I finally got around to seeing "Forrest Gump" this past weekend.
I emerged from the theater two and a half hours later with a goofy grin plastered on my face and a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. That seems to be a common trend all across the United States. People just seem to love "Forrest Gump."
It is the second most successful movie so far this year. The book upon which the film is based has shot to the top of the best-seller list. Another book titled "Gumpisms," a collections of Forrest's wisest thoughts, has just hit the bookstores.
The movie has turned into something of a phenomenon, warranting a three-page article in Time Magazine last week and ubiquitous other newspaper and magazine articles about the film and its stars.
In the days since I saw the film, however, I have been trying to figure out precisely what it is about "Forrest Gump" that people like so much.
For those who have not seen the movie, "Forrest Gump" is about a slow-witted man who manages to lead a profoundly successful and fulfilling life.
Gump graduates as an All-American football player from the University of Alabama, wins a Medal of Honor in Vietnam, becomes a ping-pong champion and ends up a wealthy entrepreneur.
All the while, Gump interacts with presidents, diplomats and superstars. Funny and extremely well-made, it is hard not to like the film.
And yet, the more I think about the way people are responding to the film, the more troubled I become.
To the film's credit, it certainly does not reject intelligence. It is made painfully clear throughout the film that Forrest is intelligent in his own special way and able to think of and do things that "traditionally intelligent" people can only dream of. Forrest even keeps reminding the audience, "Stupid is as stupid does."
But the movie rejects things like understanding and reason, and therein lies my concern.
In one sequence, for example, Forrest goes running for three years, zigzagging all across the country. He has no reason; he just runs.
Throughout the film, Forrest does not know why he does what he does and the movie does not want us to know why either. We are expected to be content with simplicity and not ask questions.
One of the most celebrated aspects of the film is the way the script revises history.
We find out in the film that it was Forrest who, among other things, taught Elvis Presley how to dance, gave John Lennon the inspiration for the lyrics to "Imagine" and single-handedly ignited the Watergate scandal.
All of these historical side notes are amusing, but quickly forgotten without ever really being explored. The movie wants to explain history through trivial anecdotes.
Just as Forrest's life is "simple," the movie wants our history to be "simple" as well.
Of course movies, especially ones in the summer, are often all about being simple and not thinking. In the summer, we like to escape to a simpler and easier world.
So what is so bad about "Forrest Gump" attempting to do the same thing as movies like "True Lies" or "Speed"? Maybe nothing. Maybe people across the country find the movie amusing and witty. They then forget "Forrest Gump," like most summer movies, and do not attempt to take any meaning from it.
With all of the media coverage surrounding the movie, I am led to believe that people are trying to extract meaning for their own lives from this movie. They are trying to learn lessons about how to live their lives.
But the lessons to be learned from this movie, I fear, are all wrong.
Certainly one could argue that this little historical gags are just that &emdash; gags, not meant to be taken seriously. No one could possibly think them to be true.
But considering how often we hear about American students' abysmal knowledge of history, I would not be too surprised if, in a few years, high-school students actually think someone named Forrest Gump was involved in Watergate or actually showed President Lyndon Johnson his buttocks on national television.
The problem lies in what these gags &emdash; and essentially the entire movie, with its constant reminders of how "simple" is inherently good &emdash; say to the audience: that we need to put aside our traditional approaches to problems and conflicts and issues and that we need to stop thinking.
To some, I suppose, that is a good thing. Maybe we do think too much; maybe we need to become a simpler people.
But as conflicts abound in Rwanda and Bosnia, fatal diseases remain uncured and national issues remain unaddressed, and generations accuse one another of apathy and indifference, it bugs me that the most popular movie in the country is one that teaches its audience the value of ignorance.
