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Wait... Since when do people hate Forrest Gump?

TheBeardedOne

TheBeardedOne

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
22,189
Derry
But life is like a box of chococlates. How can you hate that?

It's a really good movie, imo, and a big memory from my childhood because I remember my parents loving it.
 
Toxi

Toxi

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
17,551
PSqueak said:
It isn't, people have a problem with the fact that the movie threats her like a punch bag because the era she lives on fucked over people like her, which comes off as monstrous contrast to how Forrest gets to breeze through life and get everything he wants, while Jenny's development as a strong woman gets constantly stopped by the world shitting on her in the form of patriarchal figures literally abusing her.
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It's basically "Homer's Enemy" if the episode wasn't a viciously cynical satire and instead a sappy feel good story.
 

Deleted member 13015

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,266
You'll always find people hating on anything, even good things.

Probably haters out there who hate on The Godfather, kittens/puppies, pizza and boobs.
 

Deleted member 6949

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,786
I read the book after seeing the movie and it was so off the wall. Forrest goes into space and he fucks a lot more. I agree with a lot of the criticisms I've seen about the movie, but I always just think of it as the boring sanitized version of the story now. It's an oddball and super offensive novel and it's kind of hilarious that Zemeckis got to spend like 50 million 90's bucks turning it into a celebration of Baby Boomers.
 
Infernostew

Infernostew

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,135
New Jersey
Dumb Boomer conservative propaganda that rewards the idiot character who only does what he's told yet condemns the character who breaks the status quo and gives her AIDS. "Trash" "garbage" "dogshit" "cringeworthy" crap.
 

Deleted member 11413

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
22,961
subcutaneousphat said:
It's one of two films I've so far refused to ever watch, alongside Titanic.

I realise that means I can't hold a valid opinion on it's actual worth at all, but that 'life is like a box of chocolates' line and it's irritating delivery in all the promotional material turned me right off the whole idea of spending nigh on two hours subjecting myself to something so obnoxiously twee. It also seemed like it would just ooze with American Dream propaganda nonsense which further consolidated my (possibly unjustified) preemptive hatred.
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I mean, you are admitting that your impression is based on nothing. I don't think that is a fair assessment of the film to be honest, there is a lot of dark and horrible things that happen in the film surrounding Forrest, that he is not aware of but the viewer is. It is absolutely a critique on America and American culture in many ways, though it may not be a critique you agree with. Just from the movies released that year I definitely prefer Shawshank Redemption or Pulp Fiction, but trying to categorize Forrest Gump as "twee propaganda" is really ignorant. I know you openly admitted you haven't seen the film and are thus ignorant about it, but you should also realize that's not the best foundation for forming an opinion about something.
 
'3y Kingdom

'3y Kingdom

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,494
Infernostew said:
Dumb Boomer conservative propaganda that rewards the idiot character who only does what he's told yet condemns the character who breaks the status quo and gives her AIDS. "Trash" "garbage" "dogshit" "cringeworthy" crap.
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Forrest, as you note, is in many respects basically white privilege personified, appropriate for a character named after a Confederate general who later founded the KKK. I'm not sure why that inherently supports a Republican reading of the movie. In a universe in which movement conservatives didn't immediately take control of the messaging about this film for political purposes, it might have been seen as a liberal dark comedy satirizing the hollow, limited parameters defining the "American Dream."
 
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super-famicom

super-famicom

Avenger
Oct 26, 2017
25,285
Jombie said:
I've always seen it as vacuous Oscar bait fluff. The plot is overwrought with its shtick and Gump, while being a good person, is oblivious or indifferent to most his accomplishments. The movie's weird malice towards women is another problem. There's a more simplified, focused story somewhere, but it's more concerned with cynically pulling heart strings.

And I'm from Alabama.
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Oh man, someone has my avatar
 
Fat4all

Fat4all

Woke up, got a money tag, swears a lot
Member
Oct 25, 2017
93,702
here
it's not a bad movie by any stretch, but it is kinda overly mastibitory over the baby boomer gen

I think Robin Wright is the best performer of the movie, and Tom Hanks does well, and everyone else is kinda over acting a bit
 
30yearsofhurt

30yearsofhurt

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,246
It was mediocre from the get go. Like a box of chocolates. That you buy from a gas station. You never know what you're gonna get. But it'll be shit.
 
Ogodei

Ogodei

One Winged Slayer
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,256
Coruscant
'3y Kingdom said:
You could argue that it's the exact opposite.
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I'd argue it's more both-sides-ish. It's conservative in the sense that it's not left, but it does look negatively on things like the Vietnam war, militarism in general (Lt. Dan's arc is anything but hooray for the USA), and does portray racism in a poor light.

The problem is it takes a triumphal look at the baby boomer years. The story of Bubba's family ending on a high note kind of smacks of "racism is over, the end," and that's the more insidious problem of the movie. It turns to a generation and says "you done good in the end" when no, they really hadn't, and were just getting into the mode where they could fuck things up big time (that was right when the youngest boomers were turning 40). It contributes to the dangerous mentality of that generation who think they've accomplished anything of import compared to the generations that came before.
 
super-heated plasma

super-heated plasma

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,735
Fruit&Nut said:
I think there's even more disdain for Shawshank. It's considered a middle America favorite. Art film for people who frequent malls. A middling film for people with mediocre tastes, I believe the esteemed Devin Faraci said this.

The thing is Shawshank is far more beloved, rated more highly, so it's criticised in this context, for being over rated since it's probably one of Americas favorite movies. Everyone has seen it because it was shown on cable constantly, lots of young people saw it and thought it was deeply profound.

I like the movie, personally. Not a favorite or anything, but it's effective and satisfying.
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lazybones18

lazybones18

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
17,339
Remember seeing it for the first time after we came home from Myrtle Beach cause we ate the Bubba Gump Shrimp Restaurant (like over 15 years ago). I thought the movie sucked. Now I just think it's overrated
 

Deleted member 42221

User requested account closure
Banned
Apr 16, 2018
2,749
This isn't the worst movie of its type, but it is one of the most overexposed.

I'm looking forward to when the big anti-Pulp Fiction backlash begins.
 
UraMallas

UraMallas

Member
Nov 1, 2017
19,046
United States
It's really strange to me that people take away some sort of American exceptionalism lesson from the movie. Forrest Gump is one of the first movies I remember going to a theater to watch and I specifically remember how uneasy it made me feel by the end. It wasn't until years later I realized it was because it challenged my 10-year-old view of American exceptionalism as being valid. I remember thinking that it made me feel sad and uneasy. I told my mom I didn't like it because it made me sad. When I watched it as a teenager I figured out that I didn't like it because it was planting the seed of doubt. All the horrible sad shit that goes on around Forrest is juxtaposed against a white male idiot getting everything he wanted in life. Dude is blatantly failing upward.

I've always thought of it as an indictment on American culture and the picture Hollywood paints for us, albeit in an early 1990s milquetoast way comparatively to what we see nowadays. It doesn't feel like it has as much bite now, that's for sure. I think I'll stick with that view of it and let peeps view it through whatever lens they feel like.
 
Bitanator

Bitanator

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,063
Gaf hated Gump, Era hates Gump

It is one of the most watchable movies ever made and the most quotable.

 
'3y Kingdom

'3y Kingdom

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,494
Ogodei said:
The problem is it takes a triumphal look at the baby boomer years. The story of Bubba's family ending on a high note kind of smacks of "racism is over, the end," and that's the more insidious problem of the movie. It turns to a generation and says "you done good in the end" when no, they really hadn't, and were just getting into the mode where they could fuck things up big time (that was right when the youngest boomers were turning 40). It contributes to the dangerous mentality of that generation who think they've accomplished anything of import compared to the generations that came before.
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Is it really saying "you done good," or is that just how Forrest and a certain segment of the population would like to think of it, with the same simplistic confidence as "stupid is as stupid does"? Remember that the original novel had Forrest as narrator. Does that sound terribly reliable to you?
 

Adventureracing

The Fallen
Nov 7, 2017
8,053
I think the bigger question is when did people start caring so much? Take any movie that you love, even the absolute classics and you'll find people on the internet who think it's absolute garbage. Everyone has different opinions and the internet allows us to see viewpoints of millions or billions of people. Even if only 1% of people who saw forest gump hated it that's still an awful lot of people and the people on either end of the extremes (either those that loved or hated something) are the ones most likely to comment.

What should matter is what you think.
 
Shauni

Shauni

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,728
UraMallas said:
It's really strange to me that people take away some sort of American exceptionalism lesson from the movie. Forrest Gump is one of the first movies I remember going to a theater to watch and I specifically remember how uneasy it made me feel by the end. It wasn't until years later I realized it was because it challenged my 10-year-old view of American exceptionalism as being valid. I remember thinking that it made me feel sad and uneasy. I told my mom I didn't like it because it made me sad. When I watched it as a teenager I figured out that I didn't like it because it was planting the seed of doubt. All the horrible sad shit that goes on around Forrest is juxtaposed against a white male idiot getting everything he wanted in life. Dude is blatantly failing upward.

I've always thought of it as an indictment on American culture and the picture Hollywood paints for us, albeit in an early 1990s milquetoast way comparatively to what we see nowadays. It doesn't feel like it has as much bite now, that's for sure. I think I'll stick with that view of it and let peeps view it through whatever lens they feel like.
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Well, it's an interesting intrepretation, but it falls apart because Forrest is never presented as a 'white idiot.' Unlike the book, where Forrest does just seem to be a slow guy, the movie establishes early on that Gump fails under the line of mental retardation. So the frame is never of a 'white idiot falling through life,' it's a man who, by social standards, should not be able to do the things he does.
 
Juturna

Juturna

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,834
Only good thing that came out of it was a Weird Al parody song.
 
UraMallas

UraMallas

Member
Nov 1, 2017
19,046
United States
Shauni said:
Well, it's an interesting intrepretation, but it falls apart because Forrest is never presented as a 'white idiot.' Unlike the book, where Forrest does just seem to be a slow guy, the movie establishes early on that Gump fails under the line of mental retardation. So the frame is never of a 'white idiot falling through life,' it's a man who, by social standards, should not be able to do the things he does.
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So, what are you arguing by telling me he shouldn't be able to do the things he does?
 
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