The Bechdel Cast - Forrest Gump with Maia aka Broey Deschanel

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

Life may be like a box of chocolates, but on this episode, you know exactly what you're gonna get, which is Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Maia Wyman aka Broey Deschanel talking about Forrest Gump (1994)! Follow Maia on Instagram at @broey_deschanel, on YouTube at youtube.com/BroeyDeschanel, and check out her podcast, Rehash! Here's our guest's video essay, "The Strange Conservatism of Forrest Gump" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeGeT3ZeKO0  Here is the piece entitled "Autism on Screen: Forrest Gump" - https://aisforaoifenotautism.com/2017/05/19/autism-on-screen-forrest-gump/  and here is the piece entitled "'Forrest Gump' at 25: Disability Representation (For Better and Worse) - https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristenlopez/2019/07/05/forrest-gump-at-25-disability-representation-for-better-and-worse/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

John Stewart is back in the host chair at The Daily Show, which means he's also back in our ears on The Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. Join late night legend John Stewart and the best news team for today's biggest headlines, exclusive extended interviews and more. Now this is a second term we can all get behind. Listen to The Daily Show Ears Edition on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them? Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands? Or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast. Start changing it with the Bechdelcast. Jamie. What? The Bechdel cast. Jamie. What?

The Bechdel cast is like a box of chocolates. Okay, explain that. You never know what you're gonna get. Are we gonna reference Shrek? Maybe? I don't know. When was the last time we gave people something they didn't know they were gonna get? You know what?

You're right. It's pretty predictable. We're probably gonna, again, reference Shrek or Titanic or minions. I will say, when it comes to the life of Forrest Gump, I did not know what I was gonna get. For example, I didn't expect that KKK to come up in the first five minutes of this movie. I'll be honest. Yeah. I'll be honest. And I also didn't expect him to give John Lennon the idea for the song Imagine.

So, you know, if nothing else, this movie delivers on the promise. I did not know what was gonna happen next, even if very often it had me screaming at my Roku. So today's episode, I feel like it's a long time coming. Forrest Gump. Yeah, I'm surprised we haven't talked about it yet. I think I've been like kind of quietly refusing to talk about it's a long time coming, Forrest Gump. Yeah, I'm surprised we haven't talked about it yet. I think I've been like kind of quietly refusing to talk about it for a long time because it's

one of those movies that I'm like almost impressed it's taken me this long to see. But it's over now. We can finally go to Bubba Gump. Yes. And really explore how I was like, how do they present the characters in the restaurant? Like, are they like RIP Bubba in the restaurant? I don't remember. I've only been once.

And so I can't say for certain. We'll find out soon, because we're going, Jamie and I. We're going. We're going to the CityWalk Bubba Gump, and it's a business expense. And isn't that thrilling? It's thrilling. By the way, let us introduceump and we're going it's a business expense. Isn't that thrilling? It's thrilling. By the way, let us introduce ourselves. Hi, my name is Caitlin, Caitlin Durante.

Oh, my name is Jamie, Jamie Loftus. And this is our podcast, where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechtel test simply as a jumping off point to initiate larger discussions about representation and things. What's the Bechdel test though? Oh, thank you for asking. Media Metric, originally created by Alison Bechdel, often called the Bechdel Wallace test because it was co-created with Liz Wallace, originally created as a queer media test but has since been applied to a far larger swath of media. Lots of versions of the test, the one we use, requires that two people of a marginalized

gender with names talk to each other about something other than a man. Many movies pass it now, still some don't. But this is just how we sort of start the discussion. And it's still to this day my favorite way to tell when people are lying about talking about the show. They're like, yeah, for two hours you just pour over the script and you're like, no, that's a man. Next time. Anyways, today we're covering Forrest Gump and we have the perfect guest, which is why it is time to cover this movie. We sure do. She is a YouTuber and video essays. She is host of Rehash podcast.

It's Maia AKA Bro-y Deschanel. Welcome. Welcome. Thanks guys. How's it going? Oh, it's just fine and dandy. Splendid. Guys, this movie is so long.

What? I feel like now when I look at a certain runtime and I know it's not going to be a movie for me, I'm like, don't piss me off. This is wild. This is as long as wicked. I sat down to rewatch it with my two friends yesterday and I invited them over for 7pm. I was like, I gotta go to bed early. I'm so tired.

They talked until 9pm. So like we didn't really get started until then. And then I was like guys I just remember the movies two and a half hours long like we got a star and they didn't leave till like 1230 That's really brave I know I really they wanted to watch like a really artsy movie and they wanted to go to like Anthology, which is like this theater in New York and I was like, how about instead you come over and watch Forrest Gump with me? Trauma which is like this theater in New York. And I was like, how about instead you come over and watch Forrest Gump with me? What a great trade. Save money and trauma. Yes.

That theater rocks. Yeah, what a journey. And obviously, I mean, we'll be linking your video in the description, but the reason we're bringing you on for this is because you recently released an incredible video about the political legacy of this movie, as well as the adaptation from book to film which I knew nothing about on your channel. So I'm curious to start

what is your history with this movie? Yeah I watched Forrest Gump for the first time I think it was like early high school I was probably in grade 9 as we Canadians put it ninth grade. Very Degrassi-coded of you. Yeah, so Degrassi. That's how I know how to talk to Canadian people. It's like, they flip it. We flip it. Yeah, and I went to my aunt's house and I would like, I sometimes would go in her like bedroom and she has like a TV and I'd watch a movie in there while she and the adults talked. And so I went into the room and watched Forrest Gump and I loved

it. Like back then, especially, I just felt very swept up in the emotion of it. I think it's a really emotionally powerful movie and it does a really good job of that. I think it's a really competent movie and so by the end I was like oh my god that was so beautiful. I was sobbing. I was like I miss Jenny too. And then I hadn't watched it for years and then a few months I was like, wouldn't it be kind of cool? Like, I started learning more about the film's place in popular culture and the way that it's kind of aged. And spoiler alert, it hasn't aged well.

And I thought it'd be interesting to kind of go back and do a retrospective on the film. And so in September, I went back and I rewatched it. And then I started reading more about it. And the more I read about it, the more I started to kind of really dislike it. Which is unfortunate but because I don't want to come out of a video with that feeling but that's just kind of how it went and but it was a really rich it was a hotbed for takes and then I had seen it probably for that month because of the research I'd watched it about five times and I was like I'm

never gonna watch this movie again oh no and then watched about five times and I was like, I'm never going to watch this movie again. Oh no. And then you guys reached out and I was like, they pull me back in. And so here I am. Sorry. No, no. And I'm, and I'm really pumped because where else would I want to talk about this more than on the Bechdel cast no less.

Thank you for watching it for the sixth time this calendar year. So sorry. That's like almost a full, I can't do math. It's a lot of time. I was going to say that's three days. It's okay. I can call myself a Forrest Gump expert like proudly. And so I think, I think that's fine. You know, sometimes you have to be an expert in something. It's true. I mean, we'll talk about this after the recap more, but I was very taken aback by how this movie has been a hotbed for takes since it came out. Like it predates the subsequent internet discourses by a lot and then is somehow continuing into this press cycle for here.

Is that what it's called? Oh, the Robert Zemeckis movie of 2024 that has the same cast because it's Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. Yeah. So there's been another sort of round of discourse about it in the last like two months because Robin Wright was asked about the character Jenny on a press tour. So it's like he's inescapable. He's everywhere. Caitlin, what's your history with Forrest Gump? Okay, I have what might be a rather shocking history with this movie. I have seen the movie probably 70 or 80 times throughout my life, although most of it. Yeah, I know.

You don't like a movie halfway, I will say. It's when I really like something I commit. But, but I would say like 95% of those viewings were very, very concentrated between age, like 10 and 12. So the movie came out when I was eight years old. I don't think I saw it until probably a year later. We got it on VHS and it probably took me a little while to like, because I was just sort of like, what's this movie? Because my mom would be like, leave me alone, go watch something. Shout out to Laurie, who's definitely listening. You know, she did a great job raising me, but sometimes she was just like, go watch a movie. So eventually I discovered Forrest Gump, I think it was probably nine or 10. And I don't know why I took to it so much because it was not like anything else I was

watching at that age. But I became obsessed and I would probably watch it every few days. Wow. And I did that until Titanic came out and those two VHSs really replaced Forrest Gump in my like movie watching circulation. So from age 12, I think I probably only saw it once or twice, maybe like a couple times as a teenager, maybe once in college. But for those few years, I was like enthralled by it. There are things about American history that I first learned about from this movie.

Not that it really dives deep into any of those things. But like, I probably didn't know what the Vietnam War was until I watched this movie. I didn't know about like racial segregation until this movie. I didn't know about a bunch of things until I saw this movie. Also the soundtrack introduced me to a lot of iconic songs from the 60s and 70s that I probably wouldn't have been exposed to really otherwise. Yeah the needle drops you can. Yeah, the needle drops. You can't argue with the needle drops. You simply cannot. They're really running through like every top song of the 60s.

They hit every single one of them. Back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back to Scorsese movie. Like you're just like, yeah. So I have a very weird history with this movie. And then I kind of just forgot about it and didn't care about it. And probably upon retrospect was like, I don't think that movie's very good, but I didn't really go back and check until prepping for this episode. I'm very excited to talk about it. There's much to discuss. And, Maia, your video essay is incredible. Thank you. Jamie, what is your history with the movie?

Nothing. This is one of the movies that I, yeah, I don't know exactly why it took me so long to watch this. But once I realized, I think like sometime in college, I was like, wow, I've never seen Forrest Gump. And instead of being like, I should watch it and educate myself. I'm like, let me see how far into my life I can get without seeing it, which is all the way until this weekend. Yeah, I'm very interested to talk about how this,

because at first, on my first viewing, I was like, I don't get it but the more I talked to people who had like a childhood appreciation of this movie I was like I think I was like a baby when this came out so I wouldn't have seen it until later anyways but my boyfriend also has like a strong attachment to this movie and similar to you Caitlin said that like he learned about like a few pieces of American history that he didn't know about before then either. And I still am like, it is wild to me that this movie, which is two and a half hours long, and a prestige drama was holding the

attention of children. Makes no sense. Cannot explain. But it seems that there are many such cases. Yeah, I don't know. I remember like, my dad didn't like this movie. I don't know why. I can't tell you why. But I think he was just like no long, boring, let's watch Pee Wee's Big Adventure. And so we would. So yeah, I'm coming in very fresh on this movie. And I'm excited to talk about it. because like you were saying a little earlier, I mean, I think it is clearly a beautifully made movie and it just feels like yeah this early harbinger of like maybe Robert Zemeckis is not a

historical film kind of guy. Maybe he has no interest in it or at least meaningful interest in it. If Robert Zemeckis has one hater it or at least meaningful interest in it. If Rawrars and Megas has one hater it's me. I dislike him more than even the movie. I dislike him a lot. I was shocked at some of the clips that you found of him being like no I didn't read the book. Boo! Like reading sucks. I was like whoa. Well to be sure that's also us on the back to the cast. We would never read a book. But like if you're going to make the movie, you should probably finish the book.

He's just a part of this cohort of like directors that are very thing, go boom. Like that's their whole their whole approach to filmmaking. They're like, thing, go boom. No talking thing, go boom. And that's that's really him. And he's he's making things go boom in this movie he really is i was like i like him at the i mean i'm a roger rabbit head i can't take that from him roger rabbit and death becomes her i do love me as well i'm a big back to the future head famously he's and that's the thing he's's a great filmmaker. Yeah. Polar Express. I love it. That was maybe the hottest take in your entire video. Polar Express actually good. I love that.

That is the least scary of his animated movies in retrospect. Oh yeah. We should say Robert Zemeckis of Disney's Pinocchio 2022 fame, which was of course, one of the brave soldiers of the Pinocchio Wars. I think that's our best Patreon series ever. The Pinocchio Wars was, you know, if there's anything to sell people on the matriarch, it's the Pinocchio Wars month because why was Pinocchio so top of mind for so many in 2022?

We'll never know. We'll never know. Yeah, Tom Hanks, that was, I feel like that really sort of, unfortunately, was the bell toll of the beginning of Tom Hanks flop era a bit, was his weird drunken interpretation of Geppetto. Anyways, that's for the Pinocchio Wars. All right, so I guess let's- Let's take a break and then come's for the Pinocchio Wars. All right. So I guess let's, uh, let's take a break and then come back for the recap.

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And we're back. Okay, so I'll do what ended up being such a long I tried to trim it down and I left a bunch of stuff out which we can get into more during the discussion but there's just so much that happens in this movie that I inevitably skip over some stuff. I will also place a content warning here for sexual abuse and assault, suicidal ideation, things of that nature. Yeah trigger warning for everything that happens to Jenny, basically. Yeah, truly. Okay, so we follow a feather floating through the air and landing at the feet of Forrest Gump, played by Tom Hanks.

Could it be a metaphor? I don't know, maybe. Also some extremely sentimental music. Yes. Yes. Yeah, I found the score to be so grating. It's very saccharine. Yeah. I played that in high school orchestra. I didn't even realize that that was like what it was. I was like, where do I know that? I was like, I know the oboe part. Classic. Oh, okay. So Forrest Gump is sitting on a bench at a bus stop. It is 1981. A woman comes down and sits next to him and he introduces himself. He offers her a chocolate and then says the famous line, my mom always said, life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.

And then he starts relaying his entire life story to this woman who has no interest in talking to him. And we flash back to Forrest as a child in the 1950s. He lives with his mom played by Sally Field. And the wigs they're using on this poor woman as they begin to age her, I'm just like, this isn't fair. The great Sally Field, and we're putting these digests. It's like Nicole Kidman level wigs.

Brutal. She's rocking an incredible accent though. One that I really am like jealous of. She rocks. So she runs a boarding house just outside Greenbow, Alabama. Forrest has braces on his legs as well as an intellectual disability. His mom wants him to get the same education as other kids so she sleeps with a school administrator so that he will let Forrest go to public school and not a like quote unquote special school as they call it in the movie.

So yes, in the first 10 minutes, we first learned that he is named after the Grand Wizard of the KKK. And this thing with the mom happens. And I was like, why were six year olds watching it? What's going on? The craziest part about the KKK thing is, I didn't catch this till this viewing, was that his reasoning was that he was like, my mom said it's because sometimes people do crazy things. Yeah.

And now we're supposed to be like deeply invested in this woman's journey for three hours. Like it's just. And this is also the beginning of a trend throughout the movie where Forrest very wildly misunderstands and like misdescribes different historical events or cultural events. And he has a very like naive and childlike

understanding of the world and the first example we see of it which for adult viewers is very like wink and nod but if you're six and watching this movie I would imagine it would be a little confusing yeah I can speak from experience the movie is really full of like little nods to Americans being like, remember that thing. But then sometimes the nod is like, remember the KKK. Remember the movie just started. I must mention that the person that Forrest is talking to for the first, I think, like hour of the movie is a working class black woman. And the first thing he brings up is like, hour of the movie is a working class black woman.

And the first thing he brings up is like, so I'm named after the Grand Wizard of the KKK. And I'm like, Forrest, read the room. So then it's Forrest's first day of school. The kids on the bus are very cruel to him, and no one will let him sit next to them except for Jenny. She and Forest become best friends and one day some kids are bullying Forest and Jenny says the famous line, run Forest run! So he starts to run away but the braces on his legs mean that he can't move very fast until the braces start to break off and He's magically cured of his disability We'll get back to that. Yeah, and he runs so fast away from the bullies and

From that day forward he was always running Jenny and Forrest remain friends through high school. Jenny is now played by Robin Wright. There is another scene where Forest runs away from bullies onto a college football practice, and the coaches see how fast he is. So they recruit him to play football for, I think, the University of Alabama. So he goes to college and while he's there, here's another example of like, he doesn't understand systemic racism, because there's a movement to desegregate the university. And he like, doesn't understand what's going on, he accidentally kind of like interferes with it. One night, Forrest visits Jenny, who goes to a nearby

women's college. She brings him to her dorm room, takes off her bra, puts his hand on her breast, and the consent or lack thereof is also something we can discuss later. But it's implied that this is his first ever sexual experience with another person. He also prematurely ejaculates. Ejaculates, yeah. In front of her roommate. In front of her roommate. Oh my god, when they cut to the roommate, I was like, why are kids watching this? I was like, that's the movie's one joke. I was like, that's funny. So there's like this arguably a sexual assault scene that ends in like a jokey button and you're just like, what's going on?

Anyway, we kind of skip ahead. He graduates from college after of course meeting President John F. Kennedy for being a college football star, the first of many presidents he will meet. And then he enlists in the army where he meets and befriends Bubba, played by Mackelty Williamson, whose family is in the shrimping business and Bubba's whole personality is shrimp. That's really all we know about Bubba. And before Forrest is shipped off to Vietnam, he gets a chance to go and see Jenny perform. She is now a folk singer. She is doing a show in a strip club type place.

Wait, what was her like stage name? Bobby Dylan. Oh, okay. Yeah. She wants to be Joan Baez. She's being naked Joan Baez. Which is like, I mean, I, and again, because of kind of the politics and tones of this movie, this is made out to be like the worst and most humiliating thing that could possibly happen to Jenny.

But I was like, that seems like, you know, with the right crowd, that could be actually quite fun. Naked folk singing, I'm in. I was also kind of like, I'm quite fascinated by this club and the nature and the rules of the club and how, like she's not dancing, and she's covered fully with the guitar. I was like, hmm.

Yeah, the guys jeering at her, you know, I was like, are they folk fans? Like, is everyone singing folk? Is it just her? We don't know. I got the impression she had asked, this is my, everyone singing folk? Is it just her? We don't know. I got the impression she had asked the, this is my, like the lore I created, but I was like, maybe she asked the manager and she's like, I have this huge interest in Joan Baez. I'm going to be famous one day.

Like, can you let me one night do this? It just reminds me of the clubs in like flash dance too, where you're like that club. Is that a strip club or is that like a made up fantasy strip club? Right. And they're like, due to like wanting to release this movie internationally, we refuse to get more specific about what's going on here. Right. Anyways, all I'd say, I would go to that club. It kind of looks like a Jumbo's clown room kind of thing. Right? Yeah. Just like do whatever you want. Have some fun. Yeah, they just put on fun little variety shows. You can do whatever act you want.

Naked cabaret. I guess cabarets are also naked sometimes. Wait, Caitlin, did you ever do that naked standup show when we lived in Boston? I didn't do the version of it where you were fully naked. There was like a swimsuit edition and I did that. Okay, gotcha. So I was a coward, not willing to show my titties on stage,

which I would absolutely do right now today. I would have no qualms about that. I did that show then. I don't think I would do it now. But I used to be a tech for that show too. And so like they had all those weird draconian Massachusetts rules for, like, what you can and can't do on stage, where they're like, it's considered art as long as you don't touch anybody or anything. Like, you couldn't have anything with you because they're like, if you touch another person,

it's porn. So you couldn't even shake the hand of the host. Or it legally became, like, a sex... Like, it was so... And the host, this, like it was so, and the host, this guy Andy was so intense about it. He's like, I will go to jail if you shake my hand. What?

What was the crowd like at this type of event? All old men who didn't know how to access porn online, which is why I would not do it today. It was all old men that were like, hmm. I just wanted to give them a laptop and be like, get out of here. Once you've done naked stand up, you can do anything though.

Like that's incredible. It's true. Once you've stood before someone's pee paw. With your titties out. With your pee pee out. With your pee paw. What a time. Anyways, as a Jenny fan, I was like, alright, alright, we're all on the same page here. That looks like a fun show.

I'm getting what she's putting down. Right, right. So we're at this show and some of the audience members, you know, creepy men are trying to grab her. So Forest intervenes and like saves her. We've seen him do this before when they were in college. She's pissed that he's always trying to rescue her and Forest says, I can't help it. I love you. And she says, you don't know what love is, Forest. And this will come back later, but she goes to leave. Before she does, she tells him that if anything happens while he is in the war in Vietnam, he should just run. He shouldn't try to be brave. He should do what he does best and run

away. And he says, okay, and they part ways. And then Forest and Bubba are shipped to Vietnam. There they meet Lieutenant Dan, played by Gary Sinise. Their platoon goes around the countryside on foot. They endure the rainy season. Every hit of this calendar year plays in rapid succession. It's kind of fun. Yeah, it's a good soundtrack. Bubba asks Forrest if he wants to go into the shrimping business with him when they get out of the war and Forrest agrees. But shortly thereafter, there's an ambush and Forrest runs away to safety just like Jenny told him to. Though he does go back and save several fellow soldiers including Lieutenant Dan whose legs have been injured.

Who's begging him not to not to save him. Mm-hmm. Because Lieutenant Dan's ancestors all died in every American war and so he wants to also live out that legacy. Yes indeed. Wild. all died in every American war and so he wants to also live out that legacy. LSW Yes indeed. But Forest ignores his orders and saves Lieutenant Dan anyway. He also does find Bubba but he's badly wounded and Bubba dies in Forest's arms. Forest is also wounded. He was shot in the buttocks. So he's released from active duty while he

recovers and during this time he learns how to play ping-pong and he becomes this like ping-pong champ. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Dan whose legs have been amputated is resentful that Forrest saved him because he felt he was destined to die in battle and so now he has no idea what he's going to do with his life. Then Forrest is sent home and awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. He goes to meet President Lyndon Johnson, he flashes his ass on TV to show the wound. And also while he's in Washington, DC, he accidentally gets shuffled into a crowd of veterans who are anti-war protesters and he ends up on stage in front of a crowd of thousands at the Washington

Monument. With Abbie Hoffman, who I don't think that he's orally identified, but I like double checked and it's definitely supposed to be him. He's definitely supposed to be Abbie Hoffman and the way that they like the way that they characterize Abbie Hoffman's legacy is just so insulting. They're like, that man swore a lot. He said the F word a lot. I'm very excited to talk about the adaptation change made here after the recap because we'll never know what Forrest really thought about

the Vietnam War. Not according to the movie at least. Yeah. So Forrest is about to like speak, but a soldier, a cop, somebody pulls out all of the microphone plugs. So we don't hear what Forrest has to say about the war. And lo and behold, Jenny is there at this demonstration and she and Forrest reunite and the crowd cheers. And so Jenny and Forrest hang out, she catches him up on her life. She is a hippie now. She has traveled around a bunch. She takes him to a Black Panther meetup and we can talk more about this scene later, but Forrest gets in a fight with Jenny's abusive boyfriend. Yeah, any scene that's about systemic racism,

they manage to make, they're like, actually, wait, let's actually get back to Forrest, like within 15 seconds of arriving. For sure, yeah. So this altercation happens, and then Jenny leaves again out of Forrest's life. Some time passes. He plays on the All-American ping pong team and competes in China. Then he goes on a talk show hosted by someone who I'm probably supposed to know who that is,

but I'm too young. I decay. Oh, Dick Cavett, I love Dick Cavett. Oh, it's Dick Cavett. I'll come out right now and say, I love Dick Cavett. Got it, got it, got it. It's like a mate. Wow. The John Lennon scene took me out. I love the John Lennon scene.

They make John Lennon's head look so big, but I feel like famously John Lennon had a tiny head and so for some reason, it just I can't, I can't embrace the scene. He does look like a Sanrio character, the way that they've like edited him. But I just, oh my god, what he's like, and no religion too. I'm dying laughing. So good. So the thing here is that John Lennon is also a guest on this talk show, and it's implied that a few of the things that Forrest says inspires lyrics to John Lennon's Imagine.

If only the whole movie were that goofy. Right. So then Forrest reunites with Lieutenant Dan, who is bitter and he is dealing with alcoholism. Forrest tells him his plan to become a shrimp boat captain because he had made a promise to Bubba and Lieutenant Dan is like, yeah, right, the day you become a shrimp boat captain, I'll come and be your first mate. So then they celebrate New Year's Eve together, they bond over being marginalized for their disabilities. Then Forrest meets President Nixon. I forget why this time, it's maybe a ping pong thing.

He gets a ping pong related thing. And then he exposes the water gate scandal or something. Yeah. Forrest does. And then he's discharged from the army. So he returns home to Alabama to see his mom. He takes the $25,000 that he was paid to endorse a ping pong paddle brand. And he buys a shrimping boat with it, but he is not very good at shrimping at first. He names his boat Jenny and he spends most of his time thinking about Jenny, who meanwhile is dealing with drug addiction, with suicidal ideation. These are things that Forrest has no idea about and according to the movie probably wouldn't understand anyway because of his like extreme naivete. And then one day Lieutenant Dan shows up to honor his promise that he would be Forrest's

first mate. So they start shrimping together. And all of a sudden his hair is like really beautiful. I love luscious. He started conditioning. Yeah, Lieutenant Dan's like, shrimping look. I love. He has a lot of looks in this movie, like a lot of like the evolution of getting more

snatched as the movie goes on or something. I like his Hawaiian shirt, like wavy conditioned hair moment. So it's like, wow. I love how they're like, okay, he's not as much of an alcoholic now because look at his hair. And you're like, okay, okay, I got it. Yeah, he got his hands on a bottle of herbal essence.

Swish. And they turned his whole life around. So they're shrumping together now, but they're still having bad luck until a storm brings in a bunch of shrimp and there's like this whole like forest prayed very hard and maybe that's what brought all the shrimp in. But anyway, they have all this shrimp now.

This storm also shipwrecked all the other local shrimp boats, which the movie nor forest has any empathy for that happening. They just breeze right past that. He becomes a shrimp millionaire. Yeah, right. Also, like highly likely the people who run those boats are like black. Right. Yeah, it's like most likely of like majority black business was just decimated and they're like, and now here's this guy.

This is great for Forrest. Yeah. Right. Exactly. That is great for Forrest. Yeah. Right, exactly. That's how the movie feels about it. Then Forrest receives word that his mom has fallen ill, so he goes home to see her. She dies a short time later. In that wig.

In a wig. He decides not to return to shrimping, especially after Lieutenant Dan invests their already millions of dollars in Apple, making him like mega rich. But he's so generous with his money and he donates some of it to the church and hospital and Bubba's family. When I watched the Apple scene, I like turned to my friends and I was like, did you know Joan Baez dated Steve Jobs?

Wait, is that true? I didn you know Joan Bias dated Steve Jobs? Wait, is that true? I didn't know that. Isn't that crazy? Maybe disappointing even. Yeah, I mean, that's a bummer. It's like, I guess this isn't as disappointing, but I think a lot about Steve Wozniak and Kathy Griffin that whole moment. Wait, did they date?

Yeah. Whoa. I didn't know that either. You know, I have such a strong memory in like, she used to have a reality show That whole moment. Wait, did they date? Yeah. Whoa. I didn't know that either. You know, I have such a strong memory in like, she used to have a reality show that I think was on when I was in middle school and he was like on it and they were like on a date and they were on segues or something. And anyways, those guys.

Those guys. Wow, Joan Baez. What like Steve? Yeah, that is a little disappointing. But also it's like, I wouldn't have expected jobs to have that kind of pull. Well, I still am confused by Grimes marrying Elon Musk like that. It's no sense to me. So many cases, so many cases. Yeah. Anyway, so Forrest is now a bazillionaire. And one day Jenny shows up at his house and stays with him for a while. He asks her to marry

him and he says, I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is in reference to her telling him earlier that he doesn't know what love is. He insists that he does. The way Tom Hanks delivers that line, it does get me every time. Yeah. It's a good moment. He's really good in this movie. It sucks that he's good in this movie. Again, I saw this as a child on repeat for a few years and that was the only Tom Hanks movie that I saw during that period and the first Tom Hanks movie I ever saw.

So I just thought he was like that. I didn't really understand that he was like performing. And then when I saw like, probably Apollo 13, when I was like 12 or so, I was like, wait a minute, that's the same guy. And he doesn't sound anything like that. What? It was really confusing for my child brain. The 90s were a big time for actors with a lot of talent, portraying characters with disabilities like Leonardo DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape. I feel like that was his whole coming into fame was how many people believed that he actually did have a disability. The ethics of which we can certainly debate.

We can absolutely debate that. Yeah, I mean, I think the first movie that I saw that had that was I Am Sam, a really stinky Sean Penn movie where he's playing a character with an intellectual disability. Glad that that doesn't happen quite as much these days. Not that it's completely gone away, but I'm glad it's not a prominent trend. I don't know. I mean, anytime someone portrays someone with a disability or with like, and quote unquote, other body type, just to get nominated for an Oscar. I guess the last example we have of that is kind of is the whale. Right. In any case, Forrest is like professing his love for Jenny and wants to marry her.

And later that night, she comes into his room and they have sex. But then the next morning, she abruptly leaves again, presumably without saying goodbye to Forest. And this prompts him to set off running with no destination in mind. He just runs and runs and runs across the country all the way to the West Coast. And then he turns around and he runs and runs and runs all the way to the East Coast. And then he runs for like over three years, just nonstop, only like stopping to sleep and just running, running, running. The beard effect was fun.

The beard. I looked at him. I was like, he looks like every single guy I know. And then I said, it's kind of working on me. He looks good. He does have like a very Brooklyn coated beard. Yeah. He has literally my brother's beard.

They're giving Bushwick for sure. That was a moment that my boyfriend specifically asked me about when we had a post-mortem on Forrest Gump. He's like, okay, I know you didn't like it. However, what did you think of the running? I was like, kind of funny, kind of weird. I don't know. And he said that that was something that he and his father specifically really bonded

over when they would watch that movie. He's like, I think that there is some like bizarre masculine fantasy attached to that of like you are spurned and hurt by a woman and you just run away and you do this kind of like unhinged hyper masculine thing where it's like, and I only stopped to sleep and eat and poop and I just ran and you know I was like wow that actually does kind of make sense to me but I would never have been able to get there on my own. My friend who I watched with who's a guy also yesterday was like whoa Forrest is kind of a gigachad. We were like what is this? He really is just being an avoidant

king he's running around town being avoidant and also just yeah he's really living out this male fantasy and it also in every scene, he's running around town being avoidant and also just, yeah, he's really living out this male fantasy and it also, in every scene that he's running, the landscape is so beautiful, but almost in a grotesque way where it's so over-saturated. My friend said it kind of looked like a self-help book, like the cover of any self-help book. And I feel like those two things together make this sequence like, yeah, I don't know, kind of a bizarre sequence. Wow, men are so complicated. I was just like, what? Because I think that that is one of those like corny YouTube 15 years ago things where if you change the music in that sequence slightly,

it becomes a totally different energy. Like, I don't know. It was very grind set for sure. Yes, yeah, he's a proto influencer. And at the end, he's like, Oh, sorry, I did that for no reason. Yeah, because he starts having like, followers just running behind him. He has all these like, journalists and stuff being like, Are you doing this for animal rights for women's rights for protesting this and this and that. And he's like, no, I just felt like running.

Despite that, he inspires a bunch of people along the way, a bumper sticker guy, a T-shirt designer, and then like a running cult question mark. And then one day he just decides to stop running and he goes back home to Alabama. He then gets a letter from Jenny inviting him to Savannah, Georgia, which brings us to the present of him sitting at the bus stop waiting for a bus. And the woman who is now sitting next to him is like, you don't need a bus. Henry Street is right over there. So then Forrest runs to Jenny's apartment and discovers that she is a mother to a baby, Haley Joel Osment. Friend of the show, baby Haley.

Yeah. He's so small. He's very small and very cute. Chicken nugget. He's so cute. It's insane. She's so cute, it's insane. And this is Forrest Jr. because Forrest Gump is his father. And then he like kind of interacts with little Forrest a little bit while he's watching Bert

and Ernie. And then Jenny tells Forrest that she is sick with some unknown virus. I think it's implied to be HIV. Is that correct? That's like later confirmed, but they, I guess, wrote it out of the script. Yeah. So Forest is like, well, come live with me. I'll take care of you in Little Forest. So Jenny moves back to Alabama with him. They get married. Lieutenant Dan comes to the wedding. Now sporting a crew cut and also a wife.

A crew cut and prosthetic legs and his wife. Or his fiance. This. The final Lieutenant Dan thing, I was like, do not piss me off. I hate how the movie resolves Lieutenant Dan's story where he's like, okay, I've quote unquote fixed my disability. And if it weren't for capitalism, I never would have made it through. And you're just like, ah, fuck you. I also found that the choice to cast his wife as an East Asian woman, maybe it was colorblind casting, doesn't feel like it. For some reason, it feels like it's trying to say something. What it's saying, I don't know, makes me feel kind of strange though.

I don't know. I don't know how makes me feel kind of strange though. I don't know. I don't know how to explain it. I also had that thought. I mean, yeah, we don't know what the background of the character is, but I feel like because we met Lieutenant Dan in Vietnam and that the movie seems to very intentionally never show us a Vietnamese person. They're just like, we know who they're fighting, but it's an unseen enemy. So that there's no opportunity to empathize with anyone who isn't in the American military.

Yeah, that felt pointed. I don't know. And she has an American accent. I think she's supposed to be American. But in the context of Vietnam, so many soldiers bringing back Vietnamese wives and the discourse around that, I don't know, it just felt like a really pointed casting choice that was interesting to me. And it's hard to say because we don't know anything about her.

She says exactly one line, which is, hi, Forest. And then that's all we get from her. And then the movie's basically over because shortly after this, Jenny passes away. Forrest, of course, misses her so much. And fortunately, Tom Hanks is really good in the scene at the grave. I know. No, it'll get you good. It was good.

It's tearful. And then baby Haley. Did you cry, Jamie? I was edging, but I didn't get there. I love that way to describe. Did you cry, Jamie? I was edging, but I didn't get there. I love that way to describe being on the verge of tears. And Forest is raising Little Forest, and he seems to be a very good dad. And then when Little Forest is waiting for the bus to school,

the feather from the beginning comes back, it falls out of the book, and then it floats through the sky again, blah, blah, blah. The end. It reminded me, the feather hitting and it reminded me of of Jim Carrey Grinch, where it like starts and ends with the snowflake. Yeah, and you follow the snowflake. I did like that the feather flies right into the screen and then it goes bink. I did like that. I was like, okay, that's a little bit of Zemeckis magic. I liked that.

Very Polar Express. Whoa. Well, that's the movie. Let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss. Catch Jon Stewart back in action on The Daily Show and in your ears with The Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. From his hilarious satirical takes on today's politics and entertainment to the unique voices of correspondents and contributors, it's your perfect companion to stay on top

of what's happening now. Plus, you'll get special content just for podcast listeners, like in-depth interviews and a roundup of the week's top headlines. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we are back. Where shall we start? Well, I would like to start if possible with the adaptation context because, Maia, you

talk about this so eloquently and in such detail in your video, and I honestly didn't even know until I watched your video a couple of months ago that this was even based on a book. If you would be so kind, walk us through some of the major changes made between the book and the movie. Yes, I was telling Kaylin before,

but it's kind of like writing an exam after I finish a video all the information just flies out of my brain. I also rewatched my video. So I'm going to try and recap this as best I can. But um, yeah, so essentially the movie is based on a novel by an author named Winston Groom who hadn't had a ton of success in his life. I don't believe the book itself either was wildly successful, but essentially Winston Groom is a Vietnam War veteran and he wrote this book

that he designed to be kind of like a picaresque novel. And for context, the picaresque novel is this like literary tradition where it's a story that follows a singular character through a very wide array of events in their life, often with a satirical tone. The example that I use in the video is Candide by Voltaire, which is basically about a character who witnesses an absurd, uncanny amount of terrible events in his life, but the book is written with a really matter-of-fact tone, almost comedic. And it's supposed to be pointing at the fact that the world is a difficult place, and we need to nurture it instead of ignoring it and believing the world is just this positive, amazing place. And I'd say Forrest Gump the book is pretty similar. Forrest Gump is very different

in the book. He physically, he physically stands out a lot. He's supposed to be six foot six, a very big guy. I think he's like supposed to be like 200 to 300 pounds. He's, he's like big. Yeah. And he's very different from Forrest in the movie, mainly in the sense that he's a very imperfect character. He has sex with multiple women, including Jenny in the book. He's horny. He does drugs a few times throughout the book. He is like, one, aware of racism. You know, when he brings up the KKK at the beginning, he talks about how his grandma named him Forest, but how she thinks that the KKK are a bunch of no-goods. So he's aware of racism, but he also is capable of being racist. Like, he is quite ignorant when he goes to Vietnam,

and he talks about Vietnamese people, who are completely excluded from the movie, but in the context of the book, he refers to them as a slur. He goes to China, and he ends up saving Mao Zedong from drowning, which I thought was a funny plot point, which really pisses off his superiors, but is also a little bit racist about Chinese people. He meets people in New Guinea. He's a little, he's

ignorant. He's a small town boy. Right. You mentioned this in your video, like where he's a more realistic product of his environment than, than movie forest. Yeah, exactly. And he's, most importantly, he's a lot less juvenile than the forest in the movie. And I thought it was interesting when you had referred to the scene between Jenny and Forest as like sexual assault, because I think in the books it feels a lot less like that because Forest is less infantile. You know, he has like learning impairments and intellectual disabilities, but he's

he's still very much an adult and doesn't have the mind of a child. And so I thought that was a really interesting take and accurate. And yeah, and I think overall the book just has a bit more of a satirical edge to it than the movie does. And is it Robert Zemeckis? Yeah, Robert. Robert Zemeckis and Eric Roth, who is a screenwriter, have been very explicit about the fact that they don't like the book, which I think is wildly disrespectful. Winston Groom has been extremely gracious about, he's passed away, but really gracious about the adaptation, was really excited about it, and it feels like they just kind of disrespected the source material a lot.

And they screwed him out of money too, like there was like a whole... They screwed him out of money. It's wild. And he was very nice about that too. He sounds like he was actually a really nice guy. God. And Robert Zemeckis has just been very proud about the fact. He sounds like he was actually a really nice guy. And Robertson Mechis has just been very proud about the fact that he didn't finish the book, but essentially he felt like the book had no meaning and so he wanted to imbue it with meaning.

Which I think is really interesting because the book has a lot of meaning. I think it takes this approach that Winston Groom has basically said that he wanted the story to be about human dignity and preserving dignity in a world where many undignified things happen to you and like happen around you. And I think that that's definitely the case. Forrest doesn't constantly succeed in the book. He undergoes a lot of hardship. One of the biggest changes they make is that Forrest actually gets drafted into the army

in the book. And I believe he enlists in the movie. He voluntarily enlists, yeah, in the movie. Yeah, which is a huge thing. He flunks out of college. Like, there's so many things that happen to him that are upsetting. And it feels like movie forest doesn't suffer

those same things. And yeah, generally just the movie essentially just sanitizes the book, as Hollywood is so wont to do. And turns it from this kind of like satire about indignity and dignity to kind of being a celebration of America and American history and doing this like really bizarre quick survey of America's 20th century, hitting all these like major points in American culture, like huge touchstones of American culture like oh adding in John Lennon or Elvis Presley at one point for us teaches him how to do that silly dance move he

did and just adding in these unnecessary things JFK all this stuff to kind of wink and nod at the audience is very pastiche kind of just like a collage of different moments without any real meaning behind them so I think it's interesting because I think they took a lot of the meaning out of the book right they like unsaturized it it seems like they unsatur them. So I think it's interesting, because I think they took a lot of the meaning out of the book. Right, they like unsaturized it, it seems like. They unsaturized it, and I think the number one difference between them is the opening line in the movie, he says, life is like a box of chocolates.

You never know what you're gonna get, which I've always thought was strange, because you do know what you're gonna get, you're gonna get chocolate. It's on the box, yeah. And it's on the box. Yeah, but you don't know if it's gonna to be full of cherry or peanut butter or caramel. Have you guys had pot of gold when they have the little key, the directory?

The key that tells you exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Maybe this is Alabama chocolate that I'm not familiar with. Let us know. He's got a box of Russell Stover, it's labeled. It's labeled. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But in the movie, he says that. And in the book, he says, being an idiot is no box of chocolates, which is the complete inverse of tone. The movie takes a really positive, really optimistic, kind of apolitical approach to life, whereas the book is actively engaging with the difficulties that Forrest faces as someone with a disability.

And so yeah, I think that's the general gist of the adaptation. But there's so much more to be said. There's, I mean, yeah, I truly would recommend everyone listening go watch the video as well, because there, I mean, just the specifics that you were pulling about how, you know, in the book, yeah, that he's specifically condemning the Vietnam War and in the movie, they literally rip the microphone away from him. So you can never really have a definitive statement on the movie's opinion of the Vietnam War.

I think they're trying to talk about like military suppression and censorship, but it's like, but how convenient, you know, that this is the yeah, the one it felt like this movie was, I don't know. I mean, in that context, it felt like the movie was I don't know I mean in in that context it felt like the movie was trying to I guess strip back any of the intended meaning of the book as you described it and also really punish people within the world of the movie who were seeking meaning that was not conservative and conventional. I feel like the one thing that stuck out to me is that we really only meet like two men

who are like explicitly progressive or leftist or whatever. One of them is Abbie Hoffman. The other one is beating up Jenny. The only guy we really meet who's a fictional character is like this horrific abuser. Who's a Black Panther ally. Right.

And so it's just like making him out to see him, which, you know, absolutely happens in those spaces. But it's like you get nothing with the exception of Jenny's father, you get nothing but really empathetic portraits of people who are living like not countercultural lives. And so and the fact that Jenny's whole character seems predicated on the movie has this agenda of like getting back at her for doing anything it seems like. And I think you mentioned the video as well that her character is that is like not the ending for that character in the book. Yeah, very importantly in the book, Jenny does not die.

She does not have a virus. She actually ends up with another man. Forrest has sex with another woman and they have a child together. And he essentially gives the child to Jenny because he, the quote is that he doesn't want the child to have a pea brain for a daddy. Which is heartbreaking, but in the movie it's like Forrest the child to have a pea brain for a daddy. Which is heartbreaking, but in the movie it's like, Forrest is supposed to have an IQ of 70, have this extremely child-like worldview, but then is now a single father raising this child spectacularly on his own, which I'm not saying is

not possible at all, but it just it feels like a really interesting shift between the two realities. And then also in your video essay, you point out the various other ways in which the movie adaptation differs from the book in regards to Jenny's character, where the movie, it seems, gives... And to be clear, I have not read the book, so I'm pulling a lot of this information from your video essay,

but it seems as though the movie does give Jenny more presence in the story, but it also does this thing where it basically transfers all of the quote unquote vices that Forrest has in the book, or what like respectability politics and conservative values would deem to be vices. And it transfers those to Jenny in the movie, where for example, we see her doing a bunch of drugs. She's the only character we know who's done drugs, except I guess maybe Lieutenant Dan for a while. Right, but we actively see her doing coke. It's implied that she does heroin,

and we also see her doing what might be acid. Again, I'm such a square when it comes to drugs. I don't know which ones are which, but she's doing various drugs. It's implied that she maybe has promiscuous sex or at the very least has multiple romantic partners. She may be also doing sex work by the end, unclear. Oh, right, because we see her, she gets kicked out of college for being in a playboy spread. And if I'm remembering correctly, they add in the fact that she was being sexually

abused by her father for the movie, which again, don't do that. Well, it's fascinating because Forrest in the books is sexually assaulted by a female border at his mom's house when he's a kid, or like, I think he's a teenager. Which is left out of the movie. Which is left out of the movie. And then they give that to Jenny. I do feel like, I don't know, I guess I do feel confident saying this because it's just men top to bottom at the height of this project.

I do feel like that's done to quote unquote justify how her life goes. It's like a survivor of CSA is fucked like for their entire lives and that all of these things, I mean it just feels like the movie is just punishing her so thoroughly and the only times in her life or in the plot where she catches a break is when she is basically playing the part of Forrest's wife and like is living with him kind of in a live-in girlfriend situation and I know you mentioned it in your video too, but when they have sex towards the end of the movie, she's wearing this like virginal white gown. She dies in a white gown.

It just all feels so like, I don't know. She's being redeemed. Yeah. Yeah. And that it's like all of this is happening to her to remind us how good of a person movie forest is while punishing Jenny for any countercultural instinct or abuse she sustained as a child, which is not how the movie treats Forrest at all. I also think it's part of this kind of trend of the 90s and 2000s

of this like tortured angel trope that happened, I think, a lot with women. I don't know if you guys remember so many like indie songs from the 2000s where they'd be like, she's got blue bruises on her arms. Like, she's very, like very voyeuristic, like, man, oh, I can save you, girl, kind of songwriting. Kind of Decemberist vibes to me. Yeah. Yeah. And this feels similarly of its time for this kind of like helpless, tortured, fragile bird woman that you need to go save and you have to save her all the time. But like, she's so she's so do you guys swear on this podcast? Oh, yes. She's so fucked up.

For sure. So I think it's really, it's really of this era in that way as well. That and then it's like her, as you point out in your video, it's her, you know, quote unquote, impure behavior is largely there to emphasize how morally pure Forrest Gump is by contrast. And it's only after she accepts the role of like wife and mother, like a very traditional kind of thing, that she is like redeemed. And then she suddenly has the same haircut that Forrest Gump's mom has throughout the same movie. I know, and she dies in the same bed it's implied. Oh yeah.

And what I thought was interesting, and I was going to say it earlier too, was there are no signs, like when Forrest's mom and Jenny die, and there's these parallels in the scenes, there are no signs of illness on them. Forrest's mom dies of cancer and there is not a sign and like some people obviously do die of cancer and don't look ill but Jenny as well dying of what is like complications due to AIDS. They quote unquote die beautiful. Yeah which is like horrific virus has an extreme physical toll on the body and Jenny looks so porcelain when she dies and like her hair is like voluminous and blonde and it's just like, I don't know, I thought that was an interesting omission.

Very peculiar. I also want to talk just a little bit more about like the power dynamic and the like imbalance of power in that relationship of like someone who has an intellectual disability being with someone who does not have an intellectual disability in a sexual or romantic context, which that power dynamic is certainly worth examining. And then even on top of that, there are different scenes in the movie where Jenny does things that like whether or not she obtained consent from Forrest is very much up for debate. There's the scene in the dorm room, which we described. And then I would argue also when she comes into his room toward the end of the movie,

when she's wearing that like white gown, and she gets into bed with him and they have sex, I think consent there is also questionable. But the movie, of course, is just like, no, of course, Forrest is consenting to this. And of course, any man when next to a beautiful woman would of course consent to any sexual thing that might happen kind of thing.

And I never really picked up on that as a child, of course, like, you know. Well, sure, because it's just being presented as a beautiful love story. Right. And I really noticed that on this viewing. And I want to be perfectly clear that I am not suggesting that people with intellectual disabilities or who are neurodivergent are not able to give consent or to have consenting sexual relationships. I'm talking more about the power dynamic, which is, you know, similar to when like, you know, a 20-year-old dating a 45-year-old, and even

if they are giving consent, it's still a power imbalance, whether based on level of life experience or emotional maturity or like wisdom versus naivete. And I know that like people's mileage on this varies. It's a very complicated topic, and I don't want to trivialize it or anything like that, but there is inherently an imbalance of power in these different scenarios. And my criticism is that the movie

doesn't really acknowledge that. Right. And that the movie does show what I would, especially in that dorm room scene. I think unequivocally in the dorm room scene. Is an instance of sexual assault that the movie does not treat that way at all, and instead ends that scene on like a jokey button about him prematurely ejaculating and ruining the roommate's bathrobe and twist, the roommate was awake the whole time during this entire interaction. So that's what I take issue with.

I just want to make that perfectly clear. It's a romantic depiction of the dynamic. Yeah. You're totally right, Caitlin, that the power dynamic is not even acknowledged and that feels like a very glaring and could be adjusted pretty easily. But because all these adaptation changes are made, I don't know if any consulting was done in terms of presenting neurodivergence on screen or anything like that. I would assume no, But I'm not sure. I would also assume that. I was looking to see if there had been more written about this

and I wasn't really able to find anything, which is very frustrating. I have found a few, I mean, they're mostly personal essays, many from autistic writers who are like, I mean, there's just a wide array of takes on Forrest where there are certain nonprofits related to autism, not autism speaks, that have sort of like claimed Forrest as their own. But of course, it's like not necessary. That's not stated in the movie. So I don't know. I mean, this movie, it's absolutely baffling to me. I have a quick quote from a writer that really embraced Forrest, and specifically the movie interpretation of Forrest. This is from a website slash writer. A is for ifa, not autism.com, from a post she wrote called Autism on Screen, Forrest Gump.

I just wanted to share this. Interestingly, the film depicts Forrest in a more realistic light than in the book. Whilst he is described in both as having a low IQ in the 70s, Forrest is not portrayed as stereotyped mathematical savant in the film. Finally, a bit of realism.

Forrest's tale truly shows us how, as I've often remarked in this blog, you should never allow autism to hold you back. An autism diagnosis can be a challenge, yes, but it does not mean you can't live a normal, happy, and fulfilling life. And then there's physical disability, which I feel far more confident saying this movie completely mishandles. It's actually crazy that like braces falling off.

That whole, I mean, that's like the first huge example, right? As Forrest is running, his physical disability is made out to be basically metaphorical. And that as he gains confidence and he outruns his bullies, his leg braces fall away and that's the last time his physical disability ever comes up which is all of these classic like ableist tropes of like a disability is something that's inherently holding you back and is making you suffer and needs to be overcome as opposed to just a facet of one's life. Yeah movie really flubs it I mean going back to Forrest Gump's intellectual disability and the way that as you discuss in your video essay, Maia, is all about like the conservative

right co-opting this movie because of all of its like conservative values, because it's showing all of these historical events and like American iconography in a way that is making no commentary or criticism about various things such as the Vietnam War, segregation, systemic racism, things like that. And it's, this is able to happen because of the point of view character of Forrest Gump, who sees everything with such a naive point of view. He's always saying something like, well, for no particular reason, X, Y, Z happened. And the way that he just he'll allude to these things, oppression or corruption or exploitation, things that have happened throughout American history.

It'll be alluding to them without acknowledging them because it's just like for us being like, remember this? Remember this thing that happened? I have nothing to say about it. Which is also just the inherent ableism in that, in suggesting that someone with an intellectual disability couldn't understand things like racial discrimination and war are bad. That he's just like, I don't know, these things are happening, but I don't know anything about it. I think there's just

like intense ableism inherent in that. I agree. I think, yeah, that I had a note that, like, for me, it felt both ableist and condescending to anyone watching the movie, where there's a line shortly after he enlists, I think he's at basic training, that goes something like, being in the army is easy. All you have to do is be completely pliant and do what anyone tells you to do, and you'll do great. And that is, like, implied that that is inherent to his like intellectual disability that he is servile and does what he's told, which is certainly not true.

And also that that is the, I feel like the underlying message of the movie and like part of the way, the way his intellectual disability is used narratively is to like telegraph this message that like if you just like do what you're told and like stay on the path you've been told to stay on you could randomly become a millionaire. You could be very successful. You'll cruise through life. But if you're like Jenny and you push against anything you will die in a horrible way. And like, it just feels like the way that his intellectual disability is used in the narrative

is insulting to the disabled and also insulting to the audience and just like reinforces how nothing-y the movie's message is. I mean, it sticks out especially how unwilling it is to take a stance on the Vietnam War, which is arguably the easiest American war to take a stance on against America. I was like, if you can't do that, you're fucking cooked, dude.

The producer, Wendy Finerman, who's the person who got this movie greenlit because she's the one who brought the book to the studio. She said that her greatest achievement from the movie was making this like a movie for the military basically. I like kind of talk about this in the video as well but also the young boy who plays Forrest, oh I'm forgetting the actor's name, I think it's Michael Connor Jeffreys. Oh yes, yeah the young Forrest. Yeah he basically he enlisted in the Iraq war because he was so inspired by the idea of Lieutenant Dan dying with honor on the battlefield. And it's like, I wish he'd read the book. Fascinating that a movie that's essentially propagating the military is taking from source

material of a Vietnam War veteran. And in the book, like explicitly Forrest states multiple times that he thinks, I'm going to slightly misquote it, but I'll paraphrase, he thinks that the war is a load of shit. And that's clearly coming from Winston Groom. And so for the movie to be pro-military is like, to me, quite disgusting. Yeah, especially because I mean, like you were saying, Winston Groom was a veteran of that war. So to change his specific opinion on it is insulting to him and insulting to any veteran. I mean, the movie stands on

veterans I also found very vague. I guess this sort of gets into the conversation around Lieutenant Dan. Also, I just wanted to touch on, I mean, stating the obvious non-disabled actors are playing disabled parts as is still so common. But with Lieutenant Dan, before we even get to the conversation around ability, I did think it was more than I guess I expected of the movie to at least portray a veteran who had been essentially discarded by society after they weren't considered quote unquote useful anymore. I think that's something that like is very under discussed in movies and we could get into, I mean, how many veterans end up unhoused, how many like it's stuff I did reporting on as well. So

I was like, okay, I do appreciate that there is some representation of a veteran who has been left behind because that's such a common occurrence. But again, it's like the way that the story resolves that is, I think you mentioned this in your video, Maia, that a lot of the, like, Lieutenant Dan's, I guess, counseling of Forrest, they flip that. So Forrest is teaching Lieutenant Dan, and the way that he lifts himself up is via capitalism, via a business. He picks up his bootstraps. Right. Right. And it's not like- And he gets shoes and prosthetic legs. So... Right.

And then again, it's like using disability to make a statement about like, well, he's quote unquote, less disabled than we've seen him in previous sequences. And he's happier than ever. And isn't that great? And it just feels, I don't know, I was really frustrated. I felt like with Lieutenant Dan, I thought it was like a real opportunity to reintroduce his character. But then they don't, you know, take that opportunity to interrogate any system. But they do portray something very common.

And then they're like, well, I guess disabled veterans should simply pick themselves up by their bootstraps. And then they'll be bazillionaires. Yeah, they just need to invest in Apple and they'll be fine in like 1980s. It's fascinating because they kind of attribute his hardship and his obstacles to kind of like, well, he does drink too much and fornicate too much. Right. And then and his like moroseness after the war and his frustration, mainly stemming from the fact that he didn't die on the battlefield instead of like, oh, this war was really horrible, pointless, disorganized and evil.

I think the only kind of time they mentioned how idiotic the Americans were in doing this war was when they kind of briefly mentioned that the Americans were attacking themselves. When they start getting bombed, I believe it's like an American contingent that's bombing them. And that's kind of the only time it's even hinted at how ridiculous the war was in terms of like organization, let alone all the other things. Right. It's so like, Lieutenant Dan is a tricky character for you. Cause like, yeah, there were beats that worked and then beats that didn't. I also think that the movie going very, very, very out of its way, that in spite of being disillusioned, ultimately I think Lieutenant Dan

does come all the way back around to being an American patriot again. Even when he's on the shrimp boat, you can see on his wheelchair he still has like pro-America stickers and stuff. And I was like, really? At this point? You're a catch.

Like, I was so, I was like, OK. So they don't want to disabuse you from the idea that ultimately being a patriot will present the best result. The religious aspect of it too, where it's suggested that if he had any faith in a Christian God prior to this, he lost it because of the events of the war and being robbed of his destiny to die on the battlefield as a great American soldier and patriot. And he's become disillusioned with the idea of, you know, God and religion and things like that. And then there's this scene where he like swims in the ocean. He's like swimming

toward the heavens, quote unquote. And Forrest is like, I think he made his peace with God. And this is after he's become a successful shrimper and stuff. A shrimper. And the only reason they have the successful shrimper business is because Forrest preys on it. And also it reminded me of, gosh, the scene, weirdly, from Baz Luhrmann's Elvis, where it's just like one white guy at a majority Black Baptist church praying and then his wish comes true. Same deal with Forrest.

Okay, I'm really impressed you remember a scene from Meg Lerman's Elvis, first of all. How do you remember something that was nothing but visual and auditory cacophony, number one? Also Tom Hanks. Wow, Tom Hanks is always... Oh, flop era. Yeah. Oh yeah. That was probably the beginning. That predates Pinocchio I think. Oh my god. Dude, it's bad. Oh my gosh.

Really, I don't know if it's like he's taking advice from Chet. I don't know what's going on with him, but all is not well in the Hanks household. Chet Hanks feels like an SNL skit. He can't be real. It's crazy. Whatever happened to Colin? I know. Where's he at? I'm assuming he's on some TV show that millions of people watch and I've never heard of.

That we've never heard of. That's where I feel like he's usually at. I feel like you're definitely right. My mom knows where Colin Hanks is. I can tell you that much. Obsessed. Anyways, back to Lieutenant Dan. Yeah, I think again, his disability is used very cynically by the plot, you know, played obviously by Gary Sinise, an able-bodied actor. But again, it's a complicated issue. I found an essay from 2019 on Forbes by friend of the cast,

Kristen Lopez, who is a fabulous writer, who's written extensively on movies and ableism, which is why she wrote this essay about Forrest Gump and ableism. So I just wanted to share a few passages from that. We'll link the whole essay, but it's essentially about her complicated relationship with the character of Lieutenant Dan. So she says, quote, when I share that I'm a disabled writer, I often hear the same handful of questions, one of which is what's the first movie you saw with a disabled character in it? The answer is easy, Forrest Gump. But where I identified with Forrest Gump wasn't with its title character. No, before I saw another actual person in a wheelchair other than myself, I saw Lieutenant Dan Taylor. Lieutenant Dan crosses off several of the boxes we see in disabled narratives

today. Lieutenant Dan is a white male, disabled, late in life, in this case during the Vietnam War. The audience is introduced to him as a dominating example of masculinity, and this heroism is all but eliminated after Dan loses his legs. Vietnam stories are their own subgenre in the world of disabled narratives, but the bulk of them coming several years after that event in the 80s and 90s. In nearly all of them, men disabled in the war are bitter and resentful. They aren't necessarily bitter about the society that leaves them without shelter or accessibility, but how the average American has responded to the war themselves. In these movies, the disability is meant to

show how callous humanity has become to veterans, not the disabled per se." And then she goes on to say that she still has a very strong connection to this character, specifically the moment where Lieutenant Dan was speaking to a priest and is told that God is listening. She says, quote, Dan's irritation at the ableist rhetoric of religion or an able person's belief that everyone who is disabled will be cured upon death is understandable. I've had several conversations just like this. When you've never seen yourself represented, you latch on to the first thing you see for good or bad. 25 years later, I still put

down Lieutenant Dan as one of my favorite characters, but I understand his limitations and failings. As far as disabled representation goes, he doesn't posit anything new, his depiction is common, but in a landscape where representation remains so limited, the few good ideas Dan is given shaped who I was and reminded me of what I expected movies to push for in the future. I think it's like a start, you know, and I think many aspects of this movie are so complicated because they are a start in some direction, even if they're quite imperfect. I mean, really important context as well is in the book, Dan isn't his lieutenant. He meets Dan just in the hospital and his whole face is mutilated. Like he's been severely injured on his face and so he doesn't have the opportunity to conceal his disability. Uh, at the end of Forrest Gump, Forrest runs away with Dan and an orangutan,

which I can't even get into that. They like run off together. Now, why would they cut that? I know. What the heck? Um, but yeah, Dan's not like reabsorbed as a member of society. He can't, you know, kind of switch. He can't conceal himself.

And so I think that that's also kind of an interesting change made. But I totally understand the empathy with Dan and finding him complicated. Right. Yeah. It's like we see so many cases of that. I know we've talked about it a lot on the show before of flawed representation. If it's the first representation you encounter, of course, you're going to feel a type of way about it.

So I just wanted to acknowledge that because I think Dan is, again, there's a lot of missed opportunities with that character, not just in regards to disability, but in regards to veterans, and in regards to a and in regards to like a clear opportunity to be like the Vietnam War was bad. It's just like, it is so wild to me that a movie like that made this much fucking money didn't have the like balls to say that the Vietnam War was bad. Anyways. Well, that's why the movie made money. That's true Well, it's also coming after a whole genre of movies that are Vietnam war Platoon a full metal jacket. I think right. Yeah, I forgot to bring this up during our conversation about Jenny but because

Tom Hanks Robin Wright and Robert Zemeckis were just on a tour together for this movie that, I don't know. I don't know anyone who saw it. Here. Here. That's such a, it also just sounds like Robert Zemeckis phoning it in like, here, here's this. He's been phoning it in. Oh God. But because obviously this team was reuniting, Forrest Gump was coming up a lot on the press

tour and a variety interviewer asked Robin Wright about sort of this backlash to the Jenny character over time. So the question was, there are some different takes on Jenny, including that she was punished for her choices, which were reflective of the choices of many young women in a generation that had social and economic liberty for the first time. She chooses a freewheeling life and she dies. There is a sense that this is kind of an anti-feminist role. What do you think? Robin Wright, who the only thing I can really say for her here is like, this is a very unfortunate to men to be sitting next to while being put on the spot about this. But Robin Wright replies, No, it's not about that. People have said she's a Voldemort to

Forrest. I wouldn't choose that as a reference, but she was kind of selfish. I don't think it's a punishment that she gets AIDS. She was so promiscuous. That was the selfishness that she did to Forrest. He was in love with her from day one. And she was just flighty and running and doing coke and hooking up with a Black Panther. And then she gets sick and says, this is your child, but I'm dying. And he still takes her. I'll take care of you at mama's house. I mean, it's the sweetest love story. Baffling. Like, okay, baffling.

Even if you're next to the people who you made the movie with, that's a dogshit take. Yeah, I'm sorry. That is no excuse. She triples out. I rereading the quote, you're like, wait, no. She's committing all the cardinal sins of acting. As an actor, you're supposed to empathize with your character. Like, regardless, like you're supposed to understand some humanity in your character, some of their actions, their motivations for her to like so wildly misunderstand Jenny is kind of embarrassing. Like, what?

Yeah. Especially as a woman who is like, not that far removed from that generation. She's like a decade removed from the actual age of Jenny's character. And so it's just like, I don't know, boomer women, I will never, I will never understand. They love to own themselves. Like it's just, it's wild. Anyways. Yeah. I just wanted to share that absolute piece of dog shit quote. Not sure what's going on with Robin. Right.

I think the idea of Jenny being anti-feminist is also kind of like a little unfair as well. I think, I don't know, a lot of people in my comments on the video were like, most of the reason I love Forrest Gump is because I love Jenny and I saw myself in her. And so I think in a way, there could be like a bit more of a reparative reading of Forrest Gump and, you know, seeing Jenny as this empathetic, like, strong-willed character, a survivor in all contexts, and you know, who set out to, you know, pursue her dreams and, like, kind of did what she wanted, which I think is great. And I hate the narrative about her stringing for us along.

Like, God, so classic of that time. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I really like the character of Jenny, and I think it's just, like, the takeaway. My takeaway was, like, I mean, keeping our conversation about consent in mind, but I think that it's like you leave the movie just wishing that the world hadn't done her so fucking dirty. And again, it's like, if that is the way that the movie needs Jenny's story to end, which obviously it doesn't because the source material doesn't do that. But like, again, imply that it's systemic in any way that she got fucked over in this way, as opposed

to being like, it's basically her fault. And she brought it on herself. And the actor agrees. And like, I don't know, I think in general, her story should not have gone that way. But there's just, again, there's no because this movie has no interest in interrogating any systemic anything. Yeah, you're presented with a young feminist who is trying to live on her own, trying to overcome a very traumatic past, and they kill her. So I find the relationship between Jenny and Forrest kind of fascinating, especially in the movie, because outside of the romanticized context like I think they have this like fascinating kind of codependence and like

platonic love that gets really embroiled with romantic love and lust and I don't know I think when they're children you see them kind of Helping each other in these ways, you know, like she helps for us She like she's a friend to him where no one else is and you know He's there for her is like a support through what she's going through. And it's like as children helping each other in that way. And then getting kind of wires crossed when you get older and not knowing if you're in love or if you're friends I think could have a fascinating,

like there could be some interesting angles to look at that from. But yeah, no, the movie's not interested in doing that. No, yeah, because the movie's convinced that it's a consensual love story. And I don't know, the scene that I appreciated the most between Forrest and Jenny, even though it's extremely melodramatic,

but late in the movie when they pass her house where she had been abused and she throws rocks at it, she has a big emotional response to seeing this house again that is ostensibly empty at this point. But she's flinging rocks at it and Forrest just lets her and doesn't interfere and does I think what a true friend should do in that situation just is there for her. And you know, it's possible he doesn't totally, I mean, but it is actually implied that he understands why she's doing it because he's not interfering in ways he would in other

situations. I think he emotionally understands. Yeah. Yeah, I really liked that moment between them. And I guess I wish that that was more where their relationship lived of like they understand each other because of this shared history. Like it didn't need to be tumbled into a romantic like, and now we share a child together because it's just too it's too messy. The movie's not equipped to responsibly handle that.

It's very messy. The movie's not equipped to responsibly handle that. It's very Hollywood. Yeah. Yeah. Big kiss at the end. Kind of kind of thing, you know, foot pop kind of storyline. Yes, for sure. OK, sorry, that was my Jenny side conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shall we talk about Baba? We should. We must.

I guess just zooming out a little bit and examining the way the movie handles black characters in general, where they mostly exist to service or further characterize white characters, particularly Forrest Gump, of course. And it's characterizing the Forrest Gump character by showing how naive he is to things like systemic racism. Because we see many examples of this. We've already discussed several of them. The him like referencing that he was named after a grand wizard of the KKK. grand wizard of the KKK, him not understanding what that organization is at all. There's that scene where he's at the Black Panther meeting, and there's a Black Panther who is lecturing Forrest about the Vietnam War and how the Black Panthers oppose any war where the US sends Black soldiers to the front line

to die for a country that hates them and how racism is destroying Black communities and things of that nature. And Forrest is just like completely ignoring him in favor of paying attention to Jenny. There's like other just like references to the fact that like, Forrest is clueless to systemic racism. And then you have him befriending and like becoming best friends with Bubba, who is, I guess, not a black character in the book. Is that it's just not really stated in the book. It's not specified. Okay. And it's also mentioned in the book, I think you said that they met in college, not the battlefield, which felt like pointed to make it because they forego that in favor of, you know, they make a weird visual joke of like, force doesn't know what's

going on in this scene where George Wallace is talking. And like, that is done instead of just introducing him to Bubba in college. And I feel like it's almost implied that like, well, of course you wouldn't make a black friend in college during this era. Like it just, I don't know. I that felt very pointed. I wrote down under Bubba. I was like, everyone should just watch The Five Bloods instead of this movie's take on the Vietnam War. Have you guys seen that? I haven't. I haven't seen The Five Bloods instead of this movie's take on the Vietnam War. Have you guys seen that? I haven't. I haven't seen the Five Bloods. It came out during the pandemic lockdown, so I think that's why a lot of people didn't see it. But it was a Spike Lee movie for Netflix.

Amazing cast, but it's about black Vietnam War veterans like talking about their time in the service. And it's a really great movie. Del Ruy Lindo is great in it. Anyways, a movie with 50 times more to say than this one. Right. Because all it says about Bubba, for example, is that he likes shrimp. Right.

Right. All we get to know about Bubba. Well, and also it feels implied that Bubba is neurodivergent in some way as well. It seems like it. Yeah. But again, not something that the movie is going to explicitly attempt to talk about. And in the case of Forrest, we get a, you know, deeply imperfect, but we get far more information about Forest's personality and interests than Bubba. I mean, it really is just that one note. I also wanted to mention that in the movie, they add this detail that he has a protruding lip,

They add this detail that he has a protruding lip and they made that actor, the actor playing Bubba, Macalte Williamson, like put in a prosthetic in order to hold his face. I was curious about that. I was as well, but yes, it says Williamson wore a lip attachment to create Bubba's protruding lip,

which again, just feels very caricaturesque and insulting and fucked. Like, menstrual show kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the lip did have elements of menstrualcy that made me feel a little strange. It's just a strange addition. I think that they're trying to kind of have him and Bubba feel like a kinship with each

other because Bubba has this kind of like physical difference and then Forrest has this like Intellectual cognitive difference and maybe that's why they feel like closer to each other But I think maybe he was a bit misguided They can just be friends that they can just be friends like I was again It's like we're scraping the bottom of the barrel here in terms of like what this movie does. I was glad to see that there were black soldiers included in this platoon because I've actually I

haven't seen Apocalypse now, bravely. Wow. It's one of my other long holdouts for whatever reason. Apocalypse now directed by Francis Ford Coppola of Megalopolis fame. No, I love Francis Ford Coppola. I love him so much I cannot see Megalopolis. Look, I mean Zemeckis is another example of you gotta flop at some point. All these guys are in their flop era. No, no, no, no. I love a director who is capable of making the most monumental flops, but also made like three of the most important amazing movies of all time. Like that is like someone who I'm like, cook, you're cooking. Pulse Raider, same garbage movies and amazing movies.

I love that. Yes. Yes. You've got one more in you, King. I can feel it. I feel it. I can feel it. But yeah, that there are black soldiers in Forest Platoon, I think

is very important because there were, I've got some data up here and this is also just something that is explicitly addressed extensively in The Five Bloods, which is, I think we should just cover that movie. I feel like it was underrated, but that there were 300,000 black soldiers who served in combat roles in the Vietnam War, which proportional to black Americans at the time, it was absurd. Like it was, it really was just young men being sent to die and men who were disproportionately black. And so I was glad to see that we have not only the representation of black soldiers in Forest Platoon, but we get to know one of those soldiers. However, do we? Because all we learn is that this guy likes shrimp. And that is about the best Eric Roth could do for us. There's something about Tom Hanks being in movies with like a noble black character,

like one of those like noble black archetypes. Like I think the Green Mile is one of them. It's just such a fascinating 90s trope of this kind of like saintly black character. I mean we don't know as much about Bubba as we do, as we learn in the Green Mile, but like I feel like, you know, it's just like an interesting dynamic of Tom Hanks playing these kind of white characters who are adjacent to these characters. I don't know, it's just fascinating to me.

Didn't make that connection, but no, I see it. I wonder if there's other examples. Like witnessing the kind of the suffering or witnessing the death of one of these characters. I don't know. Yeah, I guess I was also surprised that ultimately Bubba Gump becomes a bigger facet of the story than Bubba himself was. You see Bubba for such a short amount of time in the movie and then there's an entire restaurant about it.

Again, I was glad that Forrest gave Bubba's family a cut of the business. I think it took him too long. I think he should have just done it from the jump. And I think that Bubba's family was presented in this very broad way as well that seemed like both critical of black families and poor families. It felt so vague movie version of. Yeah. It takes on a very individualist kind of like emotional approach to racism in that forest is, you know,

helping this one black family and, you know, kind of saving them from poverty. And now Bubba's mom doesn't have to serve shrimp anymore. A white lady serving her shrimp. But it's like, that's great, but we're not actually like, fully understanding the implications of, you know what I mean? We're not fully understanding the implications of why that this family is disenfranchised.

Which I guess the movie kind of hints at when they show that all his ancestors have been feeding shrimp to white ladies their whole lives, but it's just- But they don't even like say, it's so weird what this movie avoids saying when they're fully comfortable say like name checking the Grand Wizard of the KKK in the first five minutes of the movie.

It's just like, I don't know, like, yeah, I've rewatched that part a couple times to be like, but they're not explicitly saying what Bubba's family history very likely is in the South. To me, it is alluding to the fact that Bubba's grandmother or maybe great-grandmother was an enslaved person serving shrimp to an enslaver on a plantation. But that is presented in almost like a visual gag sort of way without, again, commenting on anything about systemic racism or anything like that. I do feel like with Bubba, it's, again, like commenting on anything about systemic racism or anything like that.

I do feel like with Bubba, it's again, his family deserves that money, right? But I think it's again presented like forested this out of the goodness of his heart. And like none of this would have been possible if it weren't for this amazing guy, Forrest Gump. So again, it's like he's kind of coming in with like the the white saviorism a little bit. They go out of their way to mention that Lieutenant Dan didn't want me to do this, but I did. And I don't know, just so many of the marginalized characters

that exist around Forrest sometimes just seem to be there for the audience to be reminded what a good guy Forrest is. Totally. And how much we love him. So, I mean, I don't, unfortunately, I don't have that much else to say about Bubba specifically, because we just don't know very much about him. But I do think that this connects to, I think my last point I wanted to make, which is that there are, I think, over 10 real historical figures that appear in this, or whatever,

are Zemeckis'd into this movie. They came in on the Polar Express. Wow. They are all white men. There's no women. There's no people of color. You meet two black panthers, but they don't bother to ascribe who these Black Panthers may have been. They're not named, I mean, and I checked to make sure because Abbie Hoffman isn't named, but he's credited as Abbie Hoffman. But these actors are just credited as Black Panthers,

which to me indicates that there wasn't enough interest on the part of the production to choose specific important Black Panthers to have these characters. Although I don't know if I'd want like Fred Hampton coming into that scene. No. Like the kid, he just kind of walks up

and then he's like, this is how I feel. And he kind of like is like yelling at, they just make him seem so like, they just make everyone involved in the counterculture seem so hedonistic and like, miserable and like aggressive. Their, their causes are kind of pointless and, and forest is like, I don't get this. These people are weird. And I feel like that scene is so emblematic of that,

let alone having Jenny get just like fully slapped in the face at this black Panther meet. The fact that that scene is like played as this bizarre joke that yeah, that the black Panthers in this the unnamed Black Panthers in the scene are just screaming their ideology at Forrest Gump which is like I think like played into how Black Panthers were portrayed in pop culture as well. I'm trying to think of another example. I feel like there is like well angry, angry, yes, like, yeah, angry and ineffective. Yeah, I think like angry, violent, ineffective.

Yeah, I think I'm thinking of some old SNL sketches. I can't pull exactly what I'm thinking of here. Yeah. I mean, if you listen to the rhetoric of what that guy is saying, he's correct. Like he is saying he's right. But yeah, true and correct things. But it's reduced to background noise. Yeah. Yeah. And the same way that in the integration scene at Forrest College, you know, it's like you're hearing something that is very

significant. And then we just sort of pan over to like, what are these white characters doing? What's Forrest doing? Well, again, like to the individual goodness of it all, like him picking up a book, you know, it's like, oh, what a kindhearted soul. and that's the individuals such a nice so nice you know like we should just all be nice to each other yeah yeah does anyone else have other thoughts on this movie really I'm looking through my notes just something that you also call attention to in your video essay my ear but but the fact that like the tonal and the character and the narrative changes that were made

from the book to the movie adaptation had so much to do with money and marketing and like catering to a very broad American movie going audience because if they had adapted the book more closely with its like, you know, satirical tones and critique of American culture, it certainly would have been a much bigger financial risk and probably would have bombed at the box office because this is coming out at a time and you know this is still very much

the case now where we're not as willing to be critical of American history and culture and capitalism and all of the things as we should be and so they were just like, let's just whitewash everything and sanitize everything and, and make it this sort of like, wow, isn't this such a nice depiction of this nice friendly guy? And let's make sure we say nothing about anything. And that made it one of the highest grossing movies of 1994. Was it first or second, something like that. I think, yeah. And best picture winner, if I'm not mistaken. Swept, absolutely swept the Oscars.

Yeah. Over Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption, both of which are so good. I mean, I'm one of the remaining Pulp Fiction lovers, but. Come on. I'm kind of on the fence about it, but for my money, Shawshank Redemption should have won Best Picture by a long shot. Yeah. So just wanted to point out that Zemeckis and the producers and everything were just

like, how can we make money from this? Right. Yeah. Because this was made on a $55 million budget and grossed $678 million at the box office. Wild. I think one of the reasons I'll always feel slightly complicated about Forrest Gump is because the movie-ness of it and the big cinema of it is in one way so awful. They sanitized the book and they made it conservative catnip. I hadn't mentioned yet, but it got swept up by far-right people like Pat Buchanan and

Newt Gingrich and they used it as part of their political campaign. In a year where Republicans swept the White House for the first time in four decades, it was considered like a conservative kind of like revolution. But then at the same time, it's like, sometimes I almost appreciate a movie that manages to like worm itself so deeply into popular culture and like manages to be so ubiquitous and like such a movie that in some ways when I watch it, I'm like, I can kind of appreciate the like brazen sentimentality of it because I'm like, wow, that's, that is a movie.

The movie feels like a movie. Yeah. And I can appreciate the competence of how powerful it is at getting people to be emotional. But then in other ways, that's dangerous because of the ways that it can be, the ways that its conservative messaging can be taken and adopted and ran with. Yeah.

Yeah. Which I know you mentioned in your video, and again, listeners, watch the whole video, but that it was this really right of center attempt to say, the fact that they made a movie about 40 years of American history, they're like, it's an apolitical movie. You're like, not possible, man. Sorry, that's just not possible to do. But that they had this sort of right of center, like crowd pleasing approach to it. And you say in your video, like the right is better at turning shit into propaganda. And they very effectively did it very quickly.

It's one thing they got going for them. Then and now. Unfortunately, that's true. Except now maybe the CEO shooter is going to bring us all together. We can all link and build. Truly. Linking and building. Wait, does this movie pass the Bechdel test? I genuinely don't know.

I didn't even bother paying attention. I don't. Let's check. No, no. I think there's scenes where like, Forrest's mom will be talking to, I think her name is Louise. She's the black woman who works for her in unclear exactly what capacity. I think she helps with the boarding house kind of vibe. And she just was like, Louise, Louise, that's Forrest. So doesn't pass. I think that might be the only interaction between women. There's also Oh, this I forgot to bring this up earlier, because there's just so much. But going into this movie is pretty low opinion about sex work, there are two named sex workers who are with Lieutenant Dan and Forrest on New Year's Eve.

I have their names here, Carla and Lenore, and they do talk to each other, but it is about the men in the room, and are end up like coming off as cruel ableist Harpies and that is the end of their story. And Forrest is like I don't want to have sex with her because she smelled like cigarettes. She's gross and you're like all right and I'm correctly assuming we will never see or hear these characters again and these evil witches are, you know, provide this opportunity for the men to bond. So yeah, no, this movie, I'm on scholarly journal, Bechtel test.com, who often ends up doing our podcast for us.

Our podcast is not even, we should have a different name at this point, because it is not about the Bechtel test. I'm surprised she has a pseudo-science name though. It's such a good name. It just works. It's a jumping off point as we always say. Yeah, but anyways it doesn't pass. Although there is a very lively comment section on people like it might not pass. Curl says it might not pass the Bechdel test but this movie is far from sexist. it might not pass the Bechtel test, but this movie is far from sexist. I disagree, Curl. Agree to disagree, Curl.

Anyways, it doesn't pass and it's 4,000 hours long. So how do you like that? Yeah. Well, here's the thing. We got to rate this movie on our nipple scale. We sure do. The one true metric where on a scale of zero to five nipples, we rate the movie, examining it through an intersectional feminist lens.

Oh, like, 0.5 nipples. I think that Jenny and being able to kind of, like, reclaim her to some degree or, like, see yourself in her as someone who strikes out on her own and engages in counterculture and activism and ignores and defies the like gender role expectations of the time, the conservative ones at least, and you know, just like makes a life for herself and I think there's like you can admire her for that but everything else about the way she's characterized and about the movie overall and its refusal to say really anything of substance I mean I do think there are several

parts that are very emotionally compelling so I get the appeal of this movie on that level. Obviously, when I was a kid watching this movie on repeat, that's what I was drawn to. But there were so many opportunities to say, you know, pretty not controversial things about American history, such as the Vietnam War was a horrible mistake. Racial segregation was a horrible mistake. But instead the movie opts to just be like, remember this from the good old days? And so I can't stand by the movie anymore because of that. Not that every movie has to make some grand sociopolitical statement. But if you're going to walk us through several decades of highly politicized American history

and say more or less nothing about it, then like, what's the point of the movie? So I'll give it 0.5 nipples and I'll give it to Jenny the character. The end. I'll give it I guess one. I guess. I don't know. Yeah, I agree that Jenny I think to differing degrees Jenny and Lieutenant Dan are characters that are deeply flawed and are reclaimable, probably not in a way that the filmmakers intended. But that's, that's how movies work. I don't know with all with all due respect to Forrest Gump heads, like we're right and you're wrong.

And I guess that's just something that you're going to have to make your peace with. Not the gump heads. Gump Nation is in shambles after this. We're going to have tomatoes thrown at us when we go to Bubba Gump at CityWalk. Gump Nation is going to come for us. It's a risk I'm willing to take. There are Robert Zemeckis movies I like, but anytime he's trying to say something serious, it is so unserious. He's a great example of a director who's ability and talent and sense of whimsy I respect, but I don't care what he thinks about fucking anything.

He couldn't be bothered to read the source material. One nipple and I'm giving it to baby Haley. Oh yes. So small. Just not very big. I'm going to give it one and a half for all the reasons you guys said and also because I appreciate my like teenage instinct to cry at this movie, you know, and I think that I'll cherish that regardless of how I feel icky about it now. Fair. It's true. Well, Maiya, thank you so much for joining us for this discussion. So enjoyed having you. Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I'm so glad we could also link and build like this. I'm so honored to be on here. The feeling is very mutual. Come back any time. Bring a movie you'll love next time.

I have so many. Where can people follow your work, follow you on social media, etc.? Yes, you can find me on YouTube. My name is Broie Deschanel on there. You can find me on Instagram. My name is Broie underscore Deschanel on there. And then you can find my podcast on any podcasting platforms. I co-host it with my friend Hannah and it's called rehash. I'm excited to listen to the to the furries episode. Oh, I love that episode. You can follow us on Instagram, mainly at Bechtelcast. And if you want more content,

you can follow us on our Patreon, aka matrionpatrion.com slash Bechtelcast, where for five bucks a month, you get two bonus episodes every month and access to our entire Patreon back catalog, which is over 150 episodes. So if you're looking for a movie we haven't covered on the main feed,

we've covered over 500 movies on this show. It's very possible it is on our matriarch. And you can grab our merch at tpublic.com slash the back to cast. All of it is designed by a one Jamie Loftus. And yeah, thanks for listening. And with that, we have to run forest run away. Boink. Bye. Bye. The Bechtel cast is a production of iHeartMedia hosted by Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mo Laborde. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Voskrasensky. Our logo and merch is designed by Jamie Loftus and a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit

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