[Ron Howard]
Hey, that’s the name of the show!
[/Ron Howard]
Such films seem to be a much beloved genre in America. I’ve even heard of a North American Man-Boy Love Association, which I presume consists of avid fans of this sort of movie.
But Forrest Gump is not a “slacker,” except in intellectual terms (i.e., he never questions the values he is taught). That’s the whole point of the story – that he works hard, takes on adult responsibilities and steers a steady course while more “intelligent” people are acting like children and latching on to every momentary fad.
The really pernicious thing about Forrest Gump, IMO, is that it presents a message that virtue is more important than intelligence – not on any abstract scale of values, but in terms of winning material rewards in life. And it ain’t. Gump seems to get success just because he’s a good guy and deserves it. He joins a church, sings in the choir, and the next hurricane sinks every shrimp boat in the harbor but his. IRL, a man like Gump would almost certainly go on trying and failing to wring a meager living out of the sea until his boat got repossessed.
I think the question is, have there always been people like this? I think not. Only in a very prosperous society can large numbers of people afford the luxury of arrested development. And it’s good thing we can! 
Like I said, maybe normal 20 somethings are considered man-boys to you. The supporting characters in 40 Year Old Virgin seemed very real to me.
I don’t think Jack counts. He was a child, who just looked like a man - wheras all the other characters in this thread were adults who acted like kids, he’s a kid that acts like a kid, but looks like an adult.
Were you watching the same movie I was?
Gump is neither amoral nor a slacker. He is, in all honesty, quite the opposite; he’s fiercly loyal, invariably honest, totally responsible, and the hardest-working man on the screen. Even when he’s rich, he works.
The point of the movie is really quite the opposite of what you’re suggesting. Gump symbolizes everything that’s GOOD about America; he’s successful, productive, honest, and family-oriented, and stays that way despite being buffeted from pillar to post by his times.
BrainGlutton makes the point that the movie seems to place virtue above intelligence, but I’m not sure that’s the case. His alleged stupidity - and it’s really not clear that he’s as stupid as you might initially assume, given the fact that it’s everyone else pulling the real bonehead moves - is just a smokescreen. Much like America, which seems dumb to the snotty foreigner, what with its fast food and NASCAR and such, but if you look at the results it’s hard to argue there’s some big brains in there.
But, for a real-life Forrest Gump, the “results” would be nothing like how the movie portrays them.
Pee Wee Herman Movies 
And wouldn’t it be a better world if were *all *retarded?
Just to show that man-boy comedies aren’t unique to American cinema, I give you Shaun, as in “Shaun of the Dead.”
I loved that movie, in no small part because Austin is FILLED with guys exactly like him.
I agree that the message of Forrest Gump is that being nice is more important than being smart, and the character benefits from a truly improbable series of strokes of good luck, implying that niceness will be rewarded.
But I wouldn’t put this film in the same category of ones where the main characters are working hard at not growing up because perpetual adolescence is easier. Forrest doesn’t understand most of what life throws at him, but he deals with it anyway. There’s no indication he wants to retreat into juvenile hedonism or drunkenness. After his mother dies, he goes on a cathartic cross-country jogging spree, stopping when the internal conflict is finally resolved. Characters in these other movies would just get stoned.
You’ve never met a successful dumbass? I’ve met lots.
Forrest Gump is not a documentary about a real person; the character’s 90% metaphor. It’s not supposed to be a guide to personal success.
Me too. Usually they owe their success to inherited money/connections/opportunies.
But it is supposed to send a message. And it’s a false message.
Are you not including Jerry Lewis films, particularly the ones with Dean Martin? I know they aren’t exactly like the crop now, but in many of those his character certainly seems juvenile and in the 1955 film You’re Never Too Young his character has to pretend he is a twelve year old boy.
I don’t think this is really a new trend. Maybe a bit overdone these days but hardly new.
But we disagree on what the message is, you see. You’re seeing a message to behaviour; I see allegory. The movie’s descriptive, not prescriptive.
In any case, we agree it’s NOT a man-boy movie.
I’d also exclude “Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle,” which is a distinctly different kind of movie, the stoner comedy. Harold and Kumar traces its roots to Cheech and Chong. Stoner comedies are their own classification entirely.
That’s precisely my problem:
See all the characters are fictional. All invented. The movie makes sure that not one “intelligent” (read: cabable of questioning authority) person is not shown to be either immoral, amoral or too screwed up to function morally.
True. Harold, at least, has a job – in fact, he seems to work harder than anyone else in his company; and then he knocks off and gets stoned. Kumar has a bit of a “man-boy” problem but at least he’d rather not live on his father’s money.
The other difference that Kumar has compared to “man-boys” is that he is incredibly smart and could be very successful in the working world if he wanted to. It seems that the “man-boys” basically don’t have many, if any, skills that could transfer to the professional arena.