Marcella Massarenti

Dr. Karin A. Waidley

Film and Culture
28 February 2016

Forrest Gump: American History Through the Eyes of the Underdog

Movies that can be re-watched many times, and enjoyed each time just like the first one,
can be hard to find. Forrest Gump, with the richness of its content, the timelessness of its most
memorable scenes, and its unforgettable characters, is one of those movies to many people.
Forrest Gump is a story about changing times, love, friendship, the value of kindness, but before
everything else, it is a lesson on American History narrated in a very peculiar tone. Coming out
in the mid 90s, at the closing of the last century, Forrest Gump does not show us these
variegated, eventful decades in the way a documentary or a school teacher would. Instead, it
presents it in the way in which you would flip an old family picture album, or in which you
would play an old cassette tape of your childhood it is a lovingly look on those times,
sometimes sprinkled with comedic criticism, sometimes painfully honest, and sometimes making
us cry. And what makes Forrest Gump unique is the point of view that it chooses: Forrest Gump
is a wrapping up of recent American history as seen through the eyes of the underdogs, and that
is what ultimately struck with the public.
As a movie that came out 20 year ago and is still 40th place in the top domestic grossing
movies of all time, a chart mostly dominated by laser guns, dinosaurs, CGI explosions, and very
digestible when existent cultural contents, Forrest Gump does a somewhat admirable job at
negotiating with dominant ideologies of ability, gender and race. The main characters of Forrest
Gump are a man with a low IQ, a woman who is victim of abuse, objectification, drug addiction

and AIDS throughout her life, an African American soldier who also has a mental impairment
similar to the one of Forrest, and a disabled veteran with alcoholism and depression. Through
their stories, a variety of different historical and social topics are covered: the availability of
education for the disabled, child abuse and family violence, the objectification of women, the
desegregation of American colleges, the Vietnam war and the condition of African American
soldiers, the Hippie movement, abusive relationships, the Cold War, returning war veterans, the
Black Panthers movement, drugs in the 80s, the spreading of AIDS.
Although the movie puts these underdog characters and these complex topics in the
spotlight, viewers attentive to detail and prone to analyzing films in an oppositional stance will
be able to notice that it still makes constant negotiations with dominant ideologies, and
sometimes reinforces them: Forrest is straight and white, Jenny is nave and needs to be saved on
multiple occasions, African American characters are secondary, several of the liberal or hippy
characters seem to be purposely depicted as ugly and disheveled, Lieutenant Dan is fixed with
a new pair of legs by the end of the movie and marries a really Americanized Vietnamese
woman, the token character of Susan. Yet the movie still carries a lot of value which can be
found for the most part in the way the story is narrated: through the worldview of Forrest, a child
in a man suit who is completely oblivious of race, politics, and social issues, and therefore
compels the viewers to challenge their own biases and opinions.
Through the character of Forrest, the movie picks on blindly conforming people by being
a character who cannot do anything but conforming and agreeing. He is praised for doing what
he is told, he succeeds by nodding and not thinking, in a series of comically exaggerated
occasions or edited historical footage. He does not understand anything of what is happening, but

has an ethical compass which is ultimately what matters, and with which he ends up making a
difference in the life of those around him, even if it is mostly by accident.
Throughout the entire movie, the characters fluctuate in the spectrum between accepting
their destiny and fighting it, about conforming or not, which can be seen as a parallel in the
relationship between the movie and the status quo. Some characters try to find a balance, some
succeed, some fail. Bubbas mother breaks the status quo thanks to Bubbas legacy and the help
of Forrest. Bubba, like other soldiers, diligently complies with what he is ordered to do, and ends
up dying in the battlefield. Lieutenant Dan wants to do nothing but conform to his destiny at the
beginning of the movie, but undergoes a complete transformation thanks to Forrest, becoming
the most rebellious character. Jenny tries to change her status through prayer as a child, she
rebels and travels as a young woman, she struggles to find her destiny for years, and when she
seems to have found one with Forrest, she cannot conform to it at first and runs away, to return
only once she is ready.
The movie can be seen as a relatively cool form of media: most of the time, Forrest does
not express his own opinion, so we have to interpret what happens with our own thoughts.
Forrest makes conscious, heroic, non accidental decisions only when his morals are awaken in
situations that he cannot accept, because we the viewers, as a whole, cannot accept them either.
He cannot let Jenny be mistreated or hurt, we want him to intervene. He cannot let Bubba and the
rest of the platoon die in the battlefield, we demand that he saves them. He cannot let himself
lose to depression when Jenny leaves, we need him to run. With the movie as a whole being a
negotiation of hegemonic and oppositional views, a celebration and at the same time a reflective
introspection on the changes in American History from the sixties to the nineties, the neutral,
lovable character of Forrest serves as a timeline and as a mirror on the viewers.

Works Cited
"After Hours - 5 Racist and Sexist Messages Hidden in Forrest Gump." YouTube. Cracked, 12
Jan. 2015. Web. 26 Feb. 2016.
"All Time Domestic Box Office Results." All Time Domestic Box Office Results. Box Office
Mojo, n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.
"Movies We Hate: Forrest Gump." CinemaNerdz. N.p., 04 Apr. 2014. Web. 26 Feb. 2016.