REMINDER: this is a shitpost

138 points

I don’t understand the Jenny hate. Did they expect her to stay with Forrest and wait for him at home just baking pies and listening to the radio while he went off to war, sailed his shrimp boat, toured as a ping pong champion, and then just fucked off to go running for two years?

Gump and Jenny were both rolling stones. She wanted to be free, and fly far far away from the home where she was abused. She wanted her own adventures. Gump was her best friend, but she didn’t have the capacity for the relationship he wanted.

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124 points
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Jenny was molested as a child by her dad, and though she loved forrest, when she slept with him, she felt like she molested him because of his condition. This caused her to run away and fall back into self loathing and drugs, thinking she just became her own father. She loved Forrest more than anything, that’s why she stayed away, because she was a ticking time bomb and didn’t want to hurt him. When she found out she was dying she accepted her love for Forrest and realized he was the only good person in her life, and the only one she trusted to raise their son

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64 points

Not sure why you were downvoted, but this is always how I saw it. Jenny wasn’t the terrible person she’s so often been made out to be, she was deeply broken and dealing with massive trauma, of course she’s going to act irrationally.

She’s an amazing character with so much depth that most people just reduce to ‘that selfish bitch’. It irks me.

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27 points

It irks me too. The scene where she’s contemplating killing herself while freebird plays isn’t subtle at all about her state of mind and where her life has got her. Yet some people seem incapable of actually understanding that Jenny isn’t hateful to Forrest and is a flawed human being.

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It comes from a feeling of ownership, where she isn’t considered past gender norms. As society has become less attached to antiquated ideas and more cognizant of trauma, the oversimplification of Jenny’s character has died down. It’s really a pretty neat societal study.

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7 points

Because if you flip the gender roles she’d be considered a rapist and everyone would be up in arms about it

But because sad traumatized girl it’s okay.

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4 points

I tell ya what.

You show me an identical situation where the gender roles are flipped, and I’ll have an opinion on it.

For the record, I think Jenny was extremely gross for what she did (I’m uniquely qualified to comment on this) but the entire point of the story is that it’s nuanced and complex. And far more nuanced and complex than "every time someone says a girl is a sympathetic character, I have to change the entire discussion to but men!"

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4 points

Thank you, that clears it up. I saw the movie several times as a kid, and haven’t watched it in a long time. I never made the connection as to why she left the next morning.

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51 points
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I understand people not looking at Jenny critically enough. She was abused and damaged in at least one way and obviously didn’t act rationally as a result.

As for Forrest, all he wanted was her. Yes, he would have still gone off to war like most young men at the time, but he would have taken her with him on the shrimp boat. Or abandoned that plan, if she asked. He probably wouldn’t have devoted as much time practicing ping pong and he definitely wouldn’t have been so disillusioned with the world to go running for 2 years straight.

For better or worse, Forrest focused on his pursuits and achievements, because Jenny never really accepted or chose him when she had the chance.

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7 points

What’s irrational? She chose to go live an independent life. She might not have made the best choices, but just because Forrest was in love with her doesn’t mean it would have been rational to stay with him. They were best friends as kids because he was devoted to her, and she had nobody in her life she could trust.

Maybe a part of her felt like she would be taking adavantage of Forrest?

Maybe ahe felt like she didn’t deserve his devotion?

Maybe she was scared to love someone and get hurt? Or watch him abandon his dreams to support her? Or watch him grow up and change?

Whatever the reason, it was her choice. A lot of the criticism feels like incels mad that she made a choice at all. She doesn’t owe Forrest her love. He’s not entitiled to her presence just because he’s a good guy.

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21 points

Also she was clearly suffering from really bad ptsd from their childhood and not coping well. Her whole life was basically her version of the years of running until she had a kid

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70 points
  1. She had Hep C

  2. She was an abuse victim (remember when her dad raped her in like the first 5 minutes? Also how every single man after abuses her?) who could only associate feeling love with being abused. For her to accept Forrest’s love she had to first accept that not all love comes with abuse.

  3. Shut up

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67 points
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  1. Forrest had a serious intellectual disability, and she almost certainly felt like she was taking advantage of him.
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31 points

It’s more complex than love = abuse. When we see it that way, it’s a no brainer. It’s being raised in abuse you equate love to the escape from the pain. Which usually stems from the excitement found elsewhere. Such as playing guitar naked on stage or with civil rights extremists.

It takes years to feel that a normal relationship is what is right for you. Some of it is her fault for not finding that in herself. Some of it is her upbringing. I find her performance when she shows Forrest his son spot the fuck on for someone raised in such chaos and regretting their young behavior. They mean well, they just are unaware of their effects. Should they be aware? Absolutely. Is it their fault? Yes. Does it take them awhile? Yes. They could be battling addiction as well. Another escape.

I still don’t understand the Jenny hate. She was a very real character I have met many times in my life.

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5 points

I think the hate comes from an overall immaturity (I don’t mean this as an insult) in the audience. Forrest Gump is a really solid family movie because its characters are thoughtful and offer many things for a viewer to latch onto. As a child, I remember not really caring for Jenny’s behavior. It didn’t make sense to me, I hadn’t yet picked up on the sexual abuse from her father, her scenes were too sporadic for me to keep up with her character arc enough to care, etc. But I adored Forrest and loved watching him stumble his way into success. That was 20 years ago, and I’ve come to appreciate Jenny’s character for how much depth she holds. When I rewatch the movie, it’s because her story hits an emotional resonance with me. All that’s changed for me is I’ve learned to care more about a life like hers.

I think it takes a certain amount of emotional intelligence to appreciate her character, and not everyone is there.

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4 points

I think the hate comes from misinterpreting a joke as hate.

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2 points

Wait when was it confirmed she had hep C?

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1 point
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Removed by mod
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23 points

Everybody gets the Jenny hate wrong. She deserves hate, but the incel obsession with simping and baby traps has the whole thing twisted.

The main thrust of the plot is that Forrest is an unreliable narrator. Almost every joke is how he misunderstands the situation. Now think about the most famous “run Forrest run” scene. Have you ever wondered why the bullies didn’t pick on Jenny? We know they didn’t because Forrest would have defended her. What probably happened was that Jenny switched sides upon the arrival of the bullies and “run Forrest run” was a taunt as she threw rocks.

Jenny putting Forrest in sexual situations probably didn’t start when they were College age either. Jenny’s upbringing was tragic, and we know the abused are likely to abuse others. If you think about Jenny’s early years, Forrest was probably the only thing in her life she had control over.

The idea that Jenny baby-trapped Forrest doesn’t make sense with the themes of their relationship overall. Why would she trick him? Forrest would have taken the kid even if he knew he wasn’t the father. Jenny’s biggest transgression is not telling Forrest he was a father, but keeping that information from him for years.

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21 points
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The sexually abused are NOT more likely to abuse others. They are no more likely to abuse than anyone randomly plucked from the population. A sexual abuser likely having been sexually abused in the past does not mean the same thing.

https://www.stopitnow.org/faq/will-children-who-get-sexually-abused-become-sexually-abusive-as-teens-or-adults

You ARE more like to physically abuse others if you grew up with regular physical abuse as your normal though. Even then, it’s only statistically significant with men and the poor when you dig into thr data.

https://www.nichd.nih.gov/newsroom/releases/042115-podcast-child-abuse

People abused as children are more likely to be abused as adults.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/peoplewhowereabusedaschildrenaremorelikelytobeabusedasanadult/2017-09-27

https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-016-1071-7

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11 points

This right here is why I enjoy Lemmy. Come for the shitposts, stay for the quality analysis.

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3 points

I came for the analysis, I stay for the Fuck spez.

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1 point

This is a much darker reading of the film than I’d encountered.

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21 points

Yeah, Jenny is a severely flawed character who makes some bad choices.

That what makes her a good character.

I feel like in the past 10 years or so we’ve seen a subtle shift where we now expect characters to be held to standards higher than we hold our real neighbors. As if art has stopped imitating life but instead now art projects a sterilized or idealized version of the world. Like now when a character is flawed, they aren’t just flawed, they’re wrong, and personally I think that’s wrong.

Not every character in every media is meant to be a role model, and there are stories and lessons to be gleaned even from those who don’t live up to idealized standards.

And yes, I know this is a shitpost; chill out, we can still have a discussion even if it results from a joke

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21 points
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Forrest Gump is one of the many stories that could use two viewpoints from both the guy and the girl like they did in 500 Days of Summer or The Affair. It’s much easier to sympathize with someone when you get to see the story the way they experience it.

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5 points

The moral of every movie does not need to be spoonfed to the audience.

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