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On March 30, Tony Williams wrote to SCREEN-L:
 
> PULP FICTION was not much of an  alternative [to Gump] but [at >
> least] it had some complexity and acknowledgement of the dark
>  side of American existence...
 
With all due respect, professor,
Gump [the movie] didn't have a dark side? Did not deliver complex messages
about wounding, hubris, and greed?  Do we persist in mass denial because Gump
[the character] didn't have a dark side? If he didn't, it's because *he is a
fictional character*, a device, a charicature, a part-object, a tool, a
mouthpiece. This mostly- saccharine simpleton is thus absolved of any
responsibility in delivering the message -- if we *get* the message(s), then
in our proper outrage, at least we won't turn and kill the messanger -- isn't
that what satire is all about?  In real life, even men as develop- mentally
compromised as Forrest *do indeed* have their dark side, the shadow side that
every real person possesses. I bet you felt Gump [the movie] had a happy
ending, too.
 
Regards,
Bet MacArthur
Arts Analysis Inst
Cambridge MA