Film: Technology Rampant (Forrest Gump; True Lies)

TODAY’S favorite movie heroes are the man who knows everything and the man who knows nothing. The one who knows everything is not threatening because he is so obviously a fabrication, a fiction on which our fond fantasies can hitch a ride. The one who knows nothing, the holy fool, is even better: we can all feel superior to him as he stumbles on to luck, love, and riches despite his mental deficiency, merely because he is sweet and good. Well, says the average moviegoer, I am not only as decent as this simpleton, but also a lot smarter. Good things must be just around the corner.

This week we have prime specimens of both these lies. The eponymous hero of Forrest Gump is a youngish Southerner sitting on a public bench in Savannah, telling a series of more or less interested benchmates his life story. He is the Little Man who was practically everywhere any kind of history was made—as an innocent bystander, unsuspecting initiator of great events, or heroic but unsung participant. I won’t go into details, but Watergate, Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Sino-American relations, even a corner of the Vietnam War wouldn’t have been the same but for Gump, the retardate as philosopher king. “Stupid is as stupid does,” he retorts to those who would put him down, and because, however uncomprehendingly, he manages invariably to do the right thing, affliction emerges as an invaluable asset.

JS

About the Author

John Simon

TODAY’S favorite movie heroes are the man who knows everything and the man who knows nothing. The one who knows everything is not threatening because he is so obviously a fabrication, a fiction on which our fond fantasies can hitch a ride. The one who knows nothing, the holy fool, is even better: we can all feel superior to him as he stumbles on to luck, love, and riches despite his mental deficiency, merely because he is sweet and good. Well, says the average moviegoer, I am not only as decent as this simpleton, but also a lot smarter. Good things must be just around the corner.

This week we have prime specimens of both these lies. The eponymous hero of Forrest Gump is a youngish Southerner sitting on a public bench in Savannah, telling a series of more or less interested benchmates his life story. He is the Little Man who was practically everywhere any kind of history was made—as an innocent bystander, unsuspecting initiator of great events, or heroic but unsung participant. I won’t go into details, but Watergate, Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Sino-American relations, even a corner of the Vietnam War wouldn’t have been the same but for Gump, the retardate as philosopher king. “Stupid is as stupid does,” he retorts to those who would put him down, and because, however uncomprehendingly, he manages invariably to do the right thing, affliction emerges as an invaluable asset.