I cried at Forest Gump, one of last summer's blockbusters. Forest Gump was different from the other movies that muck up my ducts, however. I know why I wept. I wept at Gump's triumphs, but I also wept at the movie's unmistakable message: Males possessed of all their faculties are slackers, users, bullies, brutes, abusers and weaklings. The movie quite clearly says that only when a male is hobbled in some critical capacity can he be a decent human being.
In contrast, the women in Forest Gump are noble if slightly flawed creatures whose very faults are virtuous. Gump's mother is one miracle short of canonization, a woman who sacrifices her virtue on the alter of protective motherhood. The recipient of Mama Gump's carnal offering is a slack-jawed educator - -male, of course -- who is willing to sell out educational principle for a moment's dalliance with this maternal colossus.
Gump's love interest is Jenny, a wilted flower whose petals have been plucked once too often. Jenny's redeeming feature, the weedhacker for all her sins, is that she knows she is no good for Gump. She's no good for Gump because of what the other men in her life, all the way from an incestuous father through abusive and exploitive boyfriends to a needle-tracked pimp, have done to her.
Gump doesn't fare much better in his relationship with males. He learns to run when spurred on by schoolyard bullies. Guess what sex the bullies are? Though emotionally he's a V-8, intellectually he's a flathead four. That matters not at all to the stereotypical male college coach who exploits Gump's fleetness while ignoring the player's other needs.
In the Army, Gump encounters his first male completely equipped with heart, soul, principles and caring. But wait: This is not really a male. Bubba is both a bit simple himself and an Oppressed Minority, a black male. OppMin males otherwise are permitted a modicum of humanity, though they usually don't survive to contaminate the underlying message that "male" actually should be spelled d-e-m- o-n. Bubba obligingly follows the script: He buys a piece of Asian real estate.
Another Army acquaintance who does survive, albeit somewhat foreshortened in stature, is Gump's commanding officer, a lieutenant who is quite unseemly in refusing to accept that males and their various appendages are supposed to be disposable. The newly legless lieutenant, perturbed by this turn of events, whines a lot. That is, until Gump brings him around to being a man again, presumably ready to sacrifice another miscellaneous body part on demand.
The ultimate depiction of the plight of the 1990's American male comes near the denouement of the film. Jenny, who unquestionably holds the emotional and intellectual face cards in the relationship, promotes a night of sex with Gump, then decamps for precincts unknown. Four years later she summons Gump, to disclose that he is a father.
The striking thing about her previous refusal to inform Gump he is to be or has become a daddy is implicitly presented as a commendable act, something that ennobles her and shields him. No matter that Gump is both capable of caring for his child and eager to do so, once he learns that he is a father. No matter that he became pertinent as a parent only when a wallet was needed because of Jenny's impending demise. No matter that for four years a child was denied the love and support of both parents based solely on the self-centered concerns of only one -- an act, still legally sanctioned, that victimizes both child and father.
In the long run, Gump himself pays the price for being male in contemporary America. He doesn't even rise to the level of being demonized for his sex. He is just...irrelevant.
And so I wept.
Semper fratres.
Reprinted with permission from Transitions
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