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Borderline Intellectual Functioning In Forrest Gump

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Borderline Intellectual Functioning in Forrest gump:
An Imprecise Portrayal Borderline Intellectual Functioning, also referred to as BIF, is a categorization of intelligence for individuals who are below average intelligence, but do not have an intellectual development disorder. Numerically, individuals with IQ’s between 71 ad 85 are fall into the BIF categorization. Being the middle categorization between having a disability and having average intelligence most people do not know about BIF, which leads to many negative connotations and false representations in popular media. However, unlike other portrayals of BIF, the oscar-winning film, Forrest Gump directed by Robert Zemeckis, did a fairly decent job in many aspects that characterize …show more content…

The National Library to Medicine further expands on the idea of social impairment n individuals with BIF. Some of the symptoms of having BIF or and intellectual disability are lack of curiosity, failure to adapt, and difficulty understanding to following social rules (NLM). Robert Zemeckis does a great job a depicting how individuals with BIF are impaired in a social context. There are number of scenes where Forrest does not pick up on school cues in a relatively simple setting, something an average intelligence person could have easily. About twenty-six minutes into the film Forrest was visiting Jenny at her all girl’s college. It was late at night and Forrest was waiting outside Jenny’s dorm because boys were not allowed inside. Forrest noticed a car with two people inside and they were kissing, then he realizes it was Jenny and she made a sound that resembled a sound of pain. He ran over to the car and punched the guy that was kissing Jenny. As the dude in the car races off Jenny yells “he doesn't know any better” (MOVIE). Robert Zemeckis is directly indicating that Forrest didn't pick up on the social cues and he didn't realize that Jenny was doing what most college students do, which is experiment and become sexually active if there weren’t already. This scene does a great job showing how individuals with BIF will not pick on the social cues most would. Because of their low IQ, they are impaired and have a difficult time understanding social rules (Emerson). The following scene Forrest is in Jenny’s room sitting quietly and a looking kind of dazed as if he had no clue what just happened and why Jenny was angry with him. This scene just further indicates that low IQ individuals have a difficult time understanding the unspoken language of social rules. Forrest does a good job represent an individual with BIF in the social

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