I don't understand the Jenny hate. Did they expect her to stay with Forrest and wait for him at home just baking pies and listening to the radio while he went off to war, sailed his shrimp boat, toured as a ping pong champion, and then just fucked off to go running for two years?
Gump and Jenny were both rolling stones. She wanted to be free, and fly far far away from the home where she was abused. She wanted her own adventures. Gump was her best friend, but she didn't have the capacity for the relationship he wanted.
Jenny was molested as a child by her dad, and though she loved forrest, when she slept with him, she felt like she molested him because of his condition. This caused her to run away and fall back into self loathing and drugs, thinking she just became her own father. She loved Forrest more than anything, that's why she stayed away, because she was a ticking time bomb and didn't want to hurt him. When she found out she was dying she accepted her love for Forrest and realized he was the only good person in her life, and the only one she trusted to raise their son
Not sure why you were downvoted, but this is always how I saw it. Jenny wasn’t the terrible person she’s so often been made out to be, she was deeply broken and dealing with massive trauma, of course she’s going to act irrationally.
She’s an amazing character with so much depth that most people just reduce to ‘that selfish bitch’. It irks me.
Thank you, that clears it up. I saw the movie several times as a kid, and haven't watched it in a long time. I never made the connection as to why she left the next morning.
I understand people not looking at Jenny critically enough. She was abused and damaged in at least one way and obviously didn't act rationally as a result.
As for Forrest, all he wanted was her. Yes, he would have still gone off to war like most young men at the time, but he would have taken her with him on the shrimp boat. Or abandoned that plan, if she asked. He probably wouldn't have devoted as much time practicing ping pong and he definitely wouldn't have been so disillusioned with the world to go running for 2 years straight.
For better or worse, Forrest focused on his pursuits and achievements, because Jenny never really accepted or chose him when she had the chance.
What's irrational? She chose to go live an independent life. She might not have made the best choices, but just because Forrest was in love with her doesn't mean it would have been rational to stay with him. They were best friends as kids because he was devoted to her, and she had nobody in her life she could trust.
Maybe a part of her felt like she would be taking adavantage of Forrest?
Maybe ahe felt like she didn't deserve his devotion?
Maybe she was scared to love someone and get hurt? Or watch him abandon his dreams to support her? Or watch him grow up and change?
Whatever the reason, it was her choice. A lot of the criticism feels like incels mad that she made a choice at all. She doesn't owe Forrest her love. He's not entitiled to her presence just because he's a good guy.
Also she was clearly suffering from really bad ptsd from their childhood and not coping well. Her whole life was basically her version of the years of running until she had a kid
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She had Hep C
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She was an abuse victim (remember when her dad raped her in like the first 5 minutes? Also how every single man after abuses her?) who could only associate feeling love with being abused. For her to accept Forrest's love she had to first accept that not all love comes with abuse.
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Shut up
- Forrest had a serious intellectual disability, and she almost certainly felt like she was taking advantage of him.
It's more complex than love = abuse. When we see it that way, it's a no brainer. It's being raised in abuse you equate love to the escape from the pain. Which usually stems from the excitement found elsewhere. Such as playing guitar naked on stage or with civil rights extremists.
It takes years to feel that a normal relationship is what is right for you. Some of it is her fault for not finding that in herself. Some of it is her upbringing. I find her performance when she shows Forrest his son spot the fuck on for someone raised in such chaos and regretting their young behavior. They mean well, they just are unaware of their effects. Should they be aware? Absolutely. Is it their fault? Yes. Does it take them awhile? Yes. They could be battling addiction as well. Another escape.
I still don't understand the Jenny hate. She was a very real character I have met many times in my life.
I think the hate comes from an overall immaturity (I don't mean this as an insult) in the audience. Forrest Gump is a really solid family movie because its characters are thoughtful and offer many things for a viewer to latch onto. As a child, I remember not really caring for Jenny's behavior. It didn't make sense to me, I hadn't yet picked up on the sexual abuse from her father, her scenes were too sporadic for me to keep up with her character arc enough to care, etc. But I adored Forrest and loved watching him stumble his way into success. That was 20 years ago, and I've come to appreciate Jenny's character for how much depth she holds. When I rewatch the movie, it's because her story hits an emotional resonance with me. All that's changed for me is I've learned to care more about a life like hers.
I think it takes a certain amount of emotional intelligence to appreciate her character, and not everyone is there.
Wait when was it confirmed she had hep C?
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Everybody gets the Jenny hate wrong. She deserves hate, but the incel obsession with simping and baby traps has the whole thing twisted.
The main thrust of the plot is that Forrest is an unreliable narrator. Almost every joke is how he misunderstands the situation. Now think about the most famous "run Forrest run" scene. Have you ever wondered why the bullies didn't pick on Jenny? We know they didn't because Forrest would have defended her. What probably happened was that Jenny switched sides upon the arrival of the bullies and "run Forrest run" was a taunt as she threw rocks.
Jenny putting Forrest in sexual situations probably didn't start when they were College age either. Jenny's upbringing was tragic, and we know the abused are likely to abuse others. If you think about Jenny's early years, Forrest was probably the only thing in her life she had control over.
The idea that Jenny baby-trapped Forrest doesn't make sense with the themes of their relationship overall. Why would she trick him? Forrest would have taken the kid even if he knew he wasn't the father. Jenny's biggest transgression is not telling Forrest he was a father, but keeping that information from him for years.
The sexually abused are NOT more likely to abuse others. They are no more likely to abuse than anyone randomly plucked from the population. A sexual abuser likely having been sexually abused in the past does not mean the same thing.
You ARE more like to physically abuse others if you grew up with regular physical abuse as your normal though. Even then, it's only statistically significant with men and the poor when you dig into thr data.
https://www.nichd.nih.gov/newsroom/releases/042115-podcast-child-abuse
People abused as children are more likely to be abused as adults.
https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-016-1071-7
This right here is why I enjoy Lemmy. Come for the shitposts, stay for the quality analysis.
I came for the analysis, I stay for the Fuck spez.
This is a much darker reading of the film than I'd encountered.
Yeah, Jenny is a severely flawed character who makes some bad choices.
That what makes her a good character.
I feel like in the past 10 years or so we've seen a subtle shift where we now expect characters to be held to standards higher than we hold our real neighbors. As if art has stopped imitating life but instead now art projects a sterilized or idealized version of the world. Like now when a character is flawed, they aren't just flawed, they're wrong, and personally I think that's wrong.
Not every character in every media is meant to be a role model, and there are stories and lessons to be gleaned even from those who don't live up to idealized standards.
And yes, I know this is a shitpost; chill out, we can still have a discussion even if it results from a joke
Forrest Gump is one of the many stories that could use two viewpoints from both the guy and the girl like they did in 500 Days of Summer or The Affair. It's much easier to sympathize with someone when you get to see the story the way they experience it.
The moral of every movie does not need to be spoonfed to the audience.
I always thought it was a stupid movie from when I first saw it in the theater. Stupid and incredibly maudlin. I have no idea why it was so beloved and the Oscars, aside from the technical ones, baffled me.
I mean Tom Hanks is a good actor, but at best you can say he played a ludicrous character in a ludicrous movie as best he could. I wouldn't give him an Emmy for Bosom Buddies either.
Also, my wife read the book and apparently it, and Forrest, are very different. She said Forrest is kind of an asshole in the book.
The book is incredible and I heartily recommend everyone read it just for how batshit insane it is. Here's a taste:
Book Spoilers
In the book, the speech during the March on Washington doesn't happen. Instead, Forrest joins the march and is egged into throwing his Medal of Honor away in protest. It hits a senator and he's arrested. He is offered a deal to join NASA to avoid jail time. He is sent into space with a monkey and female astronaut. The monkey pees on the controls and they land in the rainforest. They're captured by natives. When rescue comes the woman decides to stay, and it's implied it's because she's screwing the natives.
He has a stint as a Professional Wrestler and The Creature from Black Lagoon.
Also, Bubba doesn't die.
It's total insanity. Full of blue humor and raunchy sex. Is it good? Not particularly. Is it interesting? Absolutely.
Again, strongly recommend everyone read it. It truly is a trip.
The real story was showing that part of American history: the culture, events, people, etc. Forrest and Jenny were just plot devices to tie it all together.
I think nostalgia carried the movie.
I know it was Hep C, but Hep C usually takes a LOOOOONNGG time to kill ya. Like, at least 20 years. Even then you die of cancer or cirrhosis of the liver. As far back as the 80’s they had interferon which isn’t perfect, but between all the factors she still would have been fairly unlucky to die from Hep C. Especially so young.
It wasn't Hep C. though. People saying it was are talking about the book, which is different.
In 2019, Forrest Gump screenwriter Eric Roth confirmed that the illness Jenny died from was late-stage HIV. During an interview (via Yahoo Entertainment) about the film's 25th anniversary, Roth discussed the details of a sequel that was canceled after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. He reveals that the Forrest Gump sequel was actually going to open with the revelation that Forrest Jr. had late-stage HIV, the result of acquiring the disease from his mother, Jenny.
https://screenrant.com/forrest-gump-movie-jenny-mother-illness-death-hiv/
I didn’t know that about the sequel. That’s pretty cool. I did know about the difference between the book and the movie. I read a similar discussion a few days ago. But your information is new to me.
As someone that contracted Hep C Genotype 2 from IV drug use, and has now been “cured” (meaning I have an undetectable viral load 10+ years later) though technically you are never cured from a virus. I did a brutal regimen of peg interferon and ribavirin for 6 months. The side effects are fucking horrible.
Because of this I have read about Hep C pretty exhaustively. Someone said that Jenny could have caught it from being sexually abused as a child from her father. While plausible, it is an incredibly remote chance. Hep C isn’t in body fluids like HIV. Hep C has to be blood to blood. The chances of transmission with surface blood to surface blood is incredibly remote not impossible, but not probable.
For these reasons and more it bothers me that Hep C is used as her killer in the book. It’s such an unlikely killer, and the main way you get it is through unsavory activities like IV drug use. It seems like the author chose Hep C just as a punishment for her horrible life choices. Almost like Jenny is a yin to Forrest’s yang.
Anyway, I could keep going on about this for more paragraphs, but you may know all this already, and even if you don’t you probably have better things to do with your time.
Not that surprising if she got it from her dad when she was like 6 years old
Don't shitpost if you can't handle the comments. Nobody needs that useless disclaimer. People will comment whatever they want without checking in with you first. As they should.
Bro here is the type to get severe triggered by the phrase "trigger warning," which never fails to make me laugh.
Others in the world aren't obligated to cater to your personal sensibilities and you're welcome to scroll past when you dislike something
big "it's just a joke, chill bro" energy
Love the incel worldview where every part of a woman's very complex, very traumatic, very painful life can be reduced to her relationship with a man. And the framing that being a single mom who has aids (which isn't even what she had in the movie) makes her worth less than she was before. Fucking gross. Dunno why this community isn't removing misogynistic trash.
I'm just gonna say what every woman has told me when I bring up how traumatized I am by the actions of women.
"Just because you've been traumatized doesn't mean it's anyone else's problem"
So yeah. Fuck Jenny and her bullshit sob story. She didn't deserve forest and he only stayed faithful because he was mentally disabled.
Wait did I miss the part where they were ever in an official relationship? She's shown with multiple partners. I really don't see how this was a sob story. She never asked him to save her, she never took advantage of his money, she raised young Forrest alone until just before she died. She had a fucked up life starting with her physically and sexually abusive dad and took until just before she died to find peace.
Actually, she did have HIV in the movie, the screenwriter confirmed it a few years ago. She did have hep-c in the book though.
I swear they keep this character in their back pocket when no actual women have done anything to womanhate about lately. I guess Christmas has been quiet for them.
Who’s they here?
