Simple, basic, and true

Rating: Null/10 (1 April 2002)

I just recently saw this movie again, hadn't seen it since it first came out in '94. Maybe everyone else figured it out, but I suddenly realized that the whole movie really was about "stupid is as stupid does," the phrase he repeats every time he's accused of being dim. Forrest Gump is obviously not a bright guy, but the movie seems to say that that doesn't matter very much because he makes the right choices. His decisions are smart even if he isn't.
And his decisions are, of course, strangely conservative, strange insofar as the movie comes out of ultraliberal Hollywood. He plays sports, has an old fashioned sense of chivalry (i.e. beating up anyone who abuses his lifelong love Jenny), he goes to war, he believes in God, starts up a small business, works hard, loves his mother, has a deep sense of honor (giving over half the proceeds of "Bubba Gump" to the family of his deceased friend) and, strangest of all, is a white male from the south portrayed in a positive light.
Contrapose this with Jenny, who is obviously very bright, very smart and makes every wrong move one could make ("stupid is as stupid does" again comes to mind). She's promiscuous, a drug user, suicidal, falls in with the anti-war inanity of the SDS and Black Panthers, parties hard at discos during the seventies, and ultimately ends up dying of AIDS, never mentioned, but the implication is of course there.
The movie is a tour through American history of course, but I don't think the special effects detract from the basic simplicity of the story. It is basically a morality story. Not a very deep or complex one, but just very simple--do the right things, and your life will turn out okay.

There aren't very many of these movies made anymore, and so it's somewhat satisfying that this one was, and that it was so successful. It's as if American society had finally had its fill of beautiful alienated youngsters who rebel, do drugs, hate their parents and act like all around jerks (see American Beauty or Cruel Intentions for examples).
Gump isn't the best movie ever made, but it's a strong one, one very much worth seeing, and seeing again to be honest. "Stupid is as stupid does" may not be poetry or very deep, but it ends up being true, and more than enough to fill up a movie, and make you feel good as the feather floats up into the air at the end.