Did anyone else catch Forrest Gump on TV this weekend? I hadn't seen the movie in years, and found myself caught up and watching the entire thing again. I have such a soft spot for maudlin heart-tuggery. Anyway, yes the movie's shamelessly hammy, but I still enjoy it. And my crying count was probably in double-digits. Why they gotta go and give Jenny the AIDS? Sigh.
A couple things were floating around my head while watching it this time. First, I saw Robin Wright Penn on the street a few months back, and she has not aged well. She needs to stop using husband Sean's jizz as a facial cream because it's sapping the life out of her. I liked her so much back in the mid-Nineties, she was Jenny and, earlier, Princess Buttercup! "Assssss Yoooooouuuuuuu Wiiiiiissssssshhhhhhhh..." Then.... nuthin. A shame.
Second. So, the film is basically a way for the baby boomers to look back at everything they lived through that was traumatic about their times, from racial desegregation to the Vietnam War up through AIDS, and identify with a guiltless moron who changed the world without ever knowing or trying. That I got. But what I really noticed this time, which I'm sure has been the thesis of many a film-studies paper, was what a raw deal the female half of the equation, Jenny, gets. I always knew she was the dark side to Forrest's light, but for some reason I really got to wondering about what it means that it's the female half that the entire film spends its time degrading, punishing, and ultimately killing. First, she's molested. Then she's unable to deal with that so she ends up living her entire life as a victim, bouncing from man to man, taking drugs, and generally wreaking havoc on our guy Forrest's heart. She's beaten here and there for good measure, and then finally comes around once she knows she about to die. Hmm. Something tells me somebody had some issues with the modern women's movement. But the film was a massive hit so it obviously fulfilled somebody's needs. And I myself like the film, so I can't take it too far to task. Just interesting.
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