Wormuloid. This week’s artifact is Forrest Gump, starring Earth’s own

Tom Hanks, widely considered to be the poor man’s Jason Biggs.

Forrest Gump tells the story of a feather-collector named Forrest

Forrest Gump, who likes to bombard people with his life story for no

apparent reason, often not even noticing when his audience changes.

Although he is born a cyborg, his robotic implants soon

fall apart and he is able to pass as a human. At human school, he

meets a miniature female named Jenny. He plays football, which is

really easy and doesn’t require anything but running in a straight

line. After that, Forrest joins the Army

on a whim. He saves everyone from getting exploded, but his friend

Bubba dies of shrimp poisoning. For his trouble, Forrest gets a shiny

new necklace. He plays ping pong and becomes a

national celebrity, because ping pong was America’s most popular and

widely discussed sport, other than flasketball.

Forrest coincidentally reconnects with his old sergeant, Lieutenant

Dan, right around the time they start a chain of restaurants

together. Jenny comes back for a quickie and runs away again just

for kicks. Forrest goes for a jog to think

things over, then meets his son, marries Jenny, and buries Jenny.

Finally, we get one last look at the true hero of the film, that

goddamn feather.

Aside from the Martin Luther King assassination and the Abraham

Lincoln assassination, Forrest Gump features nearly every significant

social or political event of the 60s and 70s.

But whereas everyone around Forrest is engrossed by all that political

mumbo jumbo, Forrest is oblivious, singularly focused on the thing he

best understands: love. Yes he does, Jenny.

The defining characteristic of the film is its perspective. Through

the eyes of an innocent simpleton, we see an idealized vision of Earth

that ignores grim social realities like a pair of cinematic beer

goggles. When Forrest talks about the Vietnam war, he’s all sunshine

and lollipops. With Jenny, he sees a pretty, pretty princess,

even though in reality she’s a pretty, pretty big mess.

Young Forrest runs through picturesque Southern landscapes,

and, moments later, breezes past a prison chain gang like it ain’t no

nevermind. He has an entire conversation with Lieutenant

Dan before the camera reveals he lost his legs -- Forrest

still sees him as a whole man, apparently unaware that human

beings can’t regrow their limbs. What’s more, Forrest may be raising

a kid that isn't his. Jenny has a history of emotional manipulation,

and could have just decided to call him once she got sick and needed

help. Her “get out of parenthood free” card, if you will.

Yet Forrest sees it as high romance, as does the audience.

In fact, it is entirely possible that Forrest is an unreliable

narrator, something I find utterly deplorable. Much of the story

depends on his memory, which is idealized and perhaps a bit faulty. In both

instances where Jenny tells Forrest to “run, Forrest, run”, everyone is

wearing the same clothes -- except Jenny, who only buys designer shit.

Either this is magical realism, or Forrest’s mind is conflating the

two memories. While with his platoon in Vietnam, he recalls

unnatural weather shifts, made all the more suspect when

immediately punctuated by an enemy attack. And if we can’t trust a man

to accurately report meteorological activity, we can’t trust him for

anything. In any case, as the great

philosopher Forrest Gump’s mom says, life is like a box of

chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get. But if you look

at the world through Forrest Gump’s eyes, you can bet it’s going to be

sweet. And knowing my luck, it’ll probably have fucking coconut.

For Earthling Cinema, I’m Garyx Wormuloid. To replace your legs

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