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Forrest Gump is the best movie.

J

Jombie

Member
I feel like it's one of those movies that made for the purpose of winning awards and cynically pulling at your heartstrings. Other than that, it doesn't have much to say. 'If you're dumb and oblivious, great things can happen.'

and yeah, it's sexism is pretty obscene.
 
A

AllIsOneIsNone

Banned
googleplex said:
No Forrest is actually to most racist part of the movie! Not Forrest himself but how he is depicted in the move. Basically Forrest was a way to sanitize the Black experience and sometime the Black peoples achievements for white audiences.

Black people being lynched? We'll just put a white face on those victims

Black men dominating in football and other sports? That becomes more palatable with a nice white face

Didn't Elvis basically still his style from Black people? Nope,it was a little white kid he ripped off.


Hell even the people that actually reported the Watergate break-ins was black. They gave that to Forrest Too


Don't even get me started on how this movie treats woman.
Click to expand...

What? Those are some loose ass associations. Can't even tell if you're serious.
 
M

Macapala

Unconfirmed Member
Dadasch said:
No, that's Shawshank Redemption for you.
giphy.gif
Click to expand...

Na man, The Godfather is the most overrated movie EVER.
 
S

Staccat0

Fail out bailed
This thread is odd.

I don't like it, but I'm not gonna pretend it's a bad movie. It has a lot of really strong elements, but it definitely is kryptonite to my sensibilities. I can enjoy shit I don't agree with (that's kinda how art works) but it's a pretty empty movie for me emotionally and it's not much to look at.

Still, it's full of elements that are hard to deny.
 
M

Maledict

Member
It's a terrible movie that's a saccharine overloaded hymn to the baby boomer generation, and actually has some fairly nasty cultural messages underneath the surface story.
 
TheSadRanger

TheSadRanger

Banned
uncelestial said:
It's a maudlin piece of credulous mainstream boomer-worshipping horseshit.

It's underlying message is that even if you're dumb as a post, as long as you exhibit US values (enlist in the army, do what you're told, be Christian, salute the flag) you will be rewarded with fame, riches, children, and get to meet all the rockstars and even Presidents that walk the earth at the same time as you.

If you try to fight the system or get involved with the counterculture, like Jenny does, you will literally catch AIDS and die. Subtle.

The movie also can't resist making the Black Panthers into a hate group, which is probably exactly how white baby-boomers, by and for whom this movie was clearly made, saw them. To say nothing of portraying anti-war protestors like assholes (the president of the Berkeley chapter of the SDS smacks Jenny around at one point for fuck's sake - which I guess is cool with the Black Panthers, who glower at Forrest brandishing firearms while kicking him out of their meeting for daring to retaliate to a woman getting beat up).

In 1995 The National Fucking Review named it one of the "Best Conservative Movies" of all time, then in 2009, ranked it number four on its "25 Best Conservative Movies of the Last 25 Years" list.

Let's hear from them about how great this movie is!
Click to expand...

Jenny never died from being part of the counter culture though. She died because she caught HIV when she was sharing needles doing heroin at a party.

I never read the message as that "Jenny died cause of her viewpoints". It was simply that she made a bad choice at a party. The scene of her at the party passing the needle is pretty far after her anti-war protesting days.

I really don't get the Jenny complaints, she was a tragic character that was messed up from sexual abuse she suffered from her father as a child. The movie showed several times throughout that Jenny suffered from PTSD from her sexual abuse as a child even when she was an adult.
 
G

ginger ninja

Banned
I saw this years before I came to America and was absolutely taken back by how exceptional it was. I don't think the movie is either pro liberal or pro conservative, to me it is just a tale about human nature.
 
Z

Zoloft Sonic

Member
It's a pretty high-calorie slice of conservative boomer wish-fulfillment. "Look what that simple white boy accomplishes in America with his blindly optimistic bootstrapping!" A far cry from wicked Jenny who parties with anti-american types and gets The Aids.
 
K

Klocker

Member
JettDash said:
I love this movie, playing right now on VH1. Probbably seen it at least 20 times.

Just bought it for $2 (see this thread). Didn't even realize that I didn't own it.
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It really is.

I often think of how well it is executed and the amazing story and wonder how some people can overlook it as one of the greatest movies ever.
 
Risible

Risible

Member
Maledict said:
It's a terrible movie that's a saccharine overloaded hymn to the baby boomer generation, and actually has some fairly nasty cultural messages underneath the surface story.
Click to expand...

When I saw it in the theaters I was like "this thing is gonna get eviscerated." Imagine my surprise when everyone loved it.

Some reviewer said "It should have been called 'World's Luckiest Idiot'." Dead on.
 
S

spock

Member
I think it depends on the angle you're viewing the characters, context, etc. For me, it simply boils down to forest being a very authentically honest person viewing the world as it is right at that particular moment, without his mind getting tangled in conjured up narratives which are what most people do. They frame his being that way through the lens of being slow but that's part of the irony obviously. All the racist/sexist, etc. crap seems pretty intentional. But not to push the agenda through the lens some seem to be positioning things from. However, I do understand how you could see it through that lens. I think to make those correlations though is over associating and incorrectly correlating the motivations and contexts behind why things happen to forest and his experiences on the whole. Obviously, the time period creates some of the structure being discussed.
 
U

uncelestial

Member
theclosetfan said:
Big eyeroll at the cynical hyper-analysis of the movie's politics.
Click to expand...
Sure, why would anyone hyper-analyze anything, it's not like it has references to LBJ, Nixon, Vietnam, the SDS, Abbey Hoffman, the Black Panthers, etc. There's basically nothing to talk about here. Right?

When you depict Black Panthers and the SDS as woman-hitting assholes who look scary and always carry and display guns, that's just good fun. No reason to read anything into it you stupid liberals!

Besides, Forrest had a black friend, so.
 
A

ahoyhoy

Unconfirmed Member
googleplex said:
No Forrest is actually to most racist part of the movie! Not Forrest himself but how he is depicted in the move. Basically Forrest was a way to sanitize the Black experience and sometime the Black peoples achievements for white audiences.

Black people being lynched? We'll just put a white face on those victims

Black men dominating in football and other sports? That becomes more palatable with a nice white face

Didn't Elvis basically still his style from Black people? Nope,it was a little white kid he ripped off.


Hell even the people that actually reported the Watergate break-ins was black. They gave that to Forrest Too


Don't even get me started on how this movie treats woman.
Click to expand...

The first two examples are ridiculous. White kids aren't bullied? White kids were never good at football?

The Elvis thing and the Watergate examples are just small examples that don't seem too problematic to me. Early black blues and rock performers do not get enough credit for rock and roll music for sure but that's not an unique issue with in this movie.
 
A

AuthenticM

Member
googleplex said:
No Forrest is actually to most racist part of the movie! Not Forrest himself but how he is depicted in the move. Basically Forrest was a way to sanitize the Black experience and sometime the Black peoples achievements for white audiences.

Black people being lynched? We'll just put a white face on those victims

Black men dominating in football and other sports? That becomes more palatable with a nice white face

Didn't Elvis basically still his style from Black people? Nope,it was a little white kid he ripped off.


Hell even the people that actually reported the Watergate break-ins was black. They gave that to Forrest Too


Don't even get me started on how this movie treats woman.
Click to expand...

I had no idea. Then again, I saw this movie once when I was like 10.

uncelestial said:
It's a maudlin piece of credulous mainstream boomer-worshipping horseshit.

It's underlying message is that even if you're dumb as a post, as long as you exhibit US values (enlist in the army, do what you're told, be Christian, salute the flag) you will be rewarded with fame, riches, children, and get to meet all the rockstars and even Presidents that walk the earth at the same time as you.

If you try to fight the system or get involved with the counterculture, like Jenny does, you will literally catch AIDS and die. Subtle.

The movie also can't resist making the Black Panthers into a hate group, which is probably exactly how white baby-boomers, by and for whom this movie was clearly made, saw them. To say nothing of portraying anti-war protestors like assholes (the president of the Berkeley chapter of the SDS smacks Jenny around at one point for fuck's sake - which I guess is cool with the Black Panthers, who glower at Forrest brandishing firearms while kicking him out of their meeting for daring to retaliate to a woman getting beat up).

In 1995 The National Fucking Review named it one of the "Best Conservative Movies" of all time, then in 2009, ranked it number four on its "25 Best Conservative Movies of the Last 25 Years" list.

Let's hear from them about how great this movie is!
Click to expand...

wow. Fuck this movie. Wow.
 
N

Neith

Banned
TAJ said:
I've never turned on a movie so hard.
It's great if you don't think about any of it at all.
Click to expand...

Yer not supposed to think about any of it. It was never meant to be a historically accurate anything really. It's a really solid film.

People are trying to read all kinds of shit into it. But I guarantee most of that stuff people barely notice.

It's conservative ideas I can kind of agree with. It makes things out to be a weird world for Forrest where he doesn't understand what is going on. Whether you want to read into that stuff IDK.
 
F

Flo_Evans

Member
I think it's odd that people can see this as some sort of bootstraps endorsement.

Almost everything that happens to Forest is random.

To me the overarching theme is life is shit and people mostly suck so try and make the best of it.
 
D

Dougald

Member
It's one long random mash-up of boomer pop-culture references for people of that generation to continue to tell themselves how awesome they are. At best, its overrated

I expect Ready Player One to try and do the same thing for GenX, without any of the critical acclaim or success.
 
N

Neith

Banned
Flo_Evans said:
I think it's odd that people can see this as some sort of bootstraps endorsement.

Almost everything that happens to Forest is random.

To me the overarching theme is life is shit and people mostly suck so try and make the best of it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, some people here are clearly reading WAY TOO FAR INTO this film lol. It's not smart enough to be read like that. It's like trying to write a thesis on some short story written by a mediocre author.

FG is best enjoyed as a whacky adventure through a different time period seen from a weird point of view. And that is about it.

There is no doubt whatsoever that Shawshank should have won best picture. Yes, even over Pulp Fiction. Maybe.
 
N

Neith

Banned
JettDash said:
Forrest's best friend was black. And he gave Gump's mom a lot of money. Are saying there aren't white people from the South that aren't racist?

Honestly people crying racism for things like this might be part of the problem. I'm half black BTW.
Click to expand...

Exactly, Bubba has a great portrayal along with Forrest of two stupid as hell, respectively, black and white characters making their way through chaos. I refuse to read any crazy analysis into this shit. I don't really think the film is racist, but it is putting a white slant on some things. Can you imagine if Forrest was black lol? OMG the uproar would have been INSANE. A black "retard" people would say, portrayed to demean the whole race? They could have never released the film today if Forrest was black, and maybe not even then. So they had to slyly introduced pop culture things into his life even if they were in part originally by black people. The idea is NO ONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND ACTUALLY BELIEVES FORREST originated anything. He is a character of fiction.

I had enough of this in college. LET'S READ INTO THIS FURTHER CHILDREN! How about fuck no, I'll just enjoy the film for what it is. A cool special effects stunt with a touching story about a dumb man that defied the odds that is in no way realistic.

It should in NO WAY whatsoever have won Best Picture over Shawshank and Pulp Fiction though. But the Oscars are shit so I don't care anyway.
 
nekkid

nekkid

It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan.
It's fantastic. Well-acted, great pacing, perfectly-balanced highs and lows, comedy and tragedy.
 
B

bionic77

Member
I liked this movie when I was younger and was into a lot of dumb shit.

Aged horribly for me to the point of me not understanding why I liked it in the first place.

My dislike for it has nothing to do with its message. It's just a bad movie (IMO).
 
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