Why half the internet hates Forrest Gump

“Nothing good comes from going online. You get online and see they hated Forrest Gump. Freakin’ best movie ever.”

- Ray Romano, The Big Sick

It was 12 in the night and I'd just put off my chemistry homework for another day when I decided to rewatch one of the classic ‘it’s ok if you suck at school, you can still be successful’ movies - Forrest Gump. I remember the first time I saw it was with my mother - when she half-covered my eyes during the Jenny strip club scene and spent the whole time convincing me how it was the greatest movie ever. Ever since then I’ve pretty much held the Tom Hanks classic in the highest regard, always recommending it to people and chatting it up whenever mentioned. That was until I rewatched it for the fourth time and happened to notice a few … problems.

At face value, it is a moving story about a man with a low IQ, who against all odds happened to outdo Barbie with his accomplishments and careers. At the start, he’s behind other kids and gets bullied. As a coping mechanism, he starts running which eventually gets him a university scholarship. Following that he plays for the big leagues, becomes a war hero, gets the girl he wants, becomes a multimillionaire, and accomplishes the big Uncle Sam money-grubbing dream. There isn’t practically a thing Forrest doesn’t achieve and throughout these experiences he remains a down-to-earth, humble, helpful, and loyal friend and human being. Nothing better than that for a 1 AM movie binge session, especially when you have 3 assignments due the same day.

So, I rewatched it and the seemingly little things which I dismissed earlier seemed much larger now. I still didn’t hate it but I’d probably cross it out of my three movies on an island list.

What went wrong? How did one of my favourite movies become something I'd press for the censor board to take out the Padmavat guns on?

Bluntly put, the movie embodies the American 1980s conservative fantasy. It has a single takeaway - listen to the government and do exactly as you’re told. And that’s all Forrest does throughout the movie, and he ends up a famous millionaire, entrepreneur, war hero, athlete, and pop culture icon. And the movie goes on to feed you the same ideology for the next 90 mins. Forrest never forms his own opinions or freely expresses himself at any point. He’s just a puppet controlled by those around him. Right or wrong Forrest keeps his mouth shut and keeps getting richer and more successful. He’s the average white Ronald Regan American man who played his cards right by placing his bets on a government whose single motive was to make sure men like him end up at the top. Scene after scene in the movie vomits out the Regan ideologies - the glorification of the Vietnam war, the condemning the right to protest, the whole karma circle depicted through Lieutenant Dan Taylor’s storyline.

My second problem with the movie is how it portrays - or in this case, barely portrays - POC and the African American community. It’s also concerning how in order to get a few giggles the movie goes on to play into racial stereotypes and lets Forrest’s inability to understand racism be the reason it placed under comedy in the Netflix section.

The film’s plot spends its early minutes making fun of him; showing his thick-headedness and inability to do anything right. He’s an average American idiot- falling over, running around on the football field, and getting shot in his buttocks during the Vietnam War. Through the eyes of this extremely dim character, we see the reflections of many social and political issues going on in America in the 90s - except the effect of these was somewhat lost on me. It seems as if all the ongoing issues haven’t just been dumbed down, they’ve been dismissed and, in a way, ridiculed. In a particular scene where black students are being admitted into the University of Alabama, Forrest unknowingly compares them to raccoons and suggests they be chased out with a broom. I don’t understand what the point of this whole scene was? It was senseless and unjustified. Plus, it didn’t add much comedic relief. His being as idealized and portrayed as a hero for that comment made this even worse.

In another instance, the film portrays the Black Panthers as a meaningless pot-smoking group of hippies and demeans their relevance and their purpose at the time. Again, I don’t think these are deal-breaking aspects but they did certainly put it down on the favourites list.

The biggest problem which I had with the movie was how it destroyed Jenny’s character - and I mean ran over it with a big monster truck painted with the conservative 20th-century patriarchal American dream. Jenny is the anti-Forrest. To start off with she is female, so a complex character with actual emotions and feelings, independent of the male lead can’t be expected. She’s Forrest’s childhood friend - the only other prominent female in his life along with his mom. Jenny was abused as a child multiple times by her father, who was the only parent she had growing up. This too is portrayed only through Forrest’s memories and words and as he puts it “He [Jenny's father] was a very loving man, always kissing and touching her and her sisters.” The problem with this is pretty obvious to anyone with a decent sense of morality. Getting abused and ‘dumb-ing’ the issue down just isn’t ok -it’s offensive and disrespectful. Further Jenny is demonized throughout the movie. Everything she does and says, all her hopes and dreams are ‘wrong’ and immoral while Forrest is always right -even though he never does much. She’s portrayed as the broken girl who needs fixing. Her independence and efforts to try to build a life that she is proud of are seen as desperate cries for help and attention which are always answered by a big strong man who never takes no for an answer. Forrest has been in love with jenny since day one and he’s getting her, even if it takes robbing her of all her choices. Jenny is a misguided, short-sighted, protesting hippy who sleeps around, doubts the government, and associates herself with pretentious groups like the Black Panthers. She’s exactly what 90s America hated, so it’s no wonder she undergoes a sudden transformation when Forrest punches a black man for her. She decides enough with being my own individual person let me have his kids and then die an early death- because that’s what the aftermath of my childhood abuse leads to.

Her getting AIDS was the cherry on top of the sundae of anti-leftist propaganda. It did make me cry though.’

To summarize I don’t hate Forrest Gump. I’m not really sure how I feel about it anymore. At face value, all I see is a mashup of government propaganda, racial and derogatory jokes shoved into your mouth under the pretense of comedy - I’m sure Netflix has a whole separate section for these types of movies.