#71. Forrest Gump (1994)

I have always had a love/hate relationship with “Forrest Gump.”

When I first saw it in theaters I completely tuned it out when Forrest’s best friend Bubba was killed in Vietnam, citing the Def Comedy Jam staple of “why does the brotha always have to die?” Since that time I have seen this film quite a few times in fragments but haven’t watched it start to finish in quite some time until it came up on this list. I am able to appreciate it more now than in previous years but I am also able to notice its flaws as well.

Tom Hanks basically reinvents himself as an actor in this film, despite having turned out his first good role a few years earlier in “Philadelphia” this was really the film that dictated the direction his career would head. He absolutely nails the part of Forrest, a mentally-challenged Alabaman who winds up living an extraordinary life that included meeting 3 Presidents, being a war hero and even teaching Elvis to dance, largely indifferent to his surroundings due to his level of cognition. He treats meeting Presidents, becoming a celebrity spokesperson and receiving the Medal of Honor as commonplace because he has no reason to believe his life is any different than anyone else’s.

The most interesting thing about the characters that Forrest comes into contact with is the fact that they are unconsciously able to relate to his status as a societal minority. His earliest friend and love of his life Jenny is a woman in 1950’s Alabama, his battle-buddy Bubba is a young black man during the civil-rights movement and, upon returning home from Vietnam his friend Lt. Dan Taylor is a disabled societal castoff.

There is also conscious and unconscious exploitation of Forrest’s good nature on differing degrees from the various people in his world. His mother convinces him that it is ok to lie for the sake of money when he is reluctant to endorse a ping-pong paddle. Bubba needs someone else to go in with him to purchase his coveted shrimping boat so he taps Forrest for the partnership despite Forrest having no skill or interest in said trade. Lt. Dan keeps Forrest around for his ability to push his wheelchair and make his life more convenient but in all honesty it is just as likely he just wants the company.

However, nobody is a bigger user, and with more cold motives than his beloved Jenny. The way she strings Forrest along repeatedly in the film and comes and goes from his life as she pleases and as it benefits her makes her probably the most malicious character in the film. Ironically, the most selfless act she commits is the one that seems to be the most questionable. When she asks Forrest to marry her after finding out how wealthy he has become, it seems like very exploitative timing, however it becomes more and more evident that she is desperate to find someone who can take care of her and Forrest’s son after her inevitable death.

There is, albeit an implied commentary on American society in this film that is very important to mention. While the levels are differing, the “bad sides” of the characters are exposed in one way or another except in Forrest. It is sad but true to think that the only people who are seemingly incapable of hurting other people is the person with the developmental disability.

A consistent theme in the narrative of “Forrest Gump” is the use of heavy implication without actually coming out and saying certain things. Forrest talks about how Jenny’s dad “was always kissing and touching her and her sister,” His mother tells him his father is “on vacation” to explain his absence but never says if he ran away, died or never really existed in the first place and when Jenny reveals that she has “some kind of virus” which eventually kills her, it is a safe assumption that it is AIDs, but we can’t be sure. In doing so, not only are we left wondering about the gravity of what is being described, but also it is just ambiguous enough to where we understand the things being talked about are bad, but not sure how bad, thus we have the same level of understanding that Forrest does.

” This is a new company record! If it wouldn't be such a waste of a damn-fine enlisted man I'd recommend you for OCS! You are gonna be a general someday, Gump!” (Drill Sergeant, “Forrest Gump”)

I know this film was intended to be very inspirational, but the one sequence that makes me stand up and cheer above all others is a brief back-reference to an earlier scene. When describing Bubba’s family’s back-story Forrest mentions that several generations of Bubba’s family had been servants for white people. After Forrest donates Bubba’s share of his fortune to his mother, an incredible scene results where we see that she has her own white “slave” to wait on her, and her the view outside of her window reveals a spread far more opulent than anything any of the other white people who had previously “employed” her family ever attained.

Of course, I can’t summarize/praise this film without mentioning the special effects. The way Forrest is transposed into footage of JFK, Dick Cavett and the iconic de-segregation of the University of Alabama is practically videofied Photoshopping. Also, the way Lt. Dan’s legs are digitally removed really goes the extra mile, as any other movie would simply have just filmed him from the waist up or the waist down. It is a credit to this film that these amazing special effects can still be amazing but not take the focus off the movie itself.

There are things about this film that I intensely dislike is the unrealism of the dialogue. It is forgivable with Forrest for obvious reasons, because he wouldn’t talk like a normal, well adjusted adult- and even when people talk to him would be understandable because they feel like they have to talk to him like a child. However, even the communication between the other characters is incredibly hokey and the communication with Forrest is even worse.

My other biggest complaint about this film is, ironically, something that I tend to go apeshit for in most other movies: symbolism. The use of symbolism is done so obviously and so dumbed-down that it actually loses its effectiveness. The most obvious example of this is the feather that floats carelessly in the breeze both at the beginning and the end. What could have been a metaphor for the whole movie- and something that everyone could interpret to mean something else, instead, by having Forrest talk about how his mother says our lives are similar to an object floating around on a breeze takes this right away from us and tells us what we have to believe.

The other most overblown use of symbolism is the metaphor of birds and flight representing our souls. When Jenny and Forrest are hiding from her angry father she prays to be a bird so she can fly away from her situation as a flock of birds flies away from her house. No less than three more times, including two implied suicide contemplations, Jenny speaks about being able to fly and, eventually, when Forrest talks to her grave another flock of birds flies off, as if her soul has been carried away. This final reference to this comparison could have been so powerful had it been a solitary and subdued bird- instead it is a loud and almost aggressive swarm that makes sure it is idiot-proof enough for a mainstream audience to “get” and still feel intelligent.

As is the case with anything else, when something becomes TOO much a part of popular culture then, through no fault of its own, it becomes played out. It happened with “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,” it happened with “Yada, yada, yada” and more recently it happened with Kanye West’s infamous “Yo, Imma let you finish…” Perhaps the most overly referenced movie in the last 20 years has been “Forrest Gump.” Who hasn’t shouted “Run Forrest, Run!” at a particularly ridiculously attired jogger? Do you know anyone named Jenny who you haven’t referred to at least once in a delayed “Jen-ney” cadence? I didn’t think so…