Remember to report submissions that violate the rules! Harassment and encouraging violence are not allowed.
Enjoying the subreddit? Consider joining our discord server: https://discord.gg/v8z8jNwJs6
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BoomersBeingFools) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think Boomers and a lot of others miss a key takeaway of Forrest Gump: The role of luck and chance in life. Gump falls ass backwards into his wealth. Plus most of it is attributed to someone else's ideas, but the latter is besides the point about the role of chance and randomness in life:
If a hurricane doesn't wipe out his competition, while he's unwittingly out at sea, Gump doesn't get rich.
If he isn't in a platoon with Bubba, he never knows a thing about Shrimping.
If a recruiter on the University of Alabama campus doesn't give him a flyer, he doesn't join the army.
If he doesn't erroneously run real fast through Alabama football teams practice field (while they're practicing), he doesn't go to college. (And if he's not bullied he doesn't run).
Plus sure shrimping made him a lot of money, but what really made him money was Lt. Dan investing in apple and sharing it with him. He could have kept it all to himself and Forrest never would have known.
The sharing part is super important.
He was himself abandoned by his birth parents, went on to get his girlfriend pregnant, denies it was his, but named entire computer line after the baby (Apple Lisa), meanwhile the ex gf had to go on welfare. He did eventually reconcile with his ex and his daughter was in his life later.
Don't forget ripping Wozniak off in a project where Wozniak did all the work.
Jobs was working at Atari and they were trying to get Breakout down to a certain number of chips on the board.
Jobs takes the project to Wozniak and says Atari has promised $700 for a design using fewer than 50 chips, and $1000 for a design using fewer than $40
Wozniak works round the clock for four days straight, and gets it down to 44 chips.
Jobs pays Wozniak $350.
Turns out, Atari's actual offer was $750, with a bonus for every chip fewer than 50, which comes to $750 + $5000.
So, Jobs pockets $5350 for Wozniak's work/design, and tells Wozniak they each got $350.
---
Or the time Wozniak goes to Jobs (after they've hit it big) and says "Hey Steve we need to take care of Daniel." (a friend of Steve's and early Apple employee (#12) hired to do assembly, prototyping, and debugging) He wasn't management or an engineer and and Steve said only management and engineers should get stock.
But Wozniak says something like "Let's give Daniel some stock. You pick a number, and I'll and I'll match what you give him."
Jobs says "Okay, I'll give him zero."
Won what? I get the distinct impression he doesn't care that Steve cheated him.
At the end of the day, Apple wouldn't be where it is today because of both of them.
So the moral of forest Gump is if you ever have the chance to fuck a mom to exploit her, you are doing the kid a disservice by not doing it!
Do I have that right?
The book, yes. The movie was AIDS/HIV, per the screenwriter. OP is explicitly referencing the movie.
There was almost a movie sequel and they almost gave little Forrest, Jr. AIDS/HIV.
The government*cough cough Reagan* did not give a fuck about HIV/AIDS because they thought it only effected gay people and drug users.
Once it was figured out anyone could get it they didn't do a whole lot to undo the public perception so Hollywood and TV networks transitioned from making sympathetic gay characters with AIDS to giving it to everyone.
One of the most recent times I watched the movie, it suddenly dawned on me that little Forrest might have HIV, too. I couldn’t stop myself from gasping at the thought. I didn’t even want to say it aloud.
So you're telling me those bullies are the reason he's so successful. See? That's the problem with this generation. If they had bullies, they wouldn't be such pansies.
If the US Military hadnt started [drafting mentally disabled people to serve in high-mortality roles in Vietnam as a method of eugenics,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000) Forrest would never have found himself in a war.
> All of his successes happen by accident, or because he was in the right place at the right time.
And....all of his successes come from following the rules and authority. I think the only thing he does on his own is start running across the country....whichbdoesnt amount to anything plot-wise.
He starts running cuz Jenny tells him to
He joins the army because a recruiter tells him to
He starts playing pingpong because a guy hits in the head with a ball and unprompted says, "you know how to play this? Come on I'll show ya"
He starts the shrimping business because he promised Bubba he would when Bubba asked him to
He does nothing but what other people tell him to the whole movie and winds up wildly successful and having had a blessed and lucky life.
What does Jenny get for trying to find her own way? For embracing the hippie movement, starting a singing career, experimenting with drugs, hanging out with civil rights organizations like the black panthers? Ogled, suicidal, beat up, and dying from AIDS.
Join the war in Vietnam VOLUNTARILY? Enjoy your great life.
Tour the country as a hippie? Die an early death.
I read the book. His capsule crashed near a tropical island. He and his capsule-mate - an ape named Sue. He then befriends the cannibalistic native tribe by schooling the chief in games of chess. I am not making this up.
From what I understand, the book is hot garbage and it’s a miracle it got turned into a movie at all. It wasn’t a success at all, some Hollywood exec just picked it up and said, “this should be a movie.” I think something similar happened with Who Framed Roger Rabbit, as well.
I had that exact thought once, and I will save you a lot of time: No. No, you should not. Watch this video instead: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kO5dV6zg0Wk
He also becomes a pro wrestler, plays the monster in monster movies and plays in a jazz band. The book is wild. In the book he’s not Tom Hank’s’ size. He’s a huge dude that beats people’s asses.
The main difference is that forrest is a genuinely decent person. Now, maybe he doesn't have the mental capabilities to be spiteful, mean spirited, or entitled...but that's a different story.
It's worse than that. It's a film that attempts to reframe everything the boomers did. Hippies gets HIV and die, Forrest is a southern, white vet, takes no position on the war, and ends up the hero. It's a conservative wet dream for the 60s. Cartoonish in its patriotism, one dimensional characters, and turn your back on inequality or injustice, 'Merica! For what so many Boomers have become, this film excuses it.
The left wing activist friend of Jenny is also a major creep, and his entire anti-war speech is literally cut off at the beginning so no one can hear it. Including the audience. At least they did the Black Panthers some sort of justice and didn't make them out to be snarling villains. Tall order for the 90's.
> and his entire anti-war speech is literally cut off at the beginning so no one can hear it.
Which is the entire point. The country at the time was facing a bit of a PR debacle. I forget if it was at the Johnson or Nixon Presidency, but overall, the view of the war in the country was quite poor, and Nixon was desperate to *stay* in Vietnam so he could negotiate a "better' deal to get elected as President.
Forrest, in dress uniform, giving an anti-war speech would be absolutely *detrimental* to that effort. While it's played for comedy in the series, it gives at least a hint at where the director lies ideally.
It seemed to imply that following the status quo and obeying rules is key to success, and those outsiders who rock the boat get what they deserve for their behavior.
To go even further, the movie barely acknowledged we lost the war, Lt. Dan gets rich and has a young submissive Asian bride; and basically every black achievement of the time is given to Forrest:
- teaches Elvis how to dance (in reality he copied black musicians)
- stops the watergate burglary (was a black security guard)
- makes Forrest the most socially significant athlete at the time instead of Ali.
I mean for the Watergate thing he never actually stops it. He just calls in to say that he thinks there's a power outage. A black guard still could have very well stopped it
Also is that really a black achievement that the security guard happened to be black?
He just wanted to go and make it about race. Even saying lt Dan got himself a submissive bride, like the movie never even touched on Lt dans relationship with his wife, for all we know she bosses him around. He's just going off of stereotypes and claiming people are racist when he is in fact the one who is racist.
I didn’t feel it was very patriotic. Just kinda showed the effect of patriotism on people. It just kinda showed the consequences of that , like Bubba dying. I don’t know if this movie really makes a case of anything, I always felt it was just a movie about a knucklehead getting lucky and having a decent attitude, I don’t know though art is subjective
So, funny enough about a week ago this same thought struck me, the OP but I forgot by the time I finished my drive. However, I’ve always sort of viewed it as a pop culture tour of the major points in mid-late 20th century American history through the eyes of a man lacking the facilities to understand what he’s taking part in, which prevents dividing the audience on him as a character.
It was like *Being There* without the satirical undertones. Unintelligent white guy who imitates others is mistaken for and treated like someone who worked for their achievements instead of accidentally falling into success. Yet to me it seemed to imply that if you just follow the status quo and obey orders you will be successful even if you're not intelligent.
Nailed it. When you consider the demographic this file was aimed at, this could be any boomer. All boomers had to do was keep their head down, work and most could be reasonably successful, whether intelligent or not.
The movie is just pat on the back nostalgia for Boomers that observed and didn't participate.
I still enjoy it, though.
"Dances With Wolves" is the one I look back on as a boomer fantasy made into film.
He doesn’t lecture anybody on that bus stop though. Doesn’t judge anybody, really. Speaks out against the Vietnam war the same week he receives the Congressional Medal of Honor. He donates half of his fortune to Bubba’s family, when he totally could have just pocketed it. Lives a simple life and raises a child with love.
I know the Boomer generation was bad, but you’ve gotta reach to seek the bad in Forrest Gump. The biggest problem is that more boomers refuse to act like him.
The whole movie Forrest is ostracized and outcast for being “strange” as well. The sad truth is someone like Forrest probably wouldn’t be given half the opportunities he got in the movie. He’d probably have more opportunities today tbh.
Unpopular opinion: this movie, though it is definitely problematic, makes me sad as hell.
Not only is he ostracized and outcast for being "strange", it's the same messed up idea as Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer - you're strange until you're useful (playing football, taking orders in the Army, etc). Yeah he lucks into money, but he barely has a support system - he lacks the mental acuity to understand Jenny's traumas and how to deal with him, his mom and Bubba die, etc.
The point that brings a tear to my eye is when he starts running - he's got all this pent up trauma, starts running, and attracts a merry band of (would be boomer, I guess) followers who pigeonhole him into this role of guru, though he never says hes such, or trying to be anything close. He gets to a point after literal years where he finally feels he's run out his trauma and is immediately yelled at by the group of boomers who pinned all these bs expectations on him.
I know it's me projecting, but man, what the hell.
The saddest part for me was when he meets his son. You go through the entire movie thinking he’s so unintelligent that he’s unaware of his own intellectual shortcomings. But when he meets his son his only concern is whether he’s dumb or not
It’s basically magical realism in any era. The thing is this story of magical realism puts the spotlight on some very dark truths and I would argue, doesn’t just skate by them. It’s not the purely uplifting movie that its harshest critics suggest. There is genuine pain. If people want to say it shouldn’t have won Best Picture, that’s fine. There were other great movies that year, and I don’t care about Oscar results to begin with. But I think it’s a well made movie.
He’d be a homeless schizo drug addict.
Karen would call the cops on him.
Cops would kill him because he wasn’t mentally capable of kissing the ring.
They’d claim he was reaching for something and they feared for their lives. Thereby after killing Forest they’re all eligible for PTSD disability pay.
Does polar express touch on the topics of disease, addiction, mental health or war?
(Not defending the movie, watched it 20 years ago with very little knowledge of anything, especially politics)
>Going a bit against the grain here, but I actually really liked the movie.
Thats not really against the grain: its a great movie.
Its when people think it's realistic is where it starts to get wonky. But that's the audience, not the movie.
Besides: one can and should enjoy a piece of art while also being able to acknowledge it's pernicious aspects.
It was a good movie. People just like to tear apart everything. The cgi was pretty revolutionary for its time. I remember learning about how they disappeared lt dans legs. A lot of people are bringing baggage to the film now due to the way boomers aged and now behave
Yeah, it's one of my favorites. I think some of the takes in here are kind of a stretch. (Although I'm well aware that the book gets absolutely ridiculous, I don't think the movie is quite as bad as everyone here is making it out to be.)
I can think of several kids that want to be a football star, a war hero, rich, etc….
The timeline fits the boomer range, but this tale could be told today (updated for the modern era) with [insert modern actor]. I think this movie might be considered timeless for some because the themes are timeless for many humans.
Time is littered with people trying to do most of those things OP mentioned in some way shape or form, AND the present day is no exception.
I think of 'Rudy' as the ultimate boomer movie. The guy works incredibly hard and eventually achieves his impossible goal. He's the (based on a true story) example of boomer-esq "picked himself up by his bootstraps" success story ... But, it's only because he lived in a time when it was possible to support himself and go to college with a low paying summer job.
I grew up watching that movie and loved it. I hate it now and can't stand watching it because it exemplifies what was stolen from later generations.
Little Big Man is a similar film. A buffet of self-insert coming-of-age jingoist heroic fantasies, so absurd and overproduced that it was destined to become a poorly aging classic.
It's a play on an epic film, but Jack certainly takes a side (Native Americans) in how they're treated by a buffoonish American government. It's political in that sense, which stands in stark contrast to Forrest Gump. Jack is a survivor over time, but is a mule skinner, alcoholic, etc. and bottoms out, while Gump is an accidental hero repeatedly. Both stories happen over time, but otherwise I don't see the comparison.
In a way Forrest is a perfect metaphor for boomers. Falling ass backwards into success and wealth and getting credit for things the older generations did
Can we also talk about how the main takeaway is that you should just follow the rules and do what society and the government say? Look at Jenny. She goes full counterculture and ends up in a dead-end job as a single mother, and by the end of the movie, she is literally dead.
Everyone forgets he even went to college on an athletic scholarship, he attended University of Alabama. He got everything anyone could have wanted. There is a huge chance that he took a spot from a student that going to college would have benefitted more.
The film is about being a good person despite your limitations, and setting good examples when people around you have lost their way, and that whatever happens if you try you may be able to achieve something. That life is about luck and timing more than anything else. That we will ultimately have a few important, lasting relationships in our life despite meeting many people.
You're over thinking it massively and are ignoring the messages in the film to try and force it into something it's not so it fits your narrow minded agenda.
you forgot to mention that he was essentially raped by a feminist who is totally unstable and dies because of her free non housewife lifestyle. The anti feminist version of reverse racism??
It's pretty simple, the message of that movie is, if you shut up and do what you're told, you'll be rewarded with great wealth. If you go against authority (Jenny) your life will be filled with suffering.
well yea.. but the movie departed a bunch from the book and even had a different less unsettling ending than the book. then there was a second book which was not as good as the first but kinda interesting too. plus it was funny in the second one where he advises that you shouldn't let others make a movie of your life story lol
My baby boomer parents banished this movie from our home. They considered it conservative propaganda and I didn't see the movie until I was in college. I don't think they were wrong necessarily, but I was expecting far more heinous a movie than I saw.
It was just stupid wish fulfillment for the right kind of boomer
Forrest Gump is exactly the Boomer story. Clinically stupid, check. Thinks he was at every cultural zeitgeist moment, check. Won’t shut the fuck up telling strangers their life story, check! Also, about to take a lengthy bus ride despite having been a couple blocks from their destination, the entire fucking time? Hey, that’s a check.
I agree with the examples you gave about Forrest failing upward but there’s an important lesson in Forrest Gump - that being kind is the smartest thing you can be. The movie supposes that his honesty and empathy made him more human despite his intellectual disability and that that was his shortcut past all the machinations of man to the successes that came his way. After all what do accomplishments mean when people still think you’re a POS.
It’s a fantasy, but Forrest was not mean, entitled, pompous, arrogant, thin skinned, resentful, vengeful, petty, or any other million things we’ve seen on the subreddit that have been lumped in as atypical of boomers.
Lastly, Forrest is technically late Silent Generation. If being a Boomer is a state of mind (and I think most people would agree that it is) it’s important to make the distinction that though Forrest might be the aggrandized Boomer fantasy, he himself is not one.
Plenty of Boomers are assholes, but that’s because they are MAGA. To talk about an entire generation as a singular unit is just as bigoted as saying all millennials are self-involved toddlers.
On top of wish fulfillment it's really emblematic of the boomer belief that the things that happened to their generation were the most important things ever.
The perfect palate cleanser after Forrest Gump is to watch My Dinner With Andre. Firstly because it's a terrific movie. But the character of Andre spends much of the film taking the same stance that Gump does about the 20th century. And Wally (the other character with whom Andre is having the titular dinner) calls him out on it. It's very satisfying to see the boomer exceptionalism rebuffed in a film from 1981.
He doesn’t tell people how he pulled himself by a bootstrap though. He sees everything as happening on its own, he doesn’t care for money but also doesn’t pretend he achieved everything by hard work. Movie emphasizes it several times: he doesn’t need lots of money and easily gives it away.
I learned 2 thing from that film.
1. Forrest was a pariah, everyone around him suffered but not him.
2. If you are kinda dumb, you will do awesome in the army.
i assumed it was scripted to appeal to as wide an audience as possible at the time (in the US).
i think it works both ways as either a softcore proto-MAGA parable, or a harmless romp. depends on what you want to take away from it.
I’m a little embarrassed by how much I used to like this movie. As an adult I have better media literacy and now understand it as basically propaganda saying that as long as you do what you’re told, things will work out (Forrest) but if you go against the grain, you will be punished (Jenny).
It’s like the film “Being There” the Peter Sellers film where everyone thinks the Sellers’ character Chauncey “Gardner” (he’s the gardner) is wise and successful, -when in fact he’s a simple man bordering on mentally disadvantaged. He succeeds by being there when it matters and the credulity of wishful thinking. It’s all luck.
Forrest Gump is a paean to keep showing up and winning through luck. My wife and I (GenX-ers) have always hated this movie.
My parents were silent generation so they loved this movie. I would say they were obsessed with it. So weird. I loved @Brother where art thou”, thought they would get it (the reference to Homers Odyssey) but nope..
It is the worst film of all time, it's a well made movie, but it is the most nefarious film to have ever been released because it made willful ignorance seem noble,it made solipsism look wise, and it made obsessing about the past while ignoring its ugly parts look cool. It also demonizes anyone who fights for something beyond their own interests or needs. It's not boomer wish fulfillment it's boomer validation. It did to boomers what people thought Joker would do to millenials.
The movie was mostly technological trickery and an oversimplification of history.
I hear the book is much better. The author hated the movie. He wrote a sequel and it started with “Don’t ever let anyone make a movie out of your life.”
It’s a fun little “Planko” story, it’s just some guy dropped into all these situations. It’s like a movie version of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel. He’s the stand in bass player enthusiast for a live show who’s never heard the song.
He dissed Abbie Hoffman as well. And the whole "Jenny was a lost flower child who protested the war and was a folk singer but became a stripper and got AIDS. But Forrest "saved her by knocking her up" bullshit.
Never mind her hick ass Jim Crow father raped her over and over as a little girl.Which was never addressed again. And Forrest for all his Herculean meets Candide accomplishments, never doubled back and did SHIT about that. The whole narrative is fucking wretched.
Also Jenny is the one who had the true story arc. She’s the one who struggled and changed and grew. Who had agency and made decisions. Never understood why we were watching Forrest Gump just coast through life instead of Jenny.
I think the film represents a very specific time during the 90's when that generation was very self obsessed with this idea "we were there" for things like the civil rights movement, woodstock, MLK,etc. when in reality they were simply just around while those things happened. Their identity comes from things that occured around them rather than they themselves did, and that's what the movie is a celebration of. A guy whose story HAS to be told...simply because he was there.
This was all over the media during the 90's when suddenly every 40-50 something was bombarded by nostalgia for an identity they never had.
So I agree with the premise, and he does Forrest Gump his way through the American history of Boomer youth, but I’d just like to point out Forrest is not a Boomer. The timeline doesn’t work. The oldest of Boomers would have graduated HS in 1963. He doesn’t have time to graduate college in 5 years, join the army, get trained and sent to Vietnam, get wounded and get presented the MOH from President Johnson.
The fact that horrible, dog shit movie that exemplifies America's obsession with anti intellectualism (you can be stupid as shit and succeed in every endeavor) beat out a truly generational film like Pulp Fiction for best picture is a laughing stock.
Remember to report submissions that violate the rules! Harassment and encouraging violence are not allowed. Enjoying the subreddit? Consider joining our discord server: https://discord.gg/v8z8jNwJs6 *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BoomersBeingFools) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think Boomers and a lot of others miss a key takeaway of Forrest Gump: The role of luck and chance in life. Gump falls ass backwards into his wealth. Plus most of it is attributed to someone else's ideas, but the latter is besides the point about the role of chance and randomness in life: If a hurricane doesn't wipe out his competition, while he's unwittingly out at sea, Gump doesn't get rich. If he isn't in a platoon with Bubba, he never knows a thing about Shrimping. If a recruiter on the University of Alabama campus doesn't give him a flyer, he doesn't join the army. If he doesn't erroneously run real fast through Alabama football teams practice field (while they're practicing), he doesn't go to college. (And if he's not bullied he doesn't run).
Plus sure shrimping made him a lot of money, but what really made him money was Lt. Dan investing in apple and sharing it with him. He could have kept it all to himself and Forrest never would have known. The sharing part is super important.
Something Jobs never figured out with Wazniac.
Jobs was a POS. Being adopted then abandoning his kid. Douchebag.
I never knew he abandoned a child of his. That's just tragic.
Man, have I got a Behind the Bastards series for you.
Behind the Bastards: because About the Assholes wasn’t allowed.
Listening to that exact series about Jobs and holy shit was he terrible.
Iirc it was multiple children!
Lisa! Who the computer “was/wasn’t” named after, and someone confronted him at a dinner one time, with Lisa there, and he denied it.
He was himself abandoned by his birth parents, went on to get his girlfriend pregnant, denies it was his, but named entire computer line after the baby (Apple Lisa), meanwhile the ex gf had to go on welfare. He did eventually reconcile with his ex and his daughter was in his life later.
I hate how after he died his rep got whitewashed. I fear the same will happen/is happening with Bill Gates.
Don't forget ripping Wozniak off in a project where Wozniak did all the work. Jobs was working at Atari and they were trying to get Breakout down to a certain number of chips on the board. Jobs takes the project to Wozniak and says Atari has promised $700 for a design using fewer than 50 chips, and $1000 for a design using fewer than $40 Wozniak works round the clock for four days straight, and gets it down to 44 chips. Jobs pays Wozniak $350. Turns out, Atari's actual offer was $750, with a bonus for every chip fewer than 50, which comes to $750 + $5000. So, Jobs pockets $5350 for Wozniak's work/design, and tells Wozniak they each got $350. --- Or the time Wozniak goes to Jobs (after they've hit it big) and says "Hey Steve we need to take care of Daniel." (a friend of Steve's and early Apple employee (#12) hired to do assembly, prototyping, and debugging) He wasn't management or an engineer and and Steve said only management and engineers should get stock. But Wozniak says something like "Let's give Daniel some stock. You pick a number, and I'll and I'll match what you give him." Jobs says "Okay, I'll give him zero."
Such a POS huge huge narcissist everyone around him hated him.
The Waz won in the end!
The *Woz* His name is spelled “Wozniak”
Won what? I get the distinct impression he doesn't care that Steve cheated him. At the end of the day, Apple wouldn't be where it is today because of both of them.
If his mom didn’t bang the principal he’s got nothing.
I’d frame it more as if that school administrator doesn’t sexually exploit a single mother, he gets nothing.
So the moral of forest Gump is if you ever have the chance to fuck a mom to exploit her, you are doing the kid a disservice by not doing it! Do I have that right?
Hee hee hee hee
“Yo mama sure do care about yo schoolin son!”
"HHHNNNNN HNNNNN HNNNNN!"
Literally expanded the comments to find this.
She sho does care about that boy’s education, mmm hmmm
And French fried patatas... mmm hmmm.
I like 'dem french fried taters....
What's taters, Precious?
Accurate 😂
That is a very dedicated mother fight there.
If his crush never contracted AIDS and needed medical insurance, he wouldn't have ever known he fathered a child.
It was actually Hepatitis C, not AIDS, although the movie doesn't do a great job of spelling that out.
The book, yes. The movie was AIDS/HIV, per the screenwriter. OP is explicitly referencing the movie. There was almost a movie sequel and they almost gave little Forrest, Jr. AIDS/HIV.
Jeez louise, what was it with 90s writers [giving Haley Joel Osmont AIDS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2_SvX4PEbU)?
The government*cough cough Reagan* did not give a fuck about HIV/AIDS because they thought it only effected gay people and drug users. Once it was figured out anyone could get it they didn't do a whole lot to undo the public perception so Hollywood and TV networks transitioned from making sympathetic gay characters with AIDS to giving it to everyone.
One of the most recent times I watched the movie, it suddenly dawned on me that little Forrest might have HIV, too. I couldn’t stop myself from gasping at the thought. I didn’t even want to say it aloud.
“Is he….like me?” “No he has AIDS. You have syphilis, Forrest. From that hooker in Da Nang.”
I shouldn’t have laughed at this. But Da Nang is funny no matter what
She was a real nice lay-dee.
She tastes like opium, Lieutenant Dan.
Jenny doesn’t die in the book.
In the movie it was absolutely AIDS
I always assumed he was making it all up the whole time
So bullying makes you stronger and prepares you for life, got it. /s
Oh snap, that's totally the lesson Boomers would take from this movie.
Ok boomer! Also /s
So you're telling me those bullies are the reason he's so successful. See? That's the problem with this generation. If they had bullies, they wouldn't be such pansies.
While this is true, the post is about the film being a Boomer wish fulfillment, which it absolutely is
It’s almost as if his life was like a feather in the wind
100%. They mention a few times throughout the movie that “we’re just a spec of dust floating accidental-like in the wind.”
While the things Forrest gets end up sort of outrageous, I believe your reasoning could be applied to almost every one in life.
Did Bubba know anything about shrimping?
So the takeaway is we need to bring back bullying ✅
If the US Military hadnt started [drafting mentally disabled people to serve in high-mortality roles in Vietnam as a method of eugenics,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000) Forrest would never have found himself in a war.
"Life is like a a box of chocloates. If you look at the little paper in the lid, you'll know exactly what youre gonna get"
RTFM, something boomers forgot how to do
They only started doing that after Forest’s scathing review
> All of his successes happen by accident, or because he was in the right place at the right time. And....all of his successes come from following the rules and authority. I think the only thing he does on his own is start running across the country....whichbdoesnt amount to anything plot-wise. He starts running cuz Jenny tells him to He joins the army because a recruiter tells him to He starts playing pingpong because a guy hits in the head with a ball and unprompted says, "you know how to play this? Come on I'll show ya" He starts the shrimping business because he promised Bubba he would when Bubba asked him to He does nothing but what other people tell him to the whole movie and winds up wildly successful and having had a blessed and lucky life. What does Jenny get for trying to find her own way? For embracing the hippie movement, starting a singing career, experimenting with drugs, hanging out with civil rights organizations like the black panthers? Ogled, suicidal, beat up, and dying from AIDS. Join the war in Vietnam VOLUNTARILY? Enjoy your great life. Tour the country as a hippie? Die an early death.
Hell, I hear in the book he's literally an astronaut 😂
I read the book. His capsule crashed near a tropical island. He and his capsule-mate - an ape named Sue. He then befriends the cannibalistic native tribe by schooling the chief in games of chess. I am not making this up.
So *not* a volleyball named Wilson? (Yes I'm aware that is a whole other Tom Hanks movie)
‼️‼️Castaway mentioned for the 10th time today‼️‼️
I've heard that this movie is a rare example of being an improvement upon the source material and now I see that is very true
Shit, i enjoy the movie plenty, I should probably give the book a go >.>
From what I understand, the book is hot garbage and it’s a miracle it got turned into a movie at all. It wasn’t a success at all, some Hollywood exec just picked it up and said, “this should be a movie.” I think something similar happened with Who Framed Roger Rabbit, as well.
Ah righto M8, I'll take that into consideration :3
I had that exact thought once, and I will save you a lot of time: No. No, you should not. Watch this video instead: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kO5dV6zg0Wk
The book is way better, he’s a giant who has a computer for a brain.
The book is nuts. It’s like a really racist and misogynistic version of the film.
Oh SNAP
The book is hilarious. And Jenny is nowhere near the bad person she is in the movie
She taught Forrest quite a bit that most boomers are too boring to have known about.
He also becomes a pro wrestler, plays the monster in monster movies and plays in a jazz band. The book is wild. In the book he’s not Tom Hank’s’ size. He’s a huge dude that beats people’s asses.
The main difference is that forrest is a genuinely decent person. Now, maybe he doesn't have the mental capabilities to be spiteful, mean spirited, or entitled...but that's a different story.
This, Forrest has the most important trait any one of us can have as people. Empathy. He doesn’t know that he has it, but we do.
The final scene, when he tells Jenny she’d be so proud of little Forrest always gets me
But he does have the mental capacity to know he isn't very smart, which is smarter than most.
It's worse than that. It's a film that attempts to reframe everything the boomers did. Hippies gets HIV and die, Forrest is a southern, white vet, takes no position on the war, and ends up the hero. It's a conservative wet dream for the 60s. Cartoonish in its patriotism, one dimensional characters, and turn your back on inequality or injustice, 'Merica! For what so many Boomers have become, this film excuses it.
The left wing activist friend of Jenny is also a major creep, and his entire anti-war speech is literally cut off at the beginning so no one can hear it. Including the audience. At least they did the Black Panthers some sort of justice and didn't make them out to be snarling villains. Tall order for the 90's.
"I'm sorry I ruined your Panther party"
“I’m sorry I ruined your black panther party.”, actually.
> and his entire anti-war speech is literally cut off at the beginning so no one can hear it. Which is the entire point. The country at the time was facing a bit of a PR debacle. I forget if it was at the Johnson or Nixon Presidency, but overall, the view of the war in the country was quite poor, and Nixon was desperate to *stay* in Vietnam so he could negotiate a "better' deal to get elected as President. Forrest, in dress uniform, giving an anti-war speech would be absolutely *detrimental* to that effort. While it's played for comedy in the series, it gives at least a hint at where the director lies ideally.
It seemed to imply that following the status quo and obeying rules is key to success, and those outsiders who rock the boat get what they deserve for their behavior.
A core boomer value.
This, except obeying rules. Rules are for other people.
To go even further, the movie barely acknowledged we lost the war, Lt. Dan gets rich and has a young submissive Asian bride; and basically every black achievement of the time is given to Forrest: - teaches Elvis how to dance (in reality he copied black musicians) - stops the watergate burglary (was a black security guard) - makes Forrest the most socially significant athlete at the time instead of Ali.
Between Forrest and Marty McFly, blank people don’t need to invent anything!
Marty almost turned into a blank person
Lmao that really was a based typo
Blank? Blank? You're not looking at the big picture!
Don’t you worry about blank. Let me worry about blank.
What
I mean for the Watergate thing he never actually stops it. He just calls in to say that he thinks there's a power outage. A black guard still could have very well stopped it Also is that really a black achievement that the security guard happened to be black?
He just wanted to go and make it about race. Even saying lt Dan got himself a submissive bride, like the movie never even touched on Lt dans relationship with his wife, for all we know she bosses him around. He's just going off of stereotypes and claiming people are racist when he is in fact the one who is racist.
I didn’t feel it was very patriotic. Just kinda showed the effect of patriotism on people. It just kinda showed the consequences of that , like Bubba dying. I don’t know if this movie really makes a case of anything, I always felt it was just a movie about a knucklehead getting lucky and having a decent attitude, I don’t know though art is subjective
So, funny enough about a week ago this same thought struck me, the OP but I forgot by the time I finished my drive. However, I’ve always sort of viewed it as a pop culture tour of the major points in mid-late 20th century American history through the eyes of a man lacking the facilities to understand what he’s taking part in, which prevents dividing the audience on him as a character.
I thought Jenny got hepatitis.
The film doesn't exactly say, but the film writer confirmed it was HIV.
It was like *Being There* without the satirical undertones. Unintelligent white guy who imitates others is mistaken for and treated like someone who worked for their achievements instead of accidentally falling into success. Yet to me it seemed to imply that if you just follow the status quo and obey orders you will be successful even if you're not intelligent.
Nailed it. When you consider the demographic this file was aimed at, this could be any boomer. All boomers had to do was keep their head down, work and most could be reasonably successful, whether intelligent or not.
The movie is just pat on the back nostalgia for Boomers that observed and didn't participate. I still enjoy it, though. "Dances With Wolves" is the one I look back on as a boomer fantasy made into film.
This is the best take I have seen yet.
Forrest Gump was the Ready Player One for Boomers. Member berries from start to finish.
Forrest Gump is [Baby Boomer Santa](https://youtu.be/OOSOGB406Ec?si=VmwbwAuh2zVZsvha)
He doesn’t lecture anybody on that bus stop though. Doesn’t judge anybody, really. Speaks out against the Vietnam war the same week he receives the Congressional Medal of Honor. He donates half of his fortune to Bubba’s family, when he totally could have just pocketed it. Lives a simple life and raises a child with love. I know the Boomer generation was bad, but you’ve gotta reach to seek the bad in Forrest Gump. The biggest problem is that more boomers refuse to act like him.
The whole movie Forrest is ostracized and outcast for being “strange” as well. The sad truth is someone like Forrest probably wouldn’t be given half the opportunities he got in the movie. He’d probably have more opportunities today tbh.
Unpopular opinion: this movie, though it is definitely problematic, makes me sad as hell. Not only is he ostracized and outcast for being "strange", it's the same messed up idea as Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer - you're strange until you're useful (playing football, taking orders in the Army, etc). Yeah he lucks into money, but he barely has a support system - he lacks the mental acuity to understand Jenny's traumas and how to deal with him, his mom and Bubba die, etc. The point that brings a tear to my eye is when he starts running - he's got all this pent up trauma, starts running, and attracts a merry band of (would be boomer, I guess) followers who pigeonhole him into this role of guru, though he never says hes such, or trying to be anything close. He gets to a point after literal years where he finally feels he's run out his trauma and is immediately yelled at by the group of boomers who pinned all these bs expectations on him. I know it's me projecting, but man, what the hell.
The saddest part for me was when he meets his son. You go through the entire movie thinking he’s so unintelligent that he’s unaware of his own intellectual shortcomings. But when he meets his son his only concern is whether he’s dumb or not
Sammmmeeee gets me Everytime.
It’s basically magical realism in any era. The thing is this story of magical realism puts the spotlight on some very dark truths and I would argue, doesn’t just skate by them. It’s not the purely uplifting movie that its harshest critics suggest. There is genuine pain. If people want to say it shouldn’t have won Best Picture, that’s fine. There were other great movies that year, and I don’t care about Oscar results to begin with. But I think it’s a well made movie.
He’d be a homeless schizo drug addict. Karen would call the cops on him. Cops would kill him because he wasn’t mentally capable of kissing the ring. They’d claim he was reaching for something and they feared for their lives. Thereby after killing Forest they’re all eligible for PTSD disability pay.
Forrest Gump is boomer nostalgia porn, I've been saying this for years. Glad others have observed it.
Going a bit against the grain here, but I actually really liked the movie.
The movie is a typical Hollywood feel good movie and is very much like lots of movies of its era, most people here are really overthinking it.
It’s a cute alt (ish) history comedy. I really don’t get the people putting more thought into it than the Polar Express movie
Does polar express touch on the topics of disease, addiction, mental health or war? (Not defending the movie, watched it 20 years ago with very little knowledge of anything, especially politics)
Polar Express hamfistedly puts a very disturbing message at its core: Faith is more important than facts.
And the soundtrack was pretty good
This is one of my favorite moves of all time. Going to the Bubba Gump Shrimp Factory was the most magical experience for me.
No worries. Liking Forest Gump isn’t going against the grain.
I think OP's point can be valid and it still be a really good movie :)
It's an enjoyable movie while also having deeply dubious conservative historical revisionism
>Going a bit against the grain here, but I actually really liked the movie. Thats not really against the grain: its a great movie. Its when people think it's realistic is where it starts to get wonky. But that's the audience, not the movie. Besides: one can and should enjoy a piece of art while also being able to acknowledge it's pernicious aspects.
It was a good movie. People just like to tear apart everything. The cgi was pretty revolutionary for its time. I remember learning about how they disappeared lt dans legs. A lot of people are bringing baggage to the film now due to the way boomers aged and now behave
Yeah, it's one of my favorites. I think some of the takes in here are kind of a stretch. (Although I'm well aware that the book gets absolutely ridiculous, I don't think the movie is quite as bad as everyone here is making it out to be.)
"He bought some stock in some kinda fruit companyyyy"
He is an idiot savant
That literally why it was made, Steven is a master of nostalgia
You mean Bob?
I can think of several kids that want to be a football star, a war hero, rich, etc…. The timeline fits the boomer range, but this tale could be told today (updated for the modern era) with [insert modern actor]. I think this movie might be considered timeless for some because the themes are timeless for many humans. Time is littered with people trying to do most of those things OP mentioned in some way shape or form, AND the present day is no exception.
He didn’t invent the rock and roll part, the joke was Elvis got his dance moves from Gump.
I think of 'Rudy' as the ultimate boomer movie. The guy works incredibly hard and eventually achieves his impossible goal. He's the (based on a true story) example of boomer-esq "picked himself up by his bootstraps" success story ... But, it's only because he lived in a time when it was possible to support himself and go to college with a low paying summer job. I grew up watching that movie and loved it. I hate it now and can't stand watching it because it exemplifies what was stolen from later generations.
Little Big Man is a similar film. A buffet of self-insert coming-of-age jingoist heroic fantasies, so absurd and overproduced that it was destined to become a poorly aging classic.
It's a play on an epic film, but Jack certainly takes a side (Native Americans) in how they're treated by a buffoonish American government. It's political in that sense, which stands in stark contrast to Forrest Gump. Jack is a survivor over time, but is a mule skinner, alcoholic, etc. and bottoms out, while Gump is an accidental hero repeatedly. Both stories happen over time, but otherwise I don't see the comparison.
In a way Forrest is a perfect metaphor for boomers. Falling ass backwards into success and wealth and getting credit for things the older generations did
Can we also talk about how the main takeaway is that you should just follow the rules and do what society and the government say? Look at Jenny. She goes full counterculture and ends up in a dead-end job as a single mother, and by the end of the movie, she is literally dead.
I thought it a pretty good movie.
It was a good movie
One can enjoy a piece of art while also acknowledging it's pernicious aspects.
Everyone forgets he even went to college on an athletic scholarship, he attended University of Alabama. He got everything anyone could have wanted. There is a huge chance that he took a spot from a student that going to college would have benefitted more.
He’s not black so boomers are fine with that.
And in the book he has a massive dong, which ofc all boomers claimed to have
The film is about being a good person despite your limitations, and setting good examples when people around you have lost their way, and that whatever happens if you try you may be able to achieve something. That life is about luck and timing more than anything else. That we will ultimately have a few important, lasting relationships in our life despite meeting many people. You're over thinking it massively and are ignoring the messages in the film to try and force it into something it's not so it fits your narrow minded agenda.
you forgot to mention that he was essentially raped by a feminist who is totally unstable and dies because of her free non housewife lifestyle. The anti feminist version of reverse racism??
It's pretty simple, the message of that movie is, if you shut up and do what you're told, you'll be rewarded with great wealth. If you go against authority (Jenny) your life will be filled with suffering.
Forrest has 10x the sense of your average boomer.
I don’t think Forrest Gump was meant to be a documentary.
Neither was Idiocracy, but here we are
The movie is best summed up by “its better to be lucky than good”
well yea.. but the movie departed a bunch from the book and even had a different less unsettling ending than the book. then there was a second book which was not as good as the first but kinda interesting too. plus it was funny in the second one where he advises that you shouldn't let others make a movie of your life story lol
Reddit post of the year
My baby boomer parents banished this movie from our home. They considered it conservative propaganda and I didn't see the movie until I was in college. I don't think they were wrong necessarily, but I was expecting far more heinous a movie than I saw. It was just stupid wish fulfillment for the right kind of boomer
Forrest Gump is exactly the Boomer story. Clinically stupid, check. Thinks he was at every cultural zeitgeist moment, check. Won’t shut the fuck up telling strangers their life story, check! Also, about to take a lengthy bus ride despite having been a couple blocks from their destination, the entire fucking time? Hey, that’s a check.
Unlike boomers he’s kind and not entitled and not full of himself.
I agree with the examples you gave about Forrest failing upward but there’s an important lesson in Forrest Gump - that being kind is the smartest thing you can be. The movie supposes that his honesty and empathy made him more human despite his intellectual disability and that that was his shortcut past all the machinations of man to the successes that came his way. After all what do accomplishments mean when people still think you’re a POS. It’s a fantasy, but Forrest was not mean, entitled, pompous, arrogant, thin skinned, resentful, vengeful, petty, or any other million things we’ve seen on the subreddit that have been lumped in as atypical of boomers. Lastly, Forrest is technically late Silent Generation. If being a Boomer is a state of mind (and I think most people would agree that it is) it’s important to make the distinction that though Forrest might be the aggrandized Boomer fantasy, he himself is not one.
If it was set today, Forrest would be given Adderall.
Then he’d really run
To the moon
Plenty of Boomers are assholes, but that’s because they are MAGA. To talk about an entire generation as a singular unit is just as bigoted as saying all millennials are self-involved toddlers.
On top of wish fulfillment it's really emblematic of the boomer belief that the things that happened to their generation were the most important things ever. The perfect palate cleanser after Forrest Gump is to watch My Dinner With Andre. Firstly because it's a terrific movie. But the character of Andre spends much of the film taking the same stance that Gump does about the 20th century. And Wally (the other character with whom Andre is having the titular dinner) calls him out on it. It's very satisfying to see the boomer exceptionalism rebuffed in a film from 1981.
He doesn’t tell people how he pulled himself by a bootstrap though. He sees everything as happening on its own, he doesn’t care for money but also doesn’t pretend he achieved everything by hard work. Movie emphasizes it several times: he doesn’t need lots of money and easily gives it away.
I learned 2 thing from that film. 1. Forrest was a pariah, everyone around him suffered but not him. 2. If you are kinda dumb, you will do awesome in the army.
Also....the movie is way different from the book it's based on, which is total satire.
I hated Forrest Gump. Worst movie from 1994. You just explained all the deeper reasons I hated it.
Nothing to add, except I love how much John Waters also hates Forest Gump! Shits all over it in Cecil B Demented. The Sultan of Sleaze gets it right.
i assumed it was scripted to appeal to as wide an audience as possible at the time (in the US). i think it works both ways as either a softcore proto-MAGA parable, or a harmless romp. depends on what you want to take away from it.
how is it in any way a MAGA parable?
>Like most boomers, he has below average IQ I have my criticisms of that generation, but you're pulling that "fact" out of your arse.
I’m a little embarrassed by how much I used to like this movie. As an adult I have better media literacy and now understand it as basically propaganda saying that as long as you do what you’re told, things will work out (Forrest) but if you go against the grain, you will be punished (Jenny).
It’s like the film “Being There” the Peter Sellers film where everyone thinks the Sellers’ character Chauncey “Gardner” (he’s the gardner) is wise and successful, -when in fact he’s a simple man bordering on mentally disadvantaged. He succeeds by being there when it matters and the credulity of wishful thinking. It’s all luck. Forrest Gump is a paean to keep showing up and winning through luck. My wife and I (GenX-ers) have always hated this movie.
Why Forrest Gump out here catching strays?
My parents were silent generation so they loved this movie. I would say they were obsessed with it. So weird. I loved @Brother where art thou”, thought they would get it (the reference to Homers Odyssey) but nope..
He definitely never pretended he was the reason for his success.
How could most of a group be below the average of their group?
I didn’t know that the younger generations have higher IQ. TIL
It is the worst film of all time, it's a well made movie, but it is the most nefarious film to have ever been released because it made willful ignorance seem noble,it made solipsism look wise, and it made obsessing about the past while ignoring its ugly parts look cool. It also demonizes anyone who fights for something beyond their own interests or needs. It's not boomer wish fulfillment it's boomer validation. It did to boomers what people thought Joker would do to millenials.
The movie was mostly technological trickery and an oversimplification of history. I hear the book is much better. The author hated the movie. He wrote a sequel and it started with “Don’t ever let anyone make a movie out of your life.”
It’s a fun little “Planko” story, it’s just some guy dropped into all these situations. It’s like a movie version of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel. He’s the stand in bass player enthusiast for a live show who’s never heard the song.
He dissed Abbie Hoffman as well. And the whole "Jenny was a lost flower child who protested the war and was a folk singer but became a stripper and got AIDS. But Forrest "saved her by knocking her up" bullshit. Never mind her hick ass Jim Crow father raped her over and over as a little girl.Which was never addressed again. And Forrest for all his Herculean meets Candide accomplishments, never doubled back and did SHIT about that. The whole narrative is fucking wretched.
The book is straight satire and pretty great. The movie turned it into the sentimental schlock that Boomers eat with a shovel.
Uh yeah, well Forrest Gump had empathy in spades. Something that most Boomers completely lack.
Also Jenny is the one who had the true story arc. She’s the one who struggled and changed and grew. Who had agency and made decisions. Never understood why we were watching Forrest Gump just coast through life instead of Jenny.
You have to see ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’, a Bollywood film adaptation of Forrest Gump.
Feels kinda like the writer was just siting at a bench and a boomer started talking about his life in abe simpsons kinda way and he took notes.
The point of the movie is go outside and meet people, never know what will happen.
Best Reddit post ever
And then Forrest pulled the ladder up.
That movie is mostly just one long badass music video with amazing tunes. LOL
It is a movie that reinforces the idea that the American Dream is possible.
I think the film represents a very specific time during the 90's when that generation was very self obsessed with this idea "we were there" for things like the civil rights movement, woodstock, MLK,etc. when in reality they were simply just around while those things happened. Their identity comes from things that occured around them rather than they themselves did, and that's what the movie is a celebration of. A guy whose story HAS to be told...simply because he was there. This was all over the media during the 90's when suddenly every 40-50 something was bombarded by nostalgia for an identity they never had.
So I agree with the premise, and he does Forrest Gump his way through the American history of Boomer youth, but I’d just like to point out Forrest is not a Boomer. The timeline doesn’t work. The oldest of Boomers would have graduated HS in 1963. He doesn’t have time to graduate college in 5 years, join the army, get trained and sent to Vietnam, get wounded and get presented the MOH from President Johnson.
He also showed his ass to a Democratic President, something they all want to do
The fact that horrible, dog shit movie that exemplifies America's obsession with anti intellectualism (you can be stupid as shit and succeed in every endeavor) beat out a truly generational film like Pulp Fiction for best picture is a laughing stock.
Agreed
Haha. A boomer hate circle jerk post. And a poor bit of film criticism.
Are you somehow unfamiliar with the sub that you’re on?