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Create Project: Media Analysis

The film industry in the United States is deeply historical and innovative when it comes to the production and development of the modern day film scene. Throughout the many decades of film production in the United States, there have been only a handful of films deemed a ‘cult classic’ by the American population. These ‘cult classic’ films have shaped many aspects of American culture like humor or everyday sayings, and these films have integrated themselves into household names. The film “Forrest Gump” was an immediate hit among the people of the United States and its famous quotes and plot have integrated themselves into American culture. This film stars Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump and takes the audience through his incredibly eventful, comedic, and overall interesting life. The film is a progression of life events told by Forrest as he sits at a bus stop and reflects on his life stories with the strangers near him, making it feel like a memoir of his life. Forrest Gump is an intellectually disabled man that is portrayed in a unique view with his disability aiding in the eventfulness of his life. His disability is shown more as an asset to his accomplishments rather than a barrier to his life which, in my opinion, is not a common portrayal of disability in American culture.

This film introduces Forrest as a young boy living in Greenbow, Alabama in the 1950’s. His disability is heavily portrayed in physical, social, and emotional situations throughout the entire film. One of the opening scenes, 00:06:15 into the film, Forrest is walking through downtown Greenbow with his mother and his clunky and large metal leg braces get caught in the grate of a drain. After his mother helps to get Forrest unstuck she comments to the passerbyers, “What are y’all starin’ at, haven’t ya ever seen a boy with braces on his legs before?” and then turns to Forrest to say, “Don’t ever let anybody tell you they’re better than you Forrest, if God intended everybody to be the same, he’d given us all braces on our legs”. This scene truly shows how his mother molded Forrest’s understanding of his disabilities or differences to be viewed as completely normal. They are not ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but they are never something that should make him ashamed of himself.

This particular view on disability is shown throughout the entirety of this film as Forrest’s upbringing allows him to defend harmful comments or negative insinuations against his character. Due to the way his mother raised him, Forrest develops a unique way of displaying his confidence in himself to others and often humbles those who question his abilities through simple phrases. This trait is shown in a scene where young Forrest experiences his first bus ride to school and the first time he meets his lifelong friend, Jenny, who is a central character in the film. As Forrest attempts to find a seat on the bus he is met with rude declines from the children on the bus, due to his visible leg braces. He then hears a girl say, “You can sit here if you want”. As Forrest sits down she asks him what is wrong with his legs, to which he replied, “Um, nothing at all, thank you. My legs are just fine and dandy”. She then asks why he wears the braces and he replies, “My momma says my back’s crooked like a question mark. These are gonna make me as straight as an arrow. They’re my magic shoes”. The girl then asks, “Are you stupid or somethin?” to which Forrest replies, “Mama says, ‘stupid is as stupid does’”. After this conversation the girl then introduces herself as Jenny and the pair become immediate best friends. Discrimination against those with disabilities is a learned belief, not an inherent one, and this scene displays that concept perfectly. The other children took one look at Forrest and saw his leg braces, not the child himself. This created an immediate perception that Forrest was different or that something was wrong with him which caused the other children to decline a seat to him. Although Jenny’s comments were not kind in nature, Forrest’s replies show the confidence and resilience that has been instilled in him to view his ‘differences’ as neutral parts of himself instead of something to be ashamed of. Due to Forrest’s replies, Jenny was able to view his ‘differences’ as nothing notable, showing that negative connotations between ‘differences’ in abilities between people are a learned habit and do not inherently create barriers between human connection.

As the film progresses, Forrest’s ‘lack of intelligence’ is shown as a trait that allows him to accomplish incredible things from an outside perspective. Due to the neutrality Forrest holds over his ‘differences’, the internal perspective of Forrest’s assets that lead to his outstanding accomplishments do not come from one of his traits, but simply him as a human being. This is shown in a scene at 00:21:27 in the film where Forrest gets recruited by college football coaches. In a mad dash to escape some bullies chasing Forrest in a car, he finds himself sprinting through the middle of a football practice and outrunning every player on the field. Due to his incredible speed he catches the attention of a college coach and when the coach asks the local football coach what Forrest’s name is, the local coach responds with, “Just a local idiot”. It then progresses forward to show Forrest zoning off on Alabama football field, receiving the ball, being told to run, taking off across the field to score a touchdown, and running through the band and into the tunnel because he did not know when to stop. The coach then says, “He must be the stupidest son of a bitch alive, but he sure is fast.” The scene then switches to future Forrest telling his story when he says, “Now, it used to be I ran to get where I was going. I never thought it would take me anywhere”. Forrest’s reflection of his college opportunity came from his gratefulness of how running fast just so happened to allow him an opportunity to go to college. The movie portrays the college coach as someone who looks past Forrest’s intellect and sees his ability to run but, this scene also shows that due to their beliefs of Forrest’s intellect, they took advantage of his ability to run by not coaching him on how to be active within the game of football. Despite his speed and positive outlook on his opportunity of getting to go to college, his ‘differences’ continued to separate him from the rest of his team due to those around him not viewing him capable enough to be present within the game of football.

In conclusion, I believe that the way the film portrays Forrest’s perspective on his incredible achievements and disability can be interpreted and analyzed from multiple perspectives as a viewer. One could say the film takes a positive approach to Forrest’s life as his belief that he was no different than others allowed him to use his personality and innate abilities to succeed. On the contrary, I feel that the portrayal of his disability could be seen from a perspective that Forrest was made out to be ‘so stupid’ that he was incapable of recognizing barriers to his abilities which caused him to succeed. In my final opinion, this film portrays disability in a way that is not shown often in American media. Despite Forrest’s apparent differences, his belief that he was no different than those around him went passed his own thoughts, and changed the opinion of others around him. His natural talents and abilities allowed others around him to believe that disability is not an all encompassing personality trait and when people look past it they can see the incredible person that Forrest is.