I am interested in getting responses from those who have seen Forrest Gump. The film attempts an epic overview of American history since WW II. In the process, it is highly political, although often in a jokey, superficial, or caricatured manner. What particularly bothered me was the politics of the film: it made fun of easy, obvious targets like Birth of a Nation and southern bigots and also presented Forrest as color-blind, a protagonist whose best friend is a black man. Nevertheless, the film caricatures black militants in its presentation of the Black Panther party, a scene that I found highly offensive. The implicit message seemed to be that blacks are O.K. in established institutions (the military, the church, the schools) but beware if they get "extremist." The same caricaturing occurred in the presentation of hippies and the antiwar radicals, who are presented as ridiculous or repugnant. This is yet another film reacting against sixties radicalism. What gets affirmed is Forrest Gump's devotion to God, country, and traditional family values. Making the hero into a lucky idiot enables the film to disguise its fundamental conservatism. I would like to know how others read this film. Andrew Gordon