Man, I just saw that Forrest Gump movie for the first time and know what? It spoke to me. That Forrest! Sheeeeeeeit! What a good boy. He’s the god damned American Dream, son! Tell you what! I mean, he ain’t too bright, right? Right! Good! Don’t need to be! Know why? Well, I’ll tell you: God. He loves him. That’s enough. He loves his momma, he loves his god and he’s just a good simple honest hardworking salt of the earth boy with enough brains in his head to know what he knows and stay away from whatever keeps people from loving god and mommas out there.
Hell, did you know old Forrest is a millionaire? Damn straight! He’s loaded! I KNEW he was a good boy when I saw how he wanted no truck with the floozys and the booze and the longhairs (I mean will you LOOK at that haircut! Those pants! That sensible button up tucked into said pants! That’s the kind of Walmartian total package that just SCREAMS America and moms and babies and drubbing communist China using nothing more than a fifth grade education and a small paddle). NOW I can go to Bubba Gumps shrimp co. and know that my money is going to a good, hard working simple boy who wants nothing more than to do some jogging and keep it simple all while pining for his (spoiler alert) dead highschool sweetheart wife and his (one more time, folks) dead momma. Oh, sure. I know he ain’t real, but the good folks that named their place of business after Forrest’s whimsical dedication to his dead buddy’s dream have got to have their hearts in the right place, right? I mean, there’s no room for cynicism and corporate synergy and the notion of preying on stupid scared people by disguising corporate colonialism as jingoistic and highly anti-intellectual sloganeering in a story that beautiful, right?
And hell, even if it was, ain’t that America’s main export anyway these days? Xenophobia and blind nationalism and slavelike devotion to cancerous box stores and their food providing subsidies? I mean, besides oil, folks! You’re welcome Mexico! Heyooo!
What? Sure it was us! Who else has the money and the ballsacks to ruin a big fancy ship? No one, that’s who! USA! USA!
I mean, seriously, those Mexicans don’t need to hop the border no more folks! We just set them up for life! We should start calling the gulf of Mexico “little Saudi Arabia” right? I mean, it ain’t nothing but oil, folks! And if my book learnin’ don’t deceive me, that’s exactly what we’re blowin’ up all those dune [expletive deleted] over in Crapistan for, right? Sure it is. So there you go! Problem solved. USA! USA!
I bet now all them Mexicans in AZ are gonna stop with carrying their papers (if they got ‘em [not likely]). Now that we went n fixed Mexico up all nice you can bet your bible that they’re gonna stop crying about that law that gives em a free ride back to little Saudi Arabia when they leave their (fraudulently obtained) driver’s license at home. Bet on it!
Okay, anyway, enough of that. I just watched Forrest Gump for the first time (I know, it’s an old movie and everyone’s seen it. What rock do I live under? Nice one…whatever. Dumb movie and I wish I’d never seen it. How’s that, assholes?) and now I get it. That was the cultural inroad that successfully posited anti-intellectualism as the true perfect manifestation of the American dream. Now, I’m not suggesting that all the teabaggers and Glen Becks of the world wouldn’t exist without Forrest Gump, but I AM suggesting that it played a crucial role in softening the cervix of the national consciousness (to fashion a metaphor out of some terms I’ve heard a lot of recently) and grounding this anti-intellectualism in something familiar. It didn’t cook up the movement, but it helped to plate it. Well, I guess it would be more accurate to say it put it in a cardboard bucket and smothered it in gravy, but whatever. You get the idea. What a fucking shitty excuse for a movie. It’s like avatar. THIS is what you pulled out all these technical stops for? Great. I guess that’s what pushes innovation…bad storytelling and/or thinly veiled pandering to idiots. I mean, at least a good band invented distortion. That’s about it though. Everything else is because of crappy stories. It’s true. Penicillin? Bad story. The two headed dildo? Thinly veiled entreaty to pretend that eating sub sandwiches is somehow good for you. And on and on like that, folks.
Okay, so in the spirit of pseudo intellectual/literary discourse, I’d like to point out that Forrest Gump is undoubtedly one of the biggest pro-corporate colonialism films of all time. I mean, it’s right in the story. The whole movie is about a dummy just kind of rolling with the punches as business folks and huge companies take care of stuff and slap his likeness on things (even if he doesn’t really wanna endorse em, y’all!) and he winds up so very rich and so very happy.
Now, I’m not suggesting that the people who wrote it had a sinister motive. I don’t think that’s the case. But it’s interesting that as it panders to big (evil? Sure.) corporate interests and the notion of leaving things in the hands of A) god and B) people in suits who know more than you, that they’ve completely recapitulated the traditional American literary trope of how geographic America shapes morality and financial success.
Here’s what I mean: Everyone knows that as you go west in American literature you gain moral fiber even as your finances wither away. Likewise, any trip east is met with economic gain and moral bankruptcy. That’s the tradition, folks. Read Grapes of Wrath or the Great Gatsby for a couple of prominent examples of this. And lest you think I’m unfairly holding a dumb movie about a mongo with a three dollar haircut to the standards of American classics, I’d like to point out that there’s more than passing references to both of these books in Gump AND the scope of the film certainly suggests that it at least would like to be perceived as a new American classic (and for some crappy reason, it is), so it’s actually not a stretch, smart guy!
Anyway, Robin Wright Penn goes west to hang out with (and commit sodomy with) longhairs and lives the morally bankrupt (sad! Empty!) lifestyle that only getting filthy rich with your cock/cunt out can provide, but as she heads back east, she gets her hair cut at walmart and a shapeless dress and comes home to die, married and well…wealthy, I guess, (thank you dummy!) but actually looking a lot like a poor person and living among the salt of the earth and all that. And of course there’s Forrest’s whole thing. Going east to find both his moral and economic peaks, from his stint in China, big upping the USA (in probably the most unbelievable part of the whole movie. There’s no way a hick from Alabama can beat the Chinese in ping pong. I’ll never believe it) to his wonderfully amiable racially diverse home in Alabama where his momma and dead friends and heretofore unknown son and all that stuff reside, along with his stick-to-itiveness and checks for millions of dollars, of course.
That’s a complete rewrite of an American tradition that, when applied to classics makes the East egg a center of good hearted philanthropy and the notion of attempting to better yourself by setting out for the promised land as a surefire descent into depravity, cocaine, blowjobs and suicide.
Whatever. Stupid fucking movie. Insulting even.
Oh, you liked it? Bully for you. I think it sucks.
See you all at Subterranean tomorrow, right? We’re having a party and the money is going to a good cause. There’s gonna be raffles for cubs tickets and shit there too, folks, so bring your dildos for the silent dildo auction.
What? Of course I’m serious.
Okay, I’m out of here. Nap time.
Ta.
