forrest gump as a messianic fable

With the 20th Anniversary of Forrest Gump and next week's IMAX re-release, I'd like to share an insight I had on the film the last time I watched it a few months ago.

Forrest Gump is one of those moves I love more because of the feelings it evokes in me than because of the actual virtues of the film. It makes me feel optimistic and patriotic and nostalgic--three of my favorite feelings. Don't get me wrong, it was filled with brilliant acting performances, beautiful cinematography, groundbreaking special effects, an epic scope, some compelling historical events, and so thoroughly defied the conventions of film as to be uncategorizeical (is it a war movie? comedy? tragic biography? allegory? sports film? history? inspiring drama?). And yet, it still wasn't much more than the sum of its parts. Oh, but they're GOOD parts. Any movie not starring Reese Witherspoon that can get away with putting Sweet Home Alabama in the soundtrack should.

I remember the night back in 1994 when my parents came home off a date where they went to see the movie. They never went on dates to see movies, but maybe that shows how accurately Robert Zemeckis hit the bull's-eye of his target demographic: baby boomers. Mom and Dad burst through the door still buzzing about it in pseudo-southern accents. So I asked them how the movie was and then sat there in disbelief as they gave a plot skeleton. It sounded more like reading the TV-Guide summary of a season's worth of Simpsons episodes than a coherent plot of an Oscar-nominated* feature film. They sounded like a rapid-fire Laurel and Hardy skit.

"Well, there's this retarded guy."
"Special guy."
"OK, special guy. And he can't even walk without braces on his legs but then he wins the national championship in football."
"Not because he's good at football."
"Yeah, it's just 'cause he runs so fast."
"But he decides to join the Army and..."
"...he gets shot in the butt while saving a bunch of guys in Vietnam and gets the Congressional Medal of Honor."
"But he stays in the Army and beats everyone in China at Ping Pong."
"And he gives a speech on the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial after he meets the President."
BOTH: "Again! Ha ha ha."
"Then he starts a seafood business and invests a bunch of money in Apple Computer and gets filthy rich."
"But one day he decides to go running."
"Non stop."
"Coast-to-coast."
"For three years."
"He just felt like run-ning."
"Ha ha ha."
"But then he gets tired and stops."
"Then he finds out he's a father and becomes a stay-at-home dad."
"And mows the lawn."
"Yeah. That's about it."

I didn't believe them. "There's no way all of that happens to one guy and it actually gets made into a movie," I said.

Roger Ebert Agreed, "I've never seen a movie quite like Forrest Gump."

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The movie is called Forrest Gump, but it's not about Forrest Gump. At least, he's not the reason it's a compelling story. Can you imagine if the movie was EXACTLY as my parents described it? It'd be all yin and no yang.

Back in 2001 when I was doing my student teaching, I was partnered with a brilliant man whose name I can't remember who was teaching his First Graders how to analyze literature. He presented the idea of protagonists and antagonists in a simple way I've never heard before. It went like this: the protagonist is the one who changes; the antagonist is the one who causes the change. It's an elegant way to analyze stories and I've found it to be much more inclusive and insightful than the standard hero/villain model that excludes many story types such as film noir, man vs. nature, and most dramas and comedies where there is no clear bad guy.

The last time I watched Forrest Gump I realized that he's not the protagonist. He may be the central figure in the movie, but he isn't the protagonist. Forrest never changes. He simply lives his life with grace and fortitude. Forrest is more of a lens that softens the edges as we watch the American baby boom generation come of age. Forrest is "so untainted by bigotry or ideology that he makes the perfect witness." Kind of like Spock or Data: among us, but not one of us. A mirror in which to examine ourselves. Has there ever been a more good-hearted antagonist in all the history of cinema than Forrest Gump?

So if Forrest is the antagonist, who is the protagonist? Why it's Jen-nay Curran and Lieutenant Daniel Taylor!

Jenny and Dan don't know it yet, but they are in need of salvation and Forrest is their savior. And that's when I realized that Forrest Gump was a broad messianic fable.

I'll deal with Dan first since his existential crisis is more overtly deistic (He goes as far as to ask Forrest, "Where's your God now?"). Dan's story is one of being broken down and then being built up higher than before--higher than he ever knew was possible.

When we first meet Dan he's a man on a mission. He's in his element. He knows his job and he loves his job. He, perhaps openly, perhaps secretly, desires to fulfill his destiny and join his forefathers as a casualty of war fighting on behalf of the United States of America. Ever known a guy like Dan?: someone who knows what life is all about and doesn't need God. And then, all of a sudden, they need him.

Without his legs Dan can no longer fulfill what he thought was his destiny. He can't be a soldier. And he no longer knows the meaning of his life. It's an epic existential crisis. Like a wealthy businessman who goes bankrupt or a professional athlete who has a career-ending injury. Suddenly life doesn't make sense anymore.

We love to re-tell the stories of soldiers and athletes who triumph over lost limbs and do something worthy and elevated with their broken body, but there are just as many, if not more, stories we don't like to re-tell of people who sink into despair in the way that Lieutenant Dan had. But then Forrest reenters his life right as he is hitting proverbial rock bottom. At the moment everyone is making New Year's resolutions, Dan decides to find out if there's more to life than being a soldier and decides to follow Forrest Gump's way of life. At first Dan follows Forrest out of curiosity and with an air of nothing-to-lose self-aware irony. And yet he pays much greater attention to Forrest than he did back when he was Forrest's superior officer and his guile starts to fall away--just like his mentor.

And then Dan grapples with the issue of God in earnest, comes to peace and becomes truly happy; independent of whether or not he has legs or a job. He was saved by learning to follow the example of a humble man he used to think he was better than. "I never thanked you for saving my life," he said to Forrest.

Jenny's salvation is more complex. She has known Forrest since when she was a child like someone who has gone to church their whole life. But for Jenny, something terrible and arguably worse than Dan's tragedy happens to her. Jenny grows up being sexually abused by her father. Forrest is always there to comfort Jenny and offer her peace. At times she embraces him and welcomes him. Other times she rejects him and avoids him. "Forrest, you don't know what love is," she chastises him. He waits more than a decade to rebut that false accusation. Have you ever known someone like Jenny?: an unfortunate victim of the harshness of life who refuses to accept that God can heal them.

No matter how many times she avoids him or rejects him, Forrest is always there for her, arms outstretched. There are a couple of times where she seems to be in denial like, 'It can't be that easy, Forrest. I can't just be loved just for being me.' "You can't keep trying to rescue me all the time," she says.

She desperately tries to find happiness, but her choices fill her with emptiness until she is on the verge of suicide. All the while Forrest waits patiently for her to return saying things like, "He should not be hitting you," and "I think you should go home." Her salvation comes when she finally gives in and realizes that it really was: that easy.

Our protagonists, Jenny and Dan, bear the burden of two of the greatest questions of human existence** and we watch them come to a true and lasting peace as Forrest gently, patiently guides them to the answers.

That's all I have to say about that***.



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*Apparently among hard-core movie fans it's a huge controversy that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded 6 Oscars to Forrest Gump giving Robert Zemekis and Tom Hanks a virtual shut-out over Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption.

**Dan's is: "What is my purpose in life?" and Jenny's is: "Why do bad things happen to innocent people?"

***There are other, shallower parallels between Forrest Gump and Jesus Christ in the film like Forrest's 3-year ministry at age 30, but I realized I'd do a disservice to start listing them.

CURIOSITY: Can you think of another movie that inspired a successful, thriving, independent business based on a fictional company from the film??