----------------------------Original message---------------------------- To Screen-L colleagues: We forward these notes rather late in the cycle, aware of their departure from the common points of view about the movie in question--- We are astonished at how credulous so many film and culture folk are, and how hungry for rescue. How quick to feel betrayed by masterful allegory! That so many took FG so literally, that so many should fear it! In contrast, we looked for the message in the revis- ionist vas-you-dere (Gump was There) special-effects techno- medium, and in the rapid repetition of voiceover narration as dialogue (a repetitive, reassuring confirmation of Gump's tale that mocks our belief in it) . The closest thing to Gump, for us, is Jonathan Swift (yes, ~1700 AD, Gulliver's Travels etc) and his polite, persistent, even-handed roasting of society on all sides. At FG, we thought we'd *die laughing* at its dumb-faced nagging ironies. We loved it. We all went twice. But for some reason, our group was the only one going under the seats in helpless laughing, rollicking despair, hilarious grief. FG: a tribute to simplicity and/or stupidity?? Hardly! Regressive, conservative? Ya, like Lenny Bruce! (LB: "All humor arises from the conservative impulse.") Sentimental?? Yo', like Ionesco and Beckett! Painful? Truly. That the Right would cleave it to their bosoms as some sort of tribute to their entrenchment is the biggest parody of all. Gump a patriotic movie? Quite the reverse, we say. Part of our group's context was: we saw FG late, months *after* having read the reviews and heard the putdowns, but before the movie became a phenom in its surprising end-of-year second wind at the box office: we are intrigued by how liberals and conservatives both claimed (or were assigned to) FG, and how neatly Forrest slices and dices them all. Forrest Gump -- Beloved by the Right; Sancti- fying the virtues of RonBushRushNewt; A paean to stupidity; A retreat from postmodern technologies; A call for renewal of 60's values; A sentimental bath, etc etc. Didn't Forrest's repetitive, disingenuous "For some reason......" strike you? ("For some reason, someone went and shot that handsome young President.." "For some reason, someone killed Dr King...." "For some reason... Jenny didn't appreciate her pa's affection.") For some reason, not one post on Screen-L has raised FG's few small virtues and many broad offenses as a disability film, FG's many exploitations of disability images, Lieut Dan's self-hate and the various objectionable 'overcoming' messages (which are always called 'heartwarming'). For some reason, Jenny never did quite seem to know what love is. And for some reason, not one among hundreds of Screen-L posts has discussed FG as the story of Jenny's incest, with its exquisite, carefully observed array of awful realistic sequelae: promiscuity, substance abuse, confusion, depression, dissociation, and the inability to protect herself from HIV. (We hear that the Republicans gloat on her troubles as righteous punishment for her hippie promiscuity and doping. Some call that blaming the victim, others call it De Nile.) It seems plain to us why FG and Pulp Fiction have been in such competition. They are *twins* in the unconcious, both skilfully tilting the floor under whatever (Left/Right, Art/Trash, Romance/ Despair) our society uses to outline its boundaries. The first draws us in with a box of candy proffered, its surface tale of love and loyalty told in a comical drawl. The second, with promises of venal pleasures, dumb S/M humor amid all that brain tissue (the unconscious citizen voyeur, hopingfearing to see JFK's grey matter all over Jackie and the inside of the car? Will we ever get it clean again?) For some reason, people do find it hard to look away (PF/NBK/Zapruder), now don't we? These qualities in FG do not make it a masterpiece, or a film for all time. Nevertheless, we remain intrigued by public and critical resistance to a fuller view of it. Jean Jameson, Bet MacArthur, Ray Ishigata, Byron Brown Late Culture Project Arts Analysis Inst Cambridge MA