There’s films on the AFI top 100 list, featuring protagonists who commit horrific crimes. Movies plagued with racial controversy. A comedy where the world blows up at the end. Yet, the most controversial movie on this list, by far, is one about a nice man sitting on a bench, sharing his life story.
Looking at the Unspooled Facebook Group (based off of the awesome podcast we’re loosely following the order of), there was so much VICIOUS arguing about the film that all threads on it had to be deleted. There are some people who argue that this movie is terrible and robbed better films of an award. And there are others that argue this is one of the greatest ever made.
Since I tend to focus on the positives of the movies, I’m not really interested in talking about the flaws of the movie. Instead, I want to talk about the reasons that it touches the people who do love it--hopefully giving those who hate it a better understanding of the love for the movie (not saying you will or should like it any more), and giving those who love it something to relate to.
So here we are with 1994’s Forrest Gump, written by Winston Groom and directed by Robert Zemeckis.
Floating feather
A chief criticism I’ve heard about the film is that it seems to be saying, “it’s good to be dumb,” as Forrest certainly is, and it’s implying that good things are a reward for stupidity.
I would agree with this sentiment if Forrest bragged about or even realized his accomplishments: “I started the Watergate scandal, came up with multiple famous slogans, and inspired the song ‘Imagine.’ I guess I’m pretty dang amazing.” But fortunately he never does. He’s blind to much of the history he caused.
This tells me that Forrest Gump is more of a symbol than an actual character who’s doing all of these things. He is the randomness of life, standing in for what I believe is part of the film’s true message: “life is unpredictable.”
It’s Forrest’s oblivious actions cause the butterfly effect that lead to these momentous events. Like that floating feather, he’s just moving in any direction his life is taking him. His number one priority are the people in his life, and all of these “accomplishments” mean very little to him. As he says about becoming rich “And so then I get a call from him [Lieutenant Dan] saying we don’t have to worry about money no more, and I said, ‘that’s good, one less thing.’”
And all of that plays into the movie’s bigger message.
Accepting your box of chocolates
Another criticism against the film is that Forrest doesn’t change much throughout it. And yeah, while he has some big emotional moments, he does stay relatively the same Forrest throughout.
However, the movie’s arks, in my opinion, revolve way more around Jenny and Lieutenant Dan. Both of them are completely unhappy with their lives: Jenny, after years of abuse, tries many identities in order to feel normal again, and Lieutenant Dan, wishes he would have died in service to his country. Then throughout the course of the film both characters gain happiness.
This happiness seems to be an acceptance of themselves, Jenny accepting that she is enough, and Lieutenant Dan accepting that life is worth living. This is why I believe a core message is “acceptance is the key to happiness.”
This isn’t a defeated kind of acceptance, like “life sucks, and I’m not even going to try.” This is the type of acceptance spiritual leaders tend to talk about. The acceptance of who you are, so you can make your life better.
When Jenny hits acceptance (maybe partly through her kid and her sickness), she rewards herself by accepting into her life the one person who’s always loved her unconditionally. When Lieutenant Dan hits it, he rewards himself with legs and by finding love himself.
This message as a whole turns out to be, “life is random, but if you accept it, you can be happy.” However you feel about Forrest Gump, I don’t think almost everyone can agree that it’s a powerful statement.
And thus even though he’s the titular character and the one who’s telling the story, Forrest isn’t really the protagonist. The protagonist is all the people that he changes.
Notice as the characters in his life become more accepting, so do the listeners to his story, each one becoming more interested and engaged than the one before.
When we watch Forrest Gump, we get to be these listeners--especially at the end when he starts living the story out in real time.
So for all of the film’s flaws, it does do something undeniable: it touches some people and inspires them. It makes people feel not alone and maybe even brings them a little closer to happiness.
You might be one of those people, you might not be, or you might be somewhere in between, but whatever the case is, the fact that the movie does this for some, can’t be denied.
Forrest might have not really taught Elvis his dance, but he did, at least in 2007, showed affect viewers and American movie history.
Thanks for reading!
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