‘GUMP’ VS. THE WORLD

In regard to David Gritten’s “Can’t See the Forrest” (March 26), on the puzzled reaction of foreigners to the extent of the success of “Forrest Gump,” I think I can help clarify the film’s appeal.

Its makers have tapped into a pervasive American male fantasy. Apparently there are millions of men in this country who dream that someday what happened to Forrest will happen to them: that a pretty, skinny, blue-eyed blonde will fall in love with them and marry them, regardless of how stupid they may be.

ROM WATSON

West Hollywood

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At last, someone who saw the same film I did. I knew I had been pushed over the edge when the urge to shout “trip, Forrest, trip” almost overwhelmed me.

SUSAN ASHRAF

Claremont

Prodigy: WQBH18A

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Millions of emotionally healthy moviegoers from Japan to South Africa appreciate the movie for all of its transcendent spiritual qualities.

Momma Gump is, however, slightly off-target with one of her primary principles: Judging from his strenuously desperate struggle to ignore or exclude real moviegoers, stupid is as Gritten writes.

S.C. DACY

Beverly Hills

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So it seems that Gritten and the rest of the planet can’t figure out what’s behind America’s love for the Gump. They really can’t see the Forrest for the trees.

While it is true that “Forrest Gump” is a cultural phenomenon, it is also part of a revolution: a cultural revolution led by nostalgic baby boomers, some of whom are today’s movers and shakers, both in Hollywood and on Madison Avenue. And they know what they and other boomers (still the the country’s largest consumer segment) like: things that they remembered and enjoyed when they were growing up. Call this boomer nostalgia.

Like it or not, our future--and perhaps the rest of the planet’s--may lie in our past. Now think about that for a minute.

GEORGE H. KUBOTA

Los Angeles

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I read Gritten’s piece with great pleasure. I, too, found “Forrest Gump” to be a mildly amusing film at very best. Its popularity remains a mystery to me. I scratch my head along with the Europeans.

I explain its popularity by stating my own bumper-sticker slogan:

People are stupid.

BENITA BIKE

Sunland