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00:00Run, Forrest! Run!
00:05Forrest Gump is a myth of 20th century America.
00:10Robert Zemeckis' film comprehensively tracks the story of America
00:14from the post-World War II period into the post-Watergate era.
00:17And like any good myth, it filters historical facts
00:21through allegorical characters and a particular language.
00:25My mom always said, life was like a box of chocolates.
00:32You never know what you're gonna get.
00:34To create a symbolic journey that makes emotional sense
00:38out of what was a deeply complicated and confusing era for many Americans.
00:43Somebody shot that nice young president when he was riding in his car.
00:48And a few years after that, somebody shot his little brother too.
00:53In this myth, Forrest himself embodies our country's central spirit.
00:57He must be the stupidest son of a bitch alive.
01:00But he sure is fast.
01:02So as Forrest Gump turns 25 this year,
01:05here's our take on what this modern American myth has to say
01:09about our national identity.
01:16If you're new here, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell
01:19to get notified about all of our new videos.
01:23Forrest's life story is interwoven with major historical events
01:31from the 1950s to the 1980s.
01:34Zemeckis even inserts Forrest into real archival footage,
01:38in a technique considered pretty cutting edge when the movie was made in 1994.
01:42Thus, the film rewrites history so that the character is there,
01:47the secret catalyst of all the events that define our collective memory.
01:51The lights are off and they must be looking for a fuse box or something,
01:54cause them flashlights, they're keeping me awake.
01:57Big personal events in his life map onto pivotal historical moments,
02:01or have recognizable history as a backdrop.
02:04It was the happiest moment of my life.
02:07The film also uses the most iconic music associated with the periods it covers,
02:13making this feel at times close to an audiovisual textbook.
02:20You ain't not the boy!
02:22You ain't not the boy!
02:25The result of this historical rewrite is that Forrest's story is America's story.
02:30It begins with a shameful past.
02:32Forrest is named after Nathan Bedford Forrest,
02:35the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
02:39So the story starts in the shadow of America's original sin.
02:43His childhood in the 50s is pretty peaceful and happy,
02:46just like the decade was a prosperous one for many Americans.
02:50Forrest's confusion as he runs straight off the college football field,
02:54College was very confusing times.
02:56reflects the 60s' tumultuous conflicts over civil rights.
03:00Federal troops enforcing a court order integrated the University of Alabama today.
03:04In Vietnam, he watches his friends get killed and wounded in a war
03:08that doesn't make sense.
03:09Now I don't know much about anything,
03:12but I think some of America's best young men served in this war.
03:15Personally feeling the defining American tragedy of this era.
03:19Why didn't this happen?
03:21The cultural divide between establishment types and counterculture hippies
03:25again affects Forrest very personally,
03:27as he and his love Jenny are separated by their very different paths.
03:32We have very different lives, you know.
03:33Forrest helps open up U.S. relations with communist China.
03:37Somebody said world peace was in our hands,
03:40but all I did was play ping pong.
03:42Post-military life, he becomes an exemplary entrepreneur,
03:46transforming a dinky boat into a successful shrimping business
03:50literally overnight.
03:51We got more money than David Crockett.
03:53So he lives that American ideal of getting obscenely rich
03:57through simple perseverance.
03:59Then he's an early investor in the tech boom.
04:02He got me invested in some kind of fruit company.
04:06In 1976, Forrest sets off on a three-year cross-country run after Jenny leaves him,
04:12and his personal heartbreak is linked to a national need to heal and process the tumult of the 60s.
04:20For some reason, what I was doing seemed to make sense to people.
04:24Jenny's death in the early 80s is part of the dawning AIDS crisis.
04:28I have some kind of virus, and the doctors don't know what it is,
04:33and there isn't anything they can do about it.
04:35And it symbolizes a mourning for something beautiful and pure of our national character
04:41that was lost in these times.
04:42But while he'll never be over his grief for Jenny,
04:45his touching life as a father and the vast potential of his son, Forrest Jr.
04:50Is he smart to me?
04:53He's very smart.
04:56He's one of the smartest in his class.
04:57Leave us with optimism that the kids,
05:00and the future of America, will be alright.
05:03You'd be so proud of him.
05:07I am.
05:08So what exactly is the movie trying to say by choosing this unassuming,
05:12largely passive simpleton to carry the mantle of our country's history?
05:17At first glance, Forrest lacks stereotypical American traits,
05:22like ambition, ego, self-interest, or career goals.
05:26The very first thing we're told about him is that he's slow-witted.
05:30Now this is normal.
05:34Forrest is right here.
05:37Even his last name, Gump, is a word for fool.
05:40Yet he achieves all the trappings of the classic American dream,
05:45serving his country, becoming a successful capitalist,
05:48meeting presidents, and starting a family with a woman he's always loved.
05:52And while it may seem he rises purely thanks to dumb luck,
05:56in fact he possesses key qualities that account for his success
06:00and reflect something about our national character.
06:03I said, here's a guy that's got his act together.
06:05Here's somebody who's got it all figured out.
06:07Here's somebody who has the answer.
06:08One of his greatest gifts is his single-minded focus
06:12and straightforward dedication to the task at hand.
06:15When someone gives Forrest a simple direction,
06:17like to run across a field, keep his eye on a ping pong ball,
06:20or reassemble a gun, he excels at this.
06:24Why did you put that weapon together so quickly, Gump?
06:27You told me to, real target.
06:28Jesus H. Christ, this is a new company record.
06:32It's like there's no extra clutter in his brain distracting him
06:35and getting in the way of his focus.
06:37And because he's so unintellectual,
06:39he never gets bored with tasks others would find repetitive.
06:43I played ping pong, even when I didn't have anyone to play ping pong with.
06:48And this aspect of Forrest's nature may be getting at how the US does well
06:52when it channels its energy into achieving very clear objectives.
06:56We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things,
07:00not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
07:04Another of Forrest's defining skills is his ability as a runner,
07:08which symbolizes stamina and resilience.
07:11When I got there, I figured since I'd gone this far,
07:15might as well turn around and just keep on going.
07:18His love of running captures an American enthusiasm
07:21and all-or-nothing attitude.
07:23From that day on, if I was going somewhere, I was running.
07:29If you're going to do something, why walk when you could run?
07:32And it also represents the fortitude to keep going,
07:36no matter how tough it gets.
07:38My mom always said,
07:39you got to put the past behind you before you can move on.
07:45And I think that's what my running was all about.
07:47In the scene where a group of local teenage boys chase Forrest,
07:51their car features a prominent Confederate flag license plate,
07:55as if Forrest is trying to outrun the evils and pain of our country.
07:59Yet Forrest always does outrun whatever danger is after him,
08:04even as the forces chasing him get more and more formidable.
08:08Even though Forrest's life is marked by disadvantages,
08:11he has a low IQ, a crooked spine, and an absent father,
08:14he miraculously overcomes his disability.
08:18Now you wouldn't believe it if I told you,
08:22that I could run like the wind blows.
08:24So his superpower reveals the optimism at the heart of this movie.
08:29The implied message is that our country's 20th century journey
08:33is about triumphing over darkness,
08:35even when it seems impossible.
08:37Run, Forrest, run!
08:39Jenny first tells Forrest to run away from problems,
08:43but Forrest's impulse to run is ultimately a zeal for running itself,
08:48embodying the wisdom that the journey is really the destination.
08:52Now it used to be, I ran to get where I was going.
08:57I never thought it would take me anywhere.
09:00When Bubba later repeats Jenny's instructions during battle,
09:03Forrest characteristically does what he's told,
09:07but he quickly sees a problem with running away.
09:10I ran so far and so fast that pretty soon I was all by myself,
09:15which was a bad thing.
09:17Bubba!
09:18So he runs back into the line of fire.
09:21Bubba was my best good friend.
09:22I had to make sure he was okay.
09:24What's beautiful about the scene of him rescuing his wounded brothers
09:28is the simplicity of his motivation.
09:30And every time I went back looking for Bubba,
09:33somebody else was saying,
09:35help me, Forrest, help me.
09:37In contrast to the grandiosity of Lieutenant Dan's dream of dying heroically,
09:41I was supposed to die in the field with honor.
09:45His instinctual understanding that we don't leave our friends behind
09:50is what heroism really is.
09:52This scene also shows that when the core things he knows are important are on the line,
09:56Forrest isn't just mindlessly obedient.
09:59Don't you stay here, goddammit!
10:01That's an order!
10:02I gotta fight Bubba!
10:04So Forrest is actually a lot smarter than people think in a critical way.
10:08It's just that he really only concerns himself with the few things that truly matter.
10:14Bubba was my best good friend.
10:17And even I know that ain't something you can find just around the corner.
10:20Forrest also has a total lack of ego and a down-to-earth love of his home.
10:26Qualities many successful Americans pay lip service to, but rarely practice.
10:31And because I was a go-zillionaire and I liked doing it so much,
10:35I cut that grass for free.
10:37And while Forrest is not a creative ideas guy himself,
10:41he's responsible for Elvis' moves,
10:44Say man, show me that crazy little walk you just did there.
10:47The lyrics to Imagine,
10:49And in China, they never go to church.
10:53No religion too?
10:54Heard to imagine.
10:56It's easy if you try, dick.
10:58And the Shit Happens slogan.
11:00It happens.
11:02What, shit?
11:03All these revelations come out of his ability to be himself in a totally unfiltered,
11:09unselfconscious way.
11:10And this realness sparks breakthroughs in others.
11:13I found out that that man did come up with an idea for a t-shirt.
11:17He made a lot of money off of it.
11:19Most fundamentally, he embodies true egalitarianism.
11:23You're the same as everybody else.
11:25The virtue of being receptive.
11:27What's your sole purpose in this army?
11:30To do whatever you tell me, drill sergeant?
11:32Goddammit, cump!
11:34You're a goddamn genius.
11:36And an inexhaustible ability to love.
11:39I'm not a smart man,
11:43but I know what love is.
11:50If Forrest is the central spirit of America,
11:54the supporting characters represent other key mythical or spiritual aspects
11:58of our national identity.
11:59Forrest's first inspiration is his mother,
12:02who represents fierce love of family.
12:05My boy Forrest is gonna get the same opportunities as everyone else.
12:09And the power of a homegrown folk wisdom.
12:13Life is a box of chocolates, Forrest.
12:16You never know what you're gonna get.
12:18Mrs. Gump's words are essentially a bible to her son,
12:21which translates the complicated world into accessible language
12:25and evocative metaphors.
12:27Mama always had a way of explaining things so I could understand them.
12:30Almost all his beliefs come from her.
12:33Mama always said there's an awful lot you can tell
12:35about a person by their shoes.
12:37Now mama said there's only so much fortune a man really needs,
12:40and the rest is just for showing off.
12:43Mama always said dying was a part of life.
12:52When he needs guidance,
12:54he looks for ways to interpret his mother's teachings as needed,
12:57just as one might interpret a bible verse.
13:00Mama said not to be taken rides from strangers.
13:03Mama Gump instills in Forrest the liberating knowledge that,
13:16despite differences in our gifts and our fortunes,
13:19on the deepest human level, everyone is really equal.
13:23Don't ever let anybody tell you they're better than you, Forrest.
13:27More often in our American culture,
13:29we emphasize telling kids they're special, one of a kind.
13:32But the characters in this story, who feel they're special,
13:36smart, important, or entitled to a special life,
13:39suffer due to that thinking.
13:40I was Lieutenant Dan Taylor.
13:47You're still Lieutenant Dan.
13:50Forrest's stable, well-adjusted temperament
13:53comes out of the philosophical tools his mama gave him
13:56for processing this world, especially what's dark and troubling about it.
14:00Mama, what's vacation mean?
14:03Vacation?
14:05Where daddy went.
14:09Vacation's when you go somewhere,
14:14and you don't ever come back.
14:15She doesn't lie to Forrest that he's smarter than he is.
14:18Instead, she drills into him the point that he has control over
14:22whether he does stupid things or not, and that's what really counts.
14:27Are you stupid or something?
14:29Mama says stupid is as stupid does.
14:32So instead of denying her son's disadvantages or shielding him
14:36from the upsetting aspects of life or history,
14:38Mama said that the Forrest part was to remind me that sometimes we all do
14:43things that, well, just don't make no sense.
14:46She equips him with a matter-of-fact world view that doesn't allow adversity
14:51or hardships to make him feel disempowered.
14:53I guess you could say me and Mama was on our own,
14:57but we didn't mind.
14:59Later, we see pretty much every other character unable to deal with the kind
15:03of adversity that Forrest overcomes.
15:05Do you know what it's like not to be able to use your legs?
15:13Yes, sir, I do.
15:14And his resilience is largely thanks to his mother's education,
15:18which taught him to look truths in the face, while not letting anyone talk you
15:22out of the most important things you know deep down.
15:25He didn't want to be called crippled,
15:28just like I didn't want to be called stupid.
15:30Forrest's childhood sweetheart Jenny represents historical trauma.
15:35Her father's abuse leads her to repeat a pattern of self-harming choices
15:39and toxic relationships with men.
15:41For a long time, she rejects Forrest's love.
15:44I would never hurt you, Jenny.
15:48I know you wouldn't, Forrest.
15:49Seemingly because she thinks she should be with a man who will hurt her.
15:53I would never hurt you.
15:55You know that.
15:56Forrest and Jenny are inversions of each other.
15:58Forrest is slow, while Jenny is very smart and perceptive.
16:02Forrest grows up contented in the warmth of his mother's unconditional love.
16:06While the first thing Jenny knows of this world is her father's abuse,
16:10Forrest runs everywhere toward the world.
16:13Jenny shares that open, go-where-life-leads-you attitude.
16:16Anybody want to go to San Francisco?
16:19I'll go.
16:20But for her, it's really running away.
16:23Where are you running off to?
16:26I'm not running.
16:27Her recurring desire is to become a bird.
16:30Dear God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far, far away from here.
16:35But she can never escape the pain she's trying to be free from.
16:39You think I can fly off this bridge?
16:41Because it's deep inside her, eating her from within.
16:45Sometimes I guess there just aren't enough rocks.
16:49In the novel that Forrest Gump is based on, Forrest wasn't as squeaky clean.
16:53But Richard Corliss writes that in the film adaptation,
16:56screenwriter Eric Roth transferred all of Forrest's flaws,
17:00and most of the excesses Americans committed in the 60s and 70s, to her.
17:04So we can see how the film explicitly turns Jenny into a symbol of America's
17:10inability to heal from past wounds.
17:13I just want to apologize for anything that I ever did to you,
17:17because I was messed up for a long time.
17:22She represents the 60s counterculture that strove to break with past injustice,
17:27and create a future based on love and equality.
17:30She discovered ways to expand her mind and learn how to live in harmony.
17:36But Jenny is too wounded to really do this,
17:39so her dreams of peace give way to attempts to escape reality,
17:44just as the free love movement eventually deteriorated in a similar way.
17:49Despite her tragic fate,
17:51Jenny represents an incredible beauty in the American spirit and history.
17:55The idealism of the 60s was a remarkable dream.
17:59Likewise, in Forrest's eyes, nothing and no one compares to Jenny.
18:04She was like an angel.
18:05I'd never named a boat before, but there was only one I could think of,
18:11the most beautiful name in the wide world.
18:15Forrest's life is always tinged with sadness because,
18:18however much he prospers, the one he loves isn't with him for most of it.
18:23I wish I could've been there with you.
18:25This incredible person with so much potential can never live the life she should,
18:30because she was terrorized by the man who brought her into this world.
18:34And that's a terrible injustice.
18:36I can't change!
18:41So though Forrest himself embodies the optimism and resilience of our national character,
18:45his love for Jenny captures that,
18:47the losses and suffering of the less fortunate among us
18:50will always color even our country's greatest joys and achievements.
18:55As happy as Forrest is being a dad to Forrest Jr.,
18:58he'll never stop missing Jenny.
19:00I miss you, Jenny.
19:02Bubba represents the American entrepreneurial spirit.
19:06His dream is to start his own business and rise on the capitalist ladder.
19:10I'm going into this revving business for myself after I get out of the army.
19:14It's significant that the one main character of color in the film
19:17has the most capitalist drive.
19:19For this young black man, the capitalist American dream
19:23represents the chance to make a better life than his ancestors had.
19:26His mama cooked shrimp.
19:30And her mama before her cooked shrimp.
19:33And her mama before her mama cooked shrimp too.
19:36And after Bubba dies and Forrest makes his dream a reality,
19:40we see the power of money in freeing Bubba's mother from that oppressive history.
19:44She didn't have to work in nobody's kitchen no more.
19:47Yet Bubba himself never gets to make this happen,
19:50so he also becomes a symbol of the great human potential
19:54that our country has lost to senseless wars.
19:57Bubba was going to be a shrimp and buck captain,
20:00but instead he died right there by that river in Vietnam.
20:04Lieutenant Dan represents the American military tradition.
20:08Somebody in his family had fought and died in every single American war.
20:16His wish to continue in his ancestors' footsteps captures the military's illustrious past,
20:22and how it's a way of life for generations of American families.
20:26But his crisis in Vietnam interrupts that tradition and shatters his worldview.
20:31I should have died out there with my men.
20:34This gets at how Vietnam made people question previous assumptions
20:38that America was the good guy.
20:40Instead of finding glory, Lieutenant Dan is permanently scarred
20:44and returns to a world that doesn't respect his sacrifice.
20:47You freak!
20:48You freak!
20:50Yet in the end, this man comes to be grateful that he survived.
20:54I never thanked you for saving my life.
20:57And the suggestion is that by making it through this test,
21:01he comes out the other side with a richer understanding of what life's about.
21:05He never actually said so,
21:08but I think he made his peace with God.
21:11Finally, Jenny's and Forrest's son, Little Forrest,
21:15signals the promise of the next generation.
21:18He embodies the best of both his parents,
21:21his mother's intelligence,
21:22Every night we read a book.
21:24She's so smart, Jenny.
21:25and his father's open-hearted capacity for love.
21:29I love you too, Daddy.
21:30The movie tells us that this young boy does not represent a departure from history.
21:35He has his father's first name and will grow up in the exact same house.
21:39And you were Dorothy yours, and I'm Forrest Gump.
21:42So, Little Forrest represents the power of building and improving upon our country's past
21:48to live up to our full potential.
21:50I'm going to serve that for so and tell because
21:53Grandma used to read it to you.
21:55This film and its values are as American as apple pie.
22:00Why are you so good to me?
22:03You're my girl.
22:05It celebrates capitalism and lets us buy into the dream of becoming rich,
22:09it emphasizes the importance of being a good person who loves your hometown and your mother,
22:14and it hints at a divine presence watching over us.
22:17Right then, God showed up.
22:19The filmmakers intended the story to be apolitical.
22:23But Forrest Gump isn't about politics or conservative values.
22:28It's about humanity.
22:29Even when Forrest speaks his thoughts on the Vietnam War,
22:32the mic gets unplugged so we don't get to hear them.
22:35That's all I have to say about that.
22:39That's the right on men.
22:40Within the story, his fellow citizens can't understand how he can have no political ideology.
22:46Everywhere he goes, they try to project motivations onto him.
22:49Are you doing this for world peace?
22:51Are you doing this for the homeless?
22:52Are you running for women's rights?
22:54Or for the environment?
22:55Or for animals?
22:56They just couldn't believe that somebody would do all that running for no particular reason.
23:01Forrest grounds his story in events that dominate our collective,
23:04national memory, and which are inextricably bound up with personal memories.
23:09I remember when that happened, and Wallace got shot.
23:13So the goal of this exercise is to bring us together with shared stories,
23:17and to illustrate the link between personal and communal well-being.
23:21Mom always said it.
23:22There's an awful lot you can tell about a person by their shoes.
23:27Where they going? Where they been?
23:30His gift for storytelling echoes the US's ability to craft a narrative about itself
23:36that people want to buy into.
23:38Well, I thought it was a very lovely story,
23:43and you tell it so well with such enthusiasm.
23:47If there's one image that this modern American myth has made eternal,
23:52it's young Forrest breaking free of his restraints,
23:55and doing what nobody thought he could do.
23:58I ran and ran.
24:00Never letting the bullies in the darkness of the world overtake him.
24:03And this, too, is Forrest Gump's fundamental belief about the American spirit.
24:08We can do the impossible.
24:11And so you just ran.
24:15Yeah.
24:16Hi, guys. It's Susannah.
24:18And Deborah.
24:18And we are The Take.
24:20If you like what we're doing and you're new here, please subscribe.
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