Forrest Gump: The Myth of America

[Music] Forrest Gump is a myth of 20th century America Robert Zemeckis film comprehensively tracks the story of America from the post-world War two period into the post-watergate era and like any good myth it filters historical facts through allegorical characters and a particular language my mom always said life was like a box of chocolates you never know what you're going to get to create a symbolic journey that makes emotional sense out of what was a deeply complicated and confusing era for many Americans somebody's shot that nice young president when he was riding in his car and a few years after that somebody shot his little brother - in this myth forced himself embodies our country's central spirit so as Forrest Gump turns 25 this year here's our take on what this modern American myth has to say about our national identity if you're new here be sure to subscribe and hit the bell to get notified about all her new videos forests life's story is interwoven with major historical events from the 1950s to the 1980s zemeckis even inserts forests into real archival footage in a technique considered pretty cutting-edge when the movie was made in 1994 thus the film rewrites history so that the character is there the secret catalyst of all the events that define our collective memory the lights are often they must be looking for a fuse box or something cuz in flashlights keeping me awake big personal events in his life map onto pivotal historical moments or have recognizable history as a backdrop it was the happiest moment of my life the film also uses the most iconic music associated with the periods it covers [Music] making this feel at times close to an audio visual textbook [Applause] the result of this historical rewrite is that forest story is America's story it begins with the shameful past forest is named after Nathan Bedford Forrest the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan so the story starts in the shadow of America's original sin his childhood in the 50s is pretty peaceful and happy just like the decade was a prosperous one for many Americans forests confusion as he runs straight off the college football field very confusing reflects the 60s tumultuously in Vietnam he watches his friends get killed and wounded in a war that doesn't make sense I don't know much about anything but I think some of America's best young man served in this war personally feeling the defining American tragedy of this era the cultural divide between establishment types and counterculture hippies again effects Forrest very personally as he and his loved Jenny are separated by their very different paths we have very different lives you know Forrest helps open up US relations with Communist China post military life he becomes an exemplary entrepreneur transforming a dinky boat into a successful shrimping business literally overnight we got more money in the daily coffee so he lives that American ideal of getting obscenely rich through simple perseverance then he's an early investor in the tech boom he got me invested in some kind of fruit company in 1976 Forrest sets off on a three-year cross-country run after Jenny leaves him and his personal heartbreak is linked to a national need to heal and process the tumult of the 60s some reason when I was doing seem to make sense to Jenny's death in the early 80s is part of the dawning AIDS crisis I have some kind of virus and the doctors don't I don't know what it is and there isn't anything they can do about it and it symbolizes a mourning for something beautiful and pure of our national character that was lost in these times but while he'll never be over his grief for Jenny his touching life as a father and the vast potential of his son forced jr. he's very smart he's one of the smartest in his class leave us with optimism that the kids and the future of America will be alright so what exactly is the movie trying to say by choosing this unassuming largely passive simpleton to carry the mantle of our country's history at first glance Forrest lacks stereotypical American traits like ambition ego self interest or career goals the very first thing we're told about him is that he's slow witted Forrest even his last name Gump is a word for fool yet he achieves all the trappings of the classic American dream serving his country becoming a successful capitalist meeting presidents and starting a family with a woman he's always loved and while it may seem he Rises purely thanks to dumb luck in fact he possesses key qualities that account for his success and reflect something about our national character one of his greatest gifts is his single-minded focus and straightforward dedication to the task at hand when someone gives Forrest a simple Direction like to run across a field keep his eye on a ping-pong ball or reassemble a gun he excels at this jesus H Christ this is a new company Rick it's like there's no extra clutter in his brain distracting him and getting in the way of his focus and because he's so unintellectual he never gets bored with tasks others would find repetitive and this aspect of forests nature maybe getting at how the US does well when it channels its energy into achieving very clear objectives another of forests defining skills is his ability as a runner which symbolizes stamina and resilience when I got there I figured since I gone this far might as well turn around his love of running captures an American enthusiasm and all-or-nothing attitude if you're going to do something why walk when you could run and it also represents the fortitude to keep going no matter how tough it gets my mom always said you got to put the past behind you before you can move on and I think that's what my running was all about in the scene where a group of local teenage boys chase forests their car features a prominent Confederate flag license plate as if forest is trying to outrun the evils and pain of our country yet forest always does outrun whatever dangerous after him even as the forces chasing him get more and more formidable even though forests life is marked by disadvantages he has a low IQ a crooked spine and an absent father he miraculously overcomes his disability now you wouldn't believe [Music] so his superpower reveals the optimism at the heart of this movie the implied message is that our country's 20th century journey is about triumphing over darkness even when it seems impossible Jenny first tells for us to run away from problems but forests impulse to run is ultimately a zeal for running itself embodying the wisdom that the journey is really the destination used to be I ran to get Wow when Bubba later repeats Jenny's instructions during battle Forrest characteristically does what he's told but he quickly sees a problem with running away threat so far so fast it's pretty soon I was all by myself which was a bad thing so he runs back into the line of fire Bubba was my best good friend I had to make sure he was okay what's beautiful about the scene of him rescuing his wounded brothers is the simplicity of his motivation in contrast to the grandiosity of lieutenant Dan's dream of dying heroically his instinctual understanding that we don't leave our friends behind is what heroism really is this scene also shows that when the core things he knows are important are on the line Forrest isn't just mindlessly obedient so Forrest is actually a lot smarter than people think in a critical way it's just that he really only concerns himself with the few things that truly matter Bubba was my best good friend and even high no that ain't something you can find just around the corner forest also has a total lack of ego and a down-to-earth love of his home qualities many successful Americans pay lip service to but rarely practice and coz that was a gazillionaire and I like doing it so much I cut that grass for free and while forest is not a creative ideas guy himself he's responsible for Elvis's moves say man crazy little walk you just did there the lyrics to imagine and in China they never go to church no religion too hard to imagine it's easy if you try dick and the [ __ ] happens slogan happens [ __ ] all these revelations come out of his ability to be himself in a totally unfiltered unselfconscious way and this realness sparks breakthroughs and others most fundamentally he embodies through egalitarianism you're the same as everybody else the virtue of being receptive and an inexhaustible ability to love I'm not a smart man but I know what love is if forest is the central spirit of America the supporting characters represent other key mythical or spiritual aspects of our national identity forests first inspiration is his mother who represents fierce love of family my boy forest is going to get the same opportunities as everyone else and the power of a homegrown folk wisdom life is a box of chocolates forest you never know what you're gonna get mrs. gums words are essentially a Bible to her son which translates the complicated world into accessible language and evocative metaphors I'm always had a way of explaining things so I could understand them almost all his beliefs come from her mom always said there's an awful lot you could tell about a person by their shoes now mom was sad days only so much fortune a man really needs and the rest is just for showing up mama always said dying was a part of life when he needs guidance he looks for ways to interpret his mother's teachings as needed just as one might interpret a Bible verse is any more mama Gump instills in forests the liberating knowledge that despite differences in our gifts and our fortunes from the deepest human level everyone is really equal more often in our American culture we emphasize telling kids they're special one-of-a-kind but the characters in this story who feel they're special smart important or entitled to a special life suffer due to that thinking I was Lieutenant Dan Taylor you still lieutenant thing for stable well-adjusted temperament comes out of the philosophical tools his mama gave him for processing this world especially what's dark and troubling about it I mean what's vacation mean vacation we're daddy went vacations when you go somewhere and you don't ever come back she doesn't lie to Forrest that he's smarter than he is instead she drills into him the point that he has control over whether he does stupid things or not and that's what really counts each day better something promises to business if it does so instead of denying her sons disadvantages or shielding him from the upsetting aspects of life or history mama said that the forest part was to remind me that sometimes we all do things that well just don't make no sense she equips him with a matter-of-fact worldview that doesn't allow adversity or hardships to make him feel disempowered I guess you could say me and Mama was on our own but we didn't mind later we see pretty much every other character unable to deal with the kind of adversity that forest overcomes you know what it's like not to be able to use your legs yes I do and his resilience is largely thanks to his mother's education which taught him to look truths in the face while not letting anyone talk you out of the most important things you know deep down he didn't want to be called crippled just like I didn't want to be called stupid forests childhood sweetheart Jenny represents historical trauma her father's abuse leads her to repeat a pattern of self harming choices and toxic relationships with men for a long time she rejects forests love I would never hurt you I know you wouldn't force seemingly because she thinks she should be with a man who will hurt her would never hurt you Forrest and Jenny are inversions of each other forest is slow while Jenny is very smart and perceptive forest grows up contented in the warmth of his mother's unconditional love while the first thing Jenny knows of this world is her father's abuse Forrest runs everywhere toward the world Jenny shares that open go where life leads you attitude but for her it's really running away her recurring desire is to become a bird but she can never escape the pain she's trying to be free from that guy flashes fresh because it's deep inside her eating her from within sometimes I guess there just aren't enough rocks in the novel that Forrest Gump is based on Forrest wasn't as squeaky-clean but Richard Corliss writes that in the film adaptation screenwriter Eric Roth transferred all of forests flaws and most of the excesses Americans committed in the 60s and 70s to her so we can see how the film explicitly turns Jenny into a symbol of America's inability to heal from past wounds I just I want to apologize for anything that I ever did to you cuz I was messed up for a long time she represents the 60s counterculture that strove to break with past injustice and create a future based on love and equality she discovered ways to expand her and learn how to live in harmony but Jenny is too wounded to really do this so her dreams of peace give way to attempts to escape reality just as the free love movement eventually deteriorated in a similar way despite her tragic fate jenny represents an incredible beauty in the American spirit in history the idealism of the 60s was a remarkable dream likewise in forests eyes nothing and no one compares to Jenny she was like an angel I've never named a boat before but there was only one I could think of the most beautiful name forests life is always tinged with sadness because however much he prospers the one he loves isn't with him for most of it this incredible person with so much potential can never live the life she should because she was terrorized by the man who brought her into this world and that's a terrible injustice so though Forrest himself embodies the optimism and resilience of our national character his love for Jenny captures that the losses and suffering of the less fortunate among us will always color even our country's greatest joys and achievements as happy as Forrest is being a dad to force jr. he'll never stop missing Jenny Michigan Bubba represents the American entrepreneurial spirit his dream is to start his own business and rise on the capitalist ladder business for myself it's significant that the one main character of color in the film has the most capitalists drive for this young black man the capitalist American dream represents the chance to make a better life than his ancestors had his mama cooks rent and her mama before her cooks ramp and her Milan for her mama cook shrimp - and after Bubba dies and Forrest makes his dream a reality we see the power of money in freeing Bubba's mother from that oppressive history she didn't have to work nobody's catching on well yet Bubba himself never gets to make this happen so he also becomes a symbol of the great human potential that our country has lost to senseless Wars Bubba's Trenton bulk captain but daddy died right there by that rather than that lieutenant dan represents the American military tradition somebody and his family had fought and died in every his wish to continue in his ancestors footsteps captures the military's illustrious past and how it's a way of life for generations of American families but his crisis in Vietnam interrupts that tradition and shatters his worldview this gets at how Vietnam made people question previous assumptions that America was the good guy instead of finding glory Lieutenant Dan is permanently scarred and returns to a world that doesn't respect his sacrifice yet in the end this man comes to be grateful that he survived I never thanked you for saving my life and the suggestion is that by making it through this test he comes out the other side with a richer understanding of what life's about he never actually said so but I think he made his peace with God finally Jenny's in forests son little Forrest signals the promise of the next generation he embodies the best of both his parents his mother's intelligence every night we read a book this is so smart and his father's open-hearted capacity for love 11 the movie tells us that this young boy does not represent a departure from history he has his father's first name and will grow up in the exact same house so little Forrest represents the power of building and improving upon our country's past to live up to our full potential I'm gonna share that for Sterling telling us Ramage to read it to you this film and its values are as American as apple pie why are you so good to me you're my girl it celebrates capitalism and lets us buy into the dream of becoming rich it emphasizes the importance of being a good person who loves your hometown and your mother and it hints at a divine presence watching over us the filmmakers intended the story to be a political but Forrest Gump isn't about politics or conservative values it's about humanity even when Forrest speaks his thoughts on the Vietnam War the mic gets unplugged so we don't get to hear them that's the right on me within the story his fellow citizens can't understand how he can have no political ideology everywhere he goes they try to project motivations on to him Forrest grounds his story and events that dominate our collective national memory and which are inextricably bound up with personal memories so the goal of this exercise is to bring us together with shared stories and to illustrate the link between personal and communal well-being mom always said there's an awful lot you could tell about a person by their shoes where they go where they've been his gift for storytelling echoes the us's ability to craft a narrative about itself that people want to buy into well it was a very lovely story and you tell it so well such enthusiasm if there's one image that this modern American myth has made eternal its young Forrest breaking free of his restraints and doing what nobody thought he could do never letting the bullies in the darkness of the world overtake him and this too is Forrest Gump's fundamental belief about the American spirit we can do the impossible and so you just run hi guys it's Susanna and Deborah and we are gonna take if you like what we're doing and you're new here please subscribe [Music]

Channel: The Take

Views: 1,210,866

Keywords: forrest gump, forrest gump soundtrack, forrest gump vietnam, forrest gump running scene, forrest gump jenny, forrest gump ending, tom hanks, robin wright, robert zemeckis

Id: 2Aactzo5myg

Length: 24min 44sec (1484 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 03 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Mark422]

Great video. I even kept watching after I finished my cheeseburger. Now I want to watch Forrest Gump again.

[u/Nfox24]

This was a great analysis of the film as an epic allegory interwoven with personal experience.