedly a right wing propaganda film like you are implying, why is the somewhat conservative hero a mentally ret@rded (not sure if I can write that word without my comment being deleted) man? Doesn't seem like a ringing endorsement of conservatism to me. Plus, while the author of the book may have been right wing, Robert Zemeckis isn't and neither is Tom Hanks or anyone else involved in the movie, at least not that I know of, I mean Hollywood isn't very welcoming to dissidents.
She was a sexually abused drug addict. She wasn't someone who bucked the trend and got punished. She made stupid life choices that anyone with a brainstem can call stupid, and She faced the consequences of those choices. No one is saying she shouldn't have been a hippie or cared about left leaning things. But maybe she should've been more discriminate with her choice of sexual partners and did less heroin. Crazy, I know.
Forest Gump has always hit me as centrist in messaging terms. Forest believes in family values and is tolerant towards others that were different from him. When it comes to Jenny and being the face of counter culture, it is the epitome of what happens to those that are irresponsible. Not a Left or Right kind, but what happens when you make clearly bad choices. Many that rebel or go against the grain mostly do it to stand out and want to prove to others that they are special or are not just another brick in the wall. Jenny could have succeeded while going against the grain, but she was wilfully blind from recognizing the inevitable outcome of her choices.
There's something ironic about saying "Forest Gump completely ignores the civil rights movement" and then mentioning what a Forest Gump movie would look like today yet not mentioning the 1992 LA riots.
I hate to break it to you, but that was over 30 years ago.
@@thelight3112 Yes I know. That's why I brought it up. That's the point
@@thelight3112same with black slave trade, yet look who keeps brining it up no matter how many years n decades roll by
Enemy of the State is definitely my favorite 90s political thriller
Brilliant movie and it bums me out that movies like that no longer get made
For me it’s Sneakers (1992) which is also my favorite hacker movie even though the term hacker is never used.
@@MildMisanthropeMaybeMassive I think it's used once but so stealthily that even I can't recall exactly when. I think it's not even really used to describe what they do, it's almost incidental.
I still like to imagine it as a sequel to THE CONVERSATION even though it's a big stretch to do so.
Imagine a more modern version with them having Forrest recollect visiting The Twin Towers and the story ends with "and for no particular reason at all, somebody flew a plane into them."
This is the first time I’ve ever heard this movie described as “controversial”
Leftists can make everything, absolutely everything, political and offensive
I've always wondered how insane that "Gump and Co." adaptation would've turned out.
Side note: even as someone who likes this film, I'm still pretty astonished it beat both Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption for best picture at the academy awards.
Pretty tough year, I'm glad that at least Pulp Fiction won best original screenplay, but it's a shame Shawshank didn't took any awards, that's also a close favorite of mine.
Yeah, which was the first major chink in my view of the Academy Awards. Now I couldn't care less about any of it.
Lol I don't think anyone ever said this movie was controversial till this video lol
Twitter
Everything is controversial now. No middle ground allowed, far-right and ultra-woke are the only two islands to left. Can't just have fun in the middle anymore.
When the movie came out, I enjoyed it as a merciless satire of modern American society and culture. For me, its message was that recent US history is „a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.“ I never could have imagined that anyone would take it literally, let alone find it inspiring.
My take on it is slightly different. I never thought anyone would take it literally, let alone find it an endorsement of U.S. policy. And why do so many Baby Boomers think this? Because no one in it stands up and says, The War in Vietnam was a bad thing. It was very bad and very wicked. Yes it was, but to demand that the movie should have been a nonstop denunciation of the War would have ruined it and made it into pure propaganda, which would have satisfied the Left, but also would have been jaw droppingly stupid. To be clear, I too, did not support the War. and yet, I like the film very much.
@@davedalton1273 There's no way the producers could have thoroughly denounced the Vietnam War and made this movie such a success. I enjoy it too - as a satire of recent American culture and society, where every major event can be more or less traced back to a severely deficient individual - but I have to admit that the producers presented a very safe message to their customers. I understand why, but I prefer movies that show a little grit.
A retard ends up living the American dream. He can do it but you can't 😂
"Forrest Gump" is probably Robert Zemeckis best work. There was a lot of satire and criticism of US history in the film but the story was presented in a way where it also works very well as a traditional emotional drama. The filmmaking criticizes horrible US policy like "Project 100,000" without needing to give needless exposition within the scene.
You stay that like people like forest gup don't exist... the word idot savant was a medical term for an autistic whois disabled but is the best in the world at ione thing... I'm a very disabled super savant we do exists and I do rember all those events of the oast 28 years due to 24 hour news.
Forrest Gump's novel (and to a lesser extent the movie) is basically Voltaire's Candide. If you know anything about that book, it's basically satirizing the political/religious events of the time with a blissfully unaware protagonists blundering his way into and out of crazy situations. It even has many characters coming in and out of the story throughout his travels, as well as sort of unobtainable love who he's always chasing after. The structure is nearly the same, but Gump is just the Americana version of it.
In a lot of ways Tom Hank's version of Forrest is closest to Candide (the protagonist) than the book version, as Candide is not really an idiot, but goes with the flow, is kind hearted, and seems sort of unaware of the craziness going around him. The book version of Gump seems to understand more, and is more proactive in the plot, and sometimes can come off as a Gary-Stu. Since it's satire, that's okay, but sometimes the line on that seems a bit self-inserty. That's why I think Hank's version is overall more closer to the original source, Candide. All throughout the book, Candide is always saying "all is for the best", thinking about the events going on around him having a silver lining. I think the movie version of Forrest Gump gets this more than the book does. (Now Voltaire does paint Candid optimism as something laugh at, but theme is there)
So by it's very structure from Candide, the movie has to be a little bit of satire mixed into a pleasing Hollywood 3 act structure script. Events happen around Forrest, he's not the driving force in them, which means he views the world differently. The movie basically is trying to stay in his POV, which is why it doesn't go hard into the details of the historical events. If Forrest isn't interested, then the movie isn't. There is just enough hints there to let audiences know that things are bigger than what they seem, but it doesn't dwell on them because that's not what the movie is about. I can't fault the movie for being something it wasn't designed to be.
cool
This film transcends generations, it's a film anyone can relate to because, at its core, it's more than boomer nostalgia.
I thought it was pretty obvious that this movie is anti politics. And honestly, that makes it more relevant than ever.
Personal comfort movie that isn't this? Probably Thomas and the magic railroad. It's so bad it's good.
It’s really not “anti-political”. It’s clearly a right wing movie
@@Cartoonnetworkisamazing Showing the sh*t show that was Vietnam is right wing?
i wasn't there but i think by the 90's the vietnam war was wildly unpopular.
its transgressive to protest the vietnam war while its happening. its transgressive to protest for civil rights in the 60's but today mlk is incorporated into the staus quo.
@@Cartoonnetworkisamazinghow💀
@@mattevans4377My brother and I watched the Thomas movie so many times that we lost count and there were times that I got tired of it.
I’m a middle aged black man and FG is one of my favorite movies. I’ve never considered the movie to have a political agenda one way or another. Nor have I’ve heard any one else consider it to have one neither. In fact, I see that Forest was a neutral character who was surrounded by political agendas but was either too dumb or smart to be impacted. It was a great movie that was produced to entertain, imagine that. The notion that it was irresponsible is frankly sad. And the idea that it couldn’t be made today is heartbreaking. I remember that all demos enjoyed and appreciated the movie. We are loosing the ability to just take time to be entertained.
Considering how Hollywood is now trapped in reviving and extending well know franchises, I wouldn't be surprised if they attempted to make a Forrest Gump sequel, call it "Forrest Gump Jr"? Set in the most important events of 21st Century.
@jesustovar2549 there was already a book sequel (Gunp & Co.) that did cover later events. It was weird.
They tried to get the rights to film it, but the author said, "No." Due to Hollywood accounting practices, the film "lost" money and Winston Groom didn't receive royalties of the profit.
So when they approached him about the sequel, he asked why they would want to make a sequel to a movie that lost money.
In the sequel, Forrest Gump Jr. would have been DJ Kool Herc's assistant at the dawn of Hip Hop, accidently scratching a record and creating the "break beat"!
The movie didn't have a political agenda - but even not having a political agenda is still a political agenda. The movie very carefully avoids politics, but in doing so it has to ignore and dismiss serious subjects. The agenda the movie pushes, inadvertently, is that of the status quo: No problems here, everything is great, so don't rock the boat or try to change anything.
@vylbird8014 Interestingly, the movie also works as a political rorschach test. Not deliberately, of course. As you say, it's careful to avoid any political statements. However, I've seen people read politics into it. Especially those who didn't care for it (and there are people who don't like it). People I know on the Right thought it had Left wing messages and vice versa. These sentiments seem to be based on what it doesn't condemn or address at certain points. Like the Black Panthers, the Viet Nam War, or the various times when Forrest is among political or divisive historical figures. And some people don't like it just because it doesn't "choose a side."
2:44 a "new movie star"... ouch. By '94 Tom Hanks had a few massive hits like Big and a League of Their Own that were several years old, so he was pretty well established as a superstar.
That's not even his extensive career during the 80's.
Yeah…Tom Hanks had been on the map since 1989 or so.
Forrest Gump isn't stupid, he's pragmatically streamlined and free from convolution, which makes him elegant and dependably decent in his staunch integrity to wisely keep his approach to life prioritized with a purposeful simplicity which eshews wasted time and energy on needless conflict, chaos, spite, grievances, or entitled expectations - when the world will continue to spin in the manner it must whether you want to roll with it or not.
Bump is a Daoist
GUUUUUUUUUUUUMP!!! Whydidyouassembleyourweaponsoquickly!?
...because you told me to??
In the sequel, Forrest Gump Jr. would have been DJ Kool Herc's assistant at the dawn of Hip Hop, accidently scratching a record and creating the "break beat"!
It's not a bad movie but it is treacle and maybe a little to precious in its attitude towards nostalgia
I liked comment simply because you're gonna have a bunch of people here in the States googling the word "treacle." You are right, though.
Jenny is cinema's greatest villain
No, just a hoe......
It’s kinda like a lot of old westerns. Still enjoy it but I’d be lying if I said I don’t get why people don’t like it.
That's when I knew it wasn't gonna work out w/ my ex-wife. She hated westerns, didn't like Forrest Gump, & said Cool Hand Luke was boring.
I love westerns and genuinely don’t get why people don’t like it. I understand personal preferences, but most people have never seen any "old school" western and criticize only a strawman about "killing no-name natives". I even ask for recommendations about such westerns about embalming traditional masculinity (western deal with the topic well and often and before other genres, with excellent pieces like my favorite The Big Country), heroic cowboys (in fact, there are not many westerns about cowboys...), and yes - no name natives. Every time I see anyone criticize this topic I ask for a tip. Never get one. A narrative about "modern revisionist westerns" is only another deep-seated myth because the genre deals with this "tradition" since the 50s and does it in a passing way. Especially funny I considered the one about natives, it's pretty hard to find "non western" with a significant native cast (ie I love Chris Eyre movies).
@@ladypeahen8829
There is a slight problem with your technique, there, because *a lot* of people blur movies of genres they don't respect on their minds.
If I asked my dad "Oh, really, which demonic possession movies you've seen?" he would draw blank, even The Exorcist would take a hot moment to be recalled by him, but he was most definitely in on why he didn't like the genre.
Quite honestly, I'm not into Westerns, myself, but because most of its plots are a little less innovative than the average Meg Ryan rom com.
So, now there come the screaming men who no one will stop, then they will rape the judge's daughter, now someone will say something nice to the prostitute to show how tolerant they are, now this good guy will punch that other good guy so me see he is even manlier in spite of being older, now they are cooped on the jail.... and now the sweet woman who never sinned is gonna take a shotgun and kill exactly one bandit, in a scene that will never be addressed, so I guess that means she has personality this... was she a school teacher, a quaker or what other estereotypical peaceful cliché thing? Eh, can't remember but *exactly once* she was a former prostitute.
Realistically, I know my memory is mixing the cliché plots of Westerns decades apart (I think the 3 or 4 westerns featuring the rape of the judge's daughter must be from the 70s, because that feels like a very 70s scene), but after being forced to watch at least 3 Westerns every Sunday with my dad for decades... they all blur into an amorphous mass for me, enough that I can only name Sgt Ruthledge as one that I remember for being about something different and interesting (a court drama, all of a sudden, and one that *ISN'T* solved by a John Wayne wannabe making "shame on you" faces, no less???)
That and that there is one in which the cowboys had the gayest conversation ever seen, even when compared to gay porn, about caressing each other guns, feeling their weight and sighing as they shoot a tin into the air. That was... something to wake me up.
I guess the problem is that since most of them have the *exact* same scenery, the plot had to be far more distinct for each to stand on their own as more than "back in the day, men were MEN, and those who defied them were shot dead".
Quite honestly, even though most people compare Westerns to Dirty Harry, in my experience they were a lot more like Death Wish.
Sure, lots of "now there is no more law, all because the youngins are lawless and godless, I wish someone would kill them to make things right", but looking a loooot sadder while doing it, and often dying in the process, because old fellas know that "the world is against the good ones".
@@ladypeahen8829 honestly old school westerns were deconstructing and reevaluating their own tropes and myths at the peak of the genre. There’s a reason the Man who Shot Liberty Valance feels timeless. It did what people want genre to do 50 years ago.
I still like to watch old westerns with my Great Uncle, he considers himself kind of and old leftist, but he's pretty much a conservative with really homophobic tendencies, still love him tho.
“Is he smart?” completely recontexualized the film
There has been some discussion in more recent years whether Gump, as depicted in the movie and regardless of the filmmaker's intentions, is actually autistic rather than low IQ.
Its one of my favorites as a Gen Z. Funny, sincere, great performances.
Same, and I was only born 10 years after it.
@@jesustovar2549 Me as well.
Excellent video. I think a lot of Pulp Fiction fans (some who never even watched Forrest Gump) really took it personally when Forrest Gump won Best Picture instead of Pulp Fiction but even if some of them think Pulp Fiction is better, it doesn’t mean Gump is a bad film!
Especially since Shawshank Redemption would have been the right choice
Apples and Oranges, I love Forrest Gump but that dosen't mean I can't enjoy a good Quentin Tarantino flick.
@@MrKurtykurtIt's a shame Shawshank didn't took any awards, I would have given it to Morgan Freeman for best supporting actor.
It's not coincidence that I love both Forrest and Shawshank.
I was certainly offended at the time.
It got best screenplay which it definitely deserved. And tbh that seems a more fitting Oscar for that film since it did have better writing than Gump.
Forst Gump is a film about the man named in the title. His life, his experiences, and his 'go with the flow' mentality from his simpleness. Its a story about a man who is far simpler and happier than any of us.
5 seconds in and I gotta disagree. They make nothing but remakes nowadays. Or at minimum they make movies based on existing IP: Marvel, Barbie, etc.
I found this book in 1986 when I was 14...I loved it. Read it two times in a row...I remember walking to school and baseball practice reading it while I walked . I was excited when the movie came out, but disappointed when they left basically half the book out.I guess it kinda inspired the way I live my life. I left home at 16 and have just moved along like a leaf on the wind, having lived in a dozen countries and had about half as many adventures/careers as Forrest.
The 90s seem like a completely different time smh
It was a time filled with optimism, as the Cold War was over and 9/11 didn't yet happen.
90's were great, as everything was still going up. Now everything's seen as crap, and everything's a political battlegound. This age is a major bummer in every way I can think of. Tech has gotten better in, well, technical terms, but everything the tech can provide to us is more crappy and lame.
@@FINNSTIGAT0R) so not any different from any era?
It is not a "baby boomer fantasy". It is a well-written film that touches the heart, something that you cannot do. I'll tell you what the biggest millennial fantasy is: making something that lasts over time.
I think the only way to make a Forrest Gump movie nowadays would be to make it an American dad movie about Roger living through or causing historical events
Seeing how Hollywood is remaking things and doing unnecesary sequels, I think a Forrest Gump sequel would be possible. Closest we're gonna have tho is Robert Zemeckis' "HERE".
I would love to see this.....
All the historical figures are just personas of Roger.
@@Outlawstar0198 he was responsible for the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and Gordon Lightfoot was one of his personas
@@jesustovar2549 they would make Forrest gay w Lt. dan, Jenny a communist lesbian (I guess the commie part was pretty close)she would be the protagonist
But the main theory is true... If your americain you'll be alright... Like it was in the 90s,50s,20s...
The 1990's had the best trailers. Trailers these days are as bland as sugar-free vanilla ice cream.
It tastes pretty good though, the ice cream that is
Oh yeah remember the old trailer narrator's voice, that died around mid 2000s.
@@jesustovar2549*"In a world... where no one listens to a male voice speaking in a low register excitedly..."*
One of the few examples of a movie being significantly better than the book. The first I've heard of any kind of controversy about it however
A few people on the internet start to criticize years later, and then all of a sudden they claim it’s controversial now even though nearly everyone who watched the movie loves it
That comparison to Disney parks is only valid pre-2014.
Lol, no it is not.
It also tipped off a mini boomlet of nostalgia piece knockoffs in the late 90s, like Mr. Holland’s Opus and Pleasantville- a movie all about how the baby boomers invented love and sex and music and freedom.
I was in film school back then our profs wanted us to make Mr Holland's opus but we all wanted to make Pulp Fiction
Wrong generation. High schoolers in the 1950s would have been the Silent Generation. The Boomers didn't start high school until the 1960s.
you need to re watch Pleasantville, it's about censorship and the rise of fascism.
Being born in the early 70s, it was annoying in the 80s and 90s how self-obsessed the 60s generation was with itself in Hollywood.
Half the TV shows and films were "We used to be hippies, but now we're older....here's an entire show and film genre about just that."
I blame "The Big Chill".
@@JonSmith-hk1bqwas Pleasantville even set in the 50s? I always thought it was early 60s TV.
What are you talking about? Studios love rehashing the same shit over and over. If they were pitched a Forest Gump Sequel or remake they would jump on it like a bitch in heat.
The military actually enlisted a bunch of people that wouldn't normally get in for mental health reasons...but they got the film makers to not mention it in order to use their equipment in the film...it was gonna be a whole squad of forests and bubbas
How can you possibly shudder at Nu-Metal? So many great songs from the genre:
Linkin Park: In the End, Numb, New Divide
Fuel: Bittersweet, Haemorrhage in my Hands
Taproot: I
Puddle of Mud: Blurry
Korn: Word Up
3 Doors Down: Kryptonite, Here Without You
Mudvayne: A World So Cold
Crossfade: So Cold
Drowning Pool: Numb
Disturbed: Sounds of Silence
Hoobastank: Remember Me
Mad at Gravity: In Vain
Breaking Benjamin: So Cold
Smile Empty Soul: Who I Am, With this Knife
Staind: It's Been Awhile
SR-71: Tomorrow
Not to be insensitive, but casting only mentally-challenged actors to portray mentally-challenged people is a ridiculous notion that misunderstands the mental effort that goes into putting on great acting performances. Acting is the art of pretending to be something you're not. It's NOT standing in front a camera and simply being who you already are. I can't believe I have to say this in 2024.
Ahh.. and people with these challenges aren't capable of that?
@@erichmyles4481 Not to the same extent, obviously. Should they be Air force pilots too, just so everyone feels good about themselves? Acting is a serious and difficult profession, particularly the ability to carry an entire film as the lead role. Can it be done? Yes. Is it a good idea? No.
@@laurast.martin2421 Damn, now you're not gonna let them be pilots? lmao it's not like they're gonna send unqualified people up, discluding people just because you dont like having them do hard things is kinda crazy
Did the video really suggest that? 😂 Probably plenty of opportunities yes, given time, lack of need for profit in order to develop scenarios, and skilled adaptive writing. Maybe if community theater came back in some form, as a development platform. 🤷♀. It’s like by watching a magical drama they now think magically, and that snapping their fingers with an idea makes it doable, not able to reason through factors of plausibility..
@@franciscovegamarquez7646 ... Maybe its time to stop learning things from memes bud...
To me Forrest Gump is an interesting individual on a very interesting journey. I never felt I need to identify with someone to care for them and what they are going through.
In 1994 I was a freshman in high school. My girlfriend, a junior. Her name was Jenny. I think I drove her crazy for at least a month. I think about her every time I see Forrest Gump, and we’re friends now, so it’s nice to send her an “I lOvE yOu Jinn-nee” every now and then :)
There was a period between The Big Chill and Forrest Gump where nostalgia of the 50s and 60s ruled pop culture. 60’s bands were reuniting. We had movies and tv shows about young boomers coming of age ( buy the soundtrack!). Fascination with the Vietnam War. Tv ads were constantly using vintage tv characters and music.
Today the nostalgia era has returned as people remember the 80s and 90s before January 6, the 2020 riots, CoVID,the financial crises and even 9/11.
Fave movie that CAME OUT in the 90s - Silence of the Lambs
Fave horror movie of the 90s - Blair Witch Project.
Fave “Totally 90s” movie- The Craft
Fave Action Movie- Terminator 2
Most rewatched 90s movie-
Armageddon
Armagdddon is truly a guilty pleasure, tho I think The Rock is Michael Bay's best movie, also Sean Connery's last 007 film.
As a middle schooler, this movie impressed upon me the importance of clean, dry socks.
The general reception Jenny got was disgusting. The original "red flag if someone utterly despises this character".
Great essay, Matt! It really stands out from what you usually cover, but I'd love to see more of this on the channel! As a non-american who watched the movie when I was a kid, the video gave me context and insight to rethink Forrest Gump, thank you!
Forrest Gump is like The Wizard of Oz compared to a movie like Grand Canyon (1991), a film filled with Baby Boomers ("The Big Chill of the '90s") who, through the course of the film, find a deeper meaning to life. I walked out of the theater half-way through because I found it to be a contrived mess. It will forever come to mind as a movie I walked out on because I've done it so seldom.
Forrest Gump is also very contrived, but that's the tongue-in-cheek conceit of the movie - maybe deceptively so. It's a comedy that doesn't make you LOL, and a Drama in which the main character has no pathos.
I remember when I was at uni we had to compare forrest gump with pulp fiction, in that they are both effectively anthology style movies with quite a forced weaving plot, although they missed the good stuff out of the book gump's time in nasa, the ape that ruined his space flight and time with cannibals.
I'm having visions of a movie coming out in the 2030s with Haley Joel Osment reprising his role as Gump Jr as some sort of strange cathartic film about all the things millennials have experienced, and it being extremely cursory
So I’m actually writing a novel trilogy that follows the Forrest Gump situation of inserting characters into historical moments and interacting with famous people between the years 1995-2012. However I don’t use a fictional Everyman, but rather two famous people who died young in real life.
My books follow a fictional marriage of JFK Jr and Princess Diana as they live past the late 90s into the 2000s, and they experience the election, 9/11, the Iraq war build up, Katrina, and the recession. Eventually they become president and First Lady as seen as America’s royal couple.
Although not overtly political, a great 90s thriller based on a true story, "The Insider" starring Russell Crowe and Al Pacino, about the tobacco industry.
Great video Matt. Just watched this one on the 4th again as it classified as a good 4th of July watch. Born in 87 and still remember watching this for the first time in probably 95ish with my parents and their friends and had this as a constant watch in the 90s. I remember thinking this was a love story. 😂
I talked to Boomers when the movie came out. They made up their own personal meanings for the movie based on their own life. Some hated it; others thought it dumb, still others were brought to tears by it.
I’m Gen X and nearly the same age now they were when they saw it. I feel a keen nostalgia and awe of the passing of time to include all the weird crazy events in my life.
I'm very proud of this little turn of phrase I came up with: "Forest Gump is the Baby Boomers' love letter to themselves."
Even if you call it a boomer fantasy, if you alter several settings to the more modern version situation millenials will gobble it up.
Also everyone's hatred on Jenny is enough to unite everyone, boomer, gen X, millenial and zoomer.
*My biggest take away from this is that nerds don't like numetal*
This movie came up at the perfect time because in 1994 after the end of the Cold war that seemed like a happy ending for Forrest and the US now in 2024 it's hard to see it as a happy ending
I saw Forrest Gump the day it was released. The theatre was packed. It was the single greatest theatrical experience I've had in my 50 years. The crowd laughed, cheered, and cried as one united community. I never felt so close to strangers. The Vietnam era was still fresh in the minds of my parent's generation - who had lost brothers, cousin's, fathers and uncles in Vietnam. The one line "Bubba was supposed to be a shrimp boat captain, instead he just died by that river", sums up the lost potential of all who were lost in Vietnam. The movie made me feel for my parents, who were still talking about those they had lost. I started college a few weeks later (with the Forrest Gump soundtrack loaded into my cassette deck); I walked onto my college campus that had not changed appreciably since my dad attended 30 years before. I felt as though I stepped back in time that first semester. Rotary phones still adorned the walls. The Union was still filled with the same orange fiberglass chairs my dad had studied in. Of course, all that gave way to the birth of the internet age over my four years there. Forrest Gump allowed all who saw it to step back in time, if only for a little while.
Forrest Gump and Rain Man were two movies that I loved as a kid despite not understanding a good amount of them
They're still two of my faves
That's an odd opening. You think studios wouldn't remake a classic for a quick buck?
Loved this deep dive Matt! I’ve always had nostalgia for this movie as well as “the good ol days of America” but never understood why, this was a cool perspective to analyze! Thanks for this!
I think there's a kind of cynicism that has come about since the 1990s that makes Forrest Gump difficult to really interpret today. That is we generally don't think for ourselves but latch onto what others say and claim it as our own. With a movie like Forrest Gump, that can't really be done.
If asked my opinion on it though I'd say it's simply a POV movie as the entire movie is seen from Forrest's view. He doesn't see all the stuff that Jenny gets caught up in, he simply sees Jenny. He doesn't see the Civil Rights movement, he sees his friend Bubba and doesn't forget his friendship when Bubba dies.
Maybe where it tends to get a bit complicated is when he meets Lt. Dan for the first time and is instructed not to salute him because he doesn't want to be identified as an officer by Viet Cong snipers. Yet Lt. Dan has a long family tradition of having someone die in every war America has been in and he envisions that for himself. Forrest, however, likely understood Lt. Dan's first order to him to mean he really didn't want to die in Vietnam and therefore did what he had to in order to save him. But I don't even see that as necessarily a political message.
Simply put, Forrest Gump is not himself political, he's loyal. He doesn't see geopolitical conflicts or movements and he doesn't get caught up in any particular camp. Even when he's brought up on stage to speak at an Anti-Vietnam protest, despite the microphone being sabotaged, those up on the stage heard what he said and embraced him despite him fighting in the war they're protesting. We as the audience have an awareness of what's going on around him and because of that, we place our views over what's being presented.
In a society though that tries to force people into one camp or the other, a film like this simply couldn't be made.
Forrest Gump is a masterpiece, young man!!!
Controversial? What? This is one of the most beloved movies of all time. Bad title makes me not care about what you have to say.
Excellent vid as always. I've always been morbidly curious about the sequel book
Very much enjoyed this video. I randomly just rewatched Forrest Gump for the first time in about 10 years a couple weeks ago, I feel it still holds up. But you are absolutely right, it's a comfort movie now... I was 15 years old when the movie was released in 1994 and it was kind of funny at the time, because it was the Yin to Pulp Fiction's Yang... another culturally significant movie from 1994... in fact the Pilot episode of Mad TV started with a Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump mash-up parody sketch called Gump Fiction.... and the Oscars that year the two movies were both the heavy favorites for Best Picture of Year... Forrest Gump ultimately won and I know a lot of people who love Pulp Fiction were mad about that.
If you’re considering political thrillers, please watch Blow Out from Brian De Palma. It’s nothing short of amazing, damn near a masterpiece, and without spoiling it, offers a fantastic commentary on the American government and the system in place.
My wife is 42 and I'm 41 and we love this movie
Hi there, I know you have decided to not do videos on comic books anymore. But I was wondering if you could in the future do a video on the graphic novel Here by Richard McGuire.
Gary Sinise was excellent in this movie. It can't be easy to match Tom Hanks' talent. But I'd argue the rocky relationship between Forrest and Lt Dan are the movie's highlights.
they made remake it but in India in 2022, Laal Singh Chaddha
Forest Gump to me is a unique blend of serious drama and comedy. It's a good 🎥 to enjoy with friends and family
Really interesting take. Not sure I agree with all of it, but it really hit home when you brought up if the movie where being made today looking back on the last 30-ish years what would be included and excluded? It would be very hard to pick and choose without some type of political agenda.
Forrest gump is an all time classic its capra tone and nostalgia feel still resonates today. Excellent video matt. Will you cover more filmmakes like zemekis spielberg or spike lee
A Gump sequel wouldn’t work but if you want a relevant odyssey through early 21st Century America, I highly recommend that you read “Hold It Til It Hurts” by T. Geronimo Johnson. It’s about an adopted BIPOC Iraq war veteran who navigates through the opioid crisis and Hurricane Katrina. One of the best books I’ve ever read.
There was a book sequel
I have never heard any one complain about this movie what are you talking about
This is a pretty special movie to me. I saw different parts of it over and over from a young age over and over, as my dad absolutely loves it. There's something comforting about this movie's portrayal of the south, and as a southerner, its quiet moments were something I hadn't really seen in movies before that resonated with me. I also think this movie has a unique experience for someone born after it came out, like me. This movie was how I was introduced to a lot of American history; About the JFK assassination, Vietnam, the counter-culture movement, the cold war, Watergate, and even to cultural figures like Elvis and John Lennon. So many things went over my head when I watched it back then, and that really made me connect with Forrest. I was able to tell that large events were happening all around Forrest, but couldn't grasp the context behind them, like the others who were around me. I think that reflects how Forrest acts in this movie, where he is interested in what is happening and well-meaning, but isn't able to infer the full scope of the events he finds himself in. Now as an adult I do see this movie as a bit of a failure in a few ways, but in interesting ways that reflect where America was in the 90s. Though I am very skeptical of the baby boomers' view of the world both then and now, I think I will always have a soft spot for this movie for being relentlessly optimistic and slowly easing me into the nightmarish world of American politics from the last 80 years.
I don’t know what else I can add, this video hits every point and counterpoint I’ve been making to friends and colleagues about Forrest Gump beautifully.