Why do some people dislike Forrest Gump so much?

[sachertorte]

@Cisco

Eh, that’s pretty much why I hate The Incredibles. At least you admit it.

People fawn over The Incredibles? I mean it was a decent cartoon and all, but fawn?

[SciFiSam]

@Larry_Mudd

I think there’s a substantial difference between saying that a movie is entertaining, has a great soundtrack and loads of layers engineered to appeal to film geeks, and saying that it’s actually morally instructional and carries deep spiritual or philosophical significance.

It’s not Zemeckis’ fault, but the amount of gushing hyperbole for Gump was over the top. This is typical:It’s not Zemeckis’ fault that American conservatives touted Gump as a paean to Conservative values, either. It’s certainly not Zemeckis’ fault that popular media went on endlessly about “Gump vs. Pulp” as a Which Side Are You On? issue of the sort that was of more earth-shattering significance than “Coke or Pepsi?” or “What is the One True Way to Hang Toilet Paper?”

But this is the context in which many people formed their opinions about Forrest Gump. It is possible to go back and look at it for what it is and be entertained, but it’s normal that many people were predisposed to declare it to be absolute rubbish.

By analogy, there’s totally a place for snacks like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and there’s nothing wrong from deriving some enjoyment from them. But if you hype them up as the apex of the confectioner’s art and go on at length about how anyone who would select a Snickers bar over them is a complete philistine with no taste whatsoever, then you can be confident that a significant number of people will declare those little cups to be little different from a cheap admixture of icing sugar and baby-shit encased in a chintzy covering of ersatz chocolate.

Good post. I remember the ridiculous level of hype and moralistic hyperbole too, and I was living in Slovakia and then Germany, so it was international. Otherwise I probably would have just thought Gump was a bad movie - I really do find Hanks’ innocent persona grating and I hated the storyline (such as it was) - but that would have been that.

There have even been a couple of people in this thread making disparaging character judgments about people who dislike this movie, so the hype hasn’t even stopped.

[NicePete]

Personally, I didn’t like it for the same reason I didn’t like E.T.

It was saccharine. Ham-handedly emotionally manipulative.

I’ve got no problem with “moral” movies or “upbeat” movies, I just don’t care for poorly written ones.

[Cisco]

@sachertorte

People fawn over The Incredibles? I mean it was a decent cartoon and all, but fawn?

Oh my god. Are you serious? Go say this in Cafe Society.

[Miller]

@sachertorte

People fawn over The Incredibles? I mean it was a decent cartoon and all, but fawn?

Check out some of the reviews.

[Ogre]

This rankled on a lot of levels. The movie was exceedingly trite and any who feels they can take anything practical away from it probably has an I.Q. of ~75. Second, calling Pulp Fiction amoral is idiotic, as it was a by-the-numbers morality play - the only principal characters who walk away unpunished are those who made the correct choices when presented with a difficult moral choice, and the entire thing is framed around Jules’ crisis of conscience and how that ultimately leads him to dissuade a random pair from starting down the wrong path. Of course, that doesn’t make Pulp Fiction an edifying and uplifting movie, but it could much more plausibly be argued that it is than Forrest Gump is, as the fates of the various characters were more concretely linked to their decisions, where the “message” (if there is one) of Forrest Gump is more along the lines of “If you can hold onto a plucky and optimistic outlook, maybe an Act of God will wipe out all of your competitors and leave you in the pink.”

I was finally able to get something out of Forest Gump by sitting down to it as a bit of mindless entertainment. For sure it has some merit in that department, and there is some technical work that is simply spectacular. And that’s fine - this is how you’re supposed to watch a movie, generally.

But imagine if before you watched Pulp Fiction, you were subjected to a couple of months of vapid morons going on at length about how watching it was going to make you a better person. How would this affect your experience of it? After working through this thought experiment, the bulk of the antipathy to Forrest Gump you come across should be pretty easy to understand.

I’d hope I’d watch it and interpret according to my own standards, not by those of others.

My own interpretation of Forrest Gump is that it’s an incredibly depressing, nihilistic, intensely realistic look at life. Bad stuff happens. You have no control of it. You can be as innocent and decent as Forrest Gump, but you’ll still probably have everything taken away from you, and might just get shot in the ass to boot. If you’re very, very lucky, you might end up with something to value at the end of it all, but don’t fucking count on it. And for God’s sake, don’t expect to actually be happy with the way it all turns out.

FG is anything but a simple morality play. If anything, it’s an anti-morality play, and it is a Great Movie. Just look at the wide range of possible interpretations that have been posted in this thread.

[Steve_MB]

Because it’s a cheap thoughtless gift that nobody asked for.

[Cisco]

@Ogre

Just look at the wide range of possible interpretations that have been posted in this thread.

The thing that’s killing me are the people who are mad at their own interpretation of the film, and apparently have never bothered to consider any other interpretation, even when people literally spell other ones for them (and IMO almost all of the other interpretations in this thread are more well-founded than those that people hate the movie for.)

[Bosstone]

@Huerta88

(B) It never went full retard. He met the President, won a ping pong tournament. I always wondered what parents of really retarded kids thought about the sort of blithe minimalization of the life-impairing effects of mental retardation.

You never go full retard.

[MeanOldLady]

@Cisco

The thing that’s killing me are the people who are mad at their own interpretation of the film…

When the interpretations are dead ass wrong. “Forrest Gump was a bad movie, because the point is we should admire retarded people.” Ehhh… nooooo. It’s cool if you didn’t like it, but that’s a kind of stupid reason. You could say you don’t like it because it was boring, or because they could have gotten different characters to play Forrest and Jenny when they were in high school. I mean, come on, Tom Hanks was like 45.

[Cisco]

I hated Forrest Gump because the WHOLE POINT of the movie was that we should skull-fuck baby seals to death. I just cannot support that. Oh, and I never watched Forrest Gump.

[Miller]

@MeanOldLady

When the interpretations are dead ass wrong.

How do you determine the objective correctness of a particular interpretation of a work of art?

[SecretaryofEvil]

I don’t hate Forrest Gump the way I hate some movies, but I certainly don’t like Forrest Gump. It was really over the top and cheesy, the leg braces breaking off to reveal that Forrest is actually a superior runner than average being a prime example of this. They shoehorned Forrest into so many major events that it makes the film silly, even though it often tries to take itself seriously. And it’s not silly enough to make me laugh, just enough to take away from when it’s trying to be serious. You can make a good movie that is over the top. Lots of comedies and action movies can be good because they are over the top but Forrest Gump just didn’t pull it off for me. And something can be both funny and serious, but the ridiculous element of Forrest Gump just wasn’t very funny.

After thinking about it for a minute, I think a lot of the humor failed in Forrest Gump because it seemed to rely on “Look a pop culture reference!” rather than actually making a joke about said reference. And I think the serious moments failed because Forrest as a character has rather inconsistent abilities.

[MeanOldLady]

If I can’t find anything within the work of are itself (sans projection) that would support an interpretation, I consider it objectively wrong.

[Ogre]

@Cisco

The thing that’s killing me are the people who are mad at their own interpretation of the film, and apparently have never bothered to consider any other interpretation, even when people literally spell other ones for them (and IMO almost all of the other interpretations in this thread are more well-founded than those that people hate the movie for.)

Ah well, you know. The “Mine is the only correct interpretation” school of art critique is commonplace.

[XT]

@SecretaryofEvil

They shoehorned Forrest into so many major events that it makes the film silly, even though it often tries to take itself seriously.

That, of course, was the whole point of Forrest Gump. That he had so many things happen to him, and that he was oblivious of what an impact he had on society and culture. It wasn’t about us being sad that he was mentally handicapped or any sappy stuff like that…it was about the fact that, being handicapped people wouldn’t expect him to be able to do anything, and yet he seemingly did everything. Track star. Football star. War hero. Met the president. Meets Mao. Table tennis star. Chess champion. Math savant. Even astronaut.

Ah well. I can see why people didn’t like the movie, since there seems so little actual understanding of what it was really about. I will say that if this aspect is what you didn’t like the definitely don’t read the book, because a hell of a lot more stuff happens to him there than in the movie.

-XT

[Rilchiam]

Well, the book is like one long fart joke. Glurgefest though the movie is, it’s still an improvement.

[Miller]

@Ogre

Ah well, you know. The “Mine is the only correct interpretation” school of art critique is commonplace.

Especially, it seems, among fans of Forrest Gump.

[XT]

@Rilchiam

Well, the book is like one long fart joke. Glurgefest though the movie is, it’s still an improvement.

This sort of indepth analysis and critical thinking is why I always love joining in a discussion in Cafe Society about books and movies. Thanks for reminding me…

-XT

[Miss_Woodhouse]

How do you determine the objective correctness of a particular interpretation of a work of art?

I hear this line a lot and it’s quite silly. It’s obvious that there are many right interpretations of a piece of work. Of course. it should be also obvious that not all interpretations can possibly be right. There are wrong ways to look at a work of art.

If I told you that Grapes of Wrath was a very long story about how easy it was to be successful and happy as a agricultural worker during the great depression, I would hope you would tell me I’m dead wrong.