Life Is A Box Of Chocolates

Forrest Gump is set in Georgia in the early 1960’s, when Forrest is sitting at a bus stop, with flashbacks recounting the time back to his birth in 1942. Because Forrest is sitting at the bus stop telling his life story to anyone who stops to listen, very little of the film takes place in the present tense; rather, the plot takes place in the past as Forrest recounts his life experiences. Throughout the film, many populist tropes surface within Forrest’s life, showing how Forrest lived in a time where he was unknowingly exposed—and even contributing—to a populist way of life that challenged the way average people viewed society in the United States. Forrest Gump integrates the tropes of populism with the genres of romance, war, and adventure, sending a powerful message to viewers of how they ought to view the world, at a time when corruption and impurity dominated society.

Forrest’s mother thinks an education is the primary source for living a stereotypical normal life. Forrest has a totally different outlook he sees school as a playground for bullies even though he seriously believes everyone, no matter their intelligence level, deserves and has the right to an education. Thankfully, in America we have many rights and freedoms. Yet, our freedom is not free. With much respect, our freedom is earned by the bravery of many men and woman. The effects of the Vietnam War can be considered a theme in the movie, Forrest Gump. This film portrays the Vietnam War with a child-like, simplicity outlook but contains much deeper meaning like thinking about life, death, and destiny. While at war, Forrest saved Lieutenant Dan Taylor’s life, yet Lieutenant was not satisfied. He believed it was his destiny to die which put many things into perspective for Forrest such as life and death, especially after Forrest saw his best friend, Bubba, die at war. Forrest Gump stated in remembrance, “My mama always said, dyin’ was a part of life. I sure wish it wasn’t.”

Therefore, the Vietnam War not only holds the basis of the film but also gives it its historical accuracy. (Appendix D) The comparison of the civil rights movement in the United States and the fight for indigenous Australian peoples equality help the movie flow. The use of these historical events allows the film to give itself credibility without the negative effect of

White privilege and stereotypes are two ways race can influence a person’s everyday life. White privilege can be defined simply as white people getting special privileges and rights because they are white. This can be seen when a white person gets a job opposed to a person of color or when white people are able to live in nicer neighborhoods while people of color live in crime-ridden ones because white people have more wealth. White privilege has become so normal that most people fail to see it in action. Furthermore, stereotypes can have many harmful effects as well. Stereotypes can be defined as distorted views or inaccurate beliefs about a group of people. Not all stereotypes are bad, but many of them are. An example could be saying that all African Americans are good at sports. However, this is not always the case. Stereotypes may sometimes seem harmless, but these beliefs can impact a person’s life. White privilege and stereotypes are two different concepts, but they both have similar effects that tend to hurt people of color more than they hurt white people. Both of these ideas appear in the 1994 film Forrest Gump, which was directed by Robert Zemeckis. The film depicts white privilege by showing only white people in positions of power, illustrates stereotypes about people of color by having a stereotypical black family, and changes black history by having a white person make achievements that people of color really made.

In “Finding Forrester,” there are so many people that kept pulling Jamal Wallace down because of his skin color and because he was not rich like the kids at his school. The life of Jamal Wallace was filled with many conflicts in the movie “Finding Forrester” because he struggled with people constantly pulling him down in his daily life. Jamal was always nervous in the movie so whenever he was sitting, standing, in the house, or walking down the street he always had a basketball with him bouncing it.

The audience who viewed this film was primarily younger adults, having enough knowledge to understand society as well as the initiative to try to make a difference in the racial inequalities of the time period. This film definitely made the general public think about and question social norms and customs, and could have ultimately aided the civil rights

“Mississippi Burning” is based on the investigation of a missing persons case which turned into a murder case in Mississippi that involved three young students who were civil rights workers involved in Freedom Summer of 1964. Two of the students were Jewish and one was an African-American whom came down to Mississippi from New York City. After the students did not return home the parents pushed for media attention since the Mississippi Police were not doing any investigations. The FBI then had to get involved with the case. Little did the parents know that the police were the ones who actually committed the murder of their children. This film shows us the oppression towards African-Americans, specifically in the south.

You have the Civil Rights movement, dealing with exceptionally difficult concepts such as desegregation as well as the Vietnam War simmering beneath the world’s consciousness. Forrest Gump depicts how very chaotic and confusing it was to grow into yourself in that difficult time period. Forrest sees all through a slightly distorted point of view. He is not completely cognizant of the underlying themes of physical abuse, sex, drugs and the movement of the counter culture against Vietnam and the “establishment”. Forrest has some very dismal encounters with all of these with no complete understanding of what is going on.

Jackson is showing how a person would rather sacrifice their own family than speak up to or question authority. Rosa Park is a hero to the African American Community. She is the only black woman out of millions who had been sitting on the back of a bus for years, and actually had the guts to challenge so-called authority. The setting of the small town is the easiest way to represent society’s unwillingness to change and the stupidity of people, as a whole, refusing to question something that has been going on since Day One.

This film is the story of a man’s journey through life and his innocent reflections on what living is all about. However entangled he became with the aspects of his life; he is able to survive through his simplicity. This innocence, which comes from a limited understanding of the world around him, gives Gump a uniquely positive perspective of life. Despite the overwhelming conflicts that existed during the time period in which Forrest lived, he continues to seek the best of all worlds in the worst of all possible times. Some might argue that this movie was merely a mocking of the past with no true sentiments. However incorrectly this movie did portray the past, it did not do so without some bigger purpose. The film is evidently connected to society’s tremendous national yearning for innocence. Moreover, the movie criticizes society for their inability to deal with complicated issues individually, especially when it sheds an unflattering truth. This is strongly conveyed in one specific scene in which Forrest is standing on a podium in Washington D.C., just coming back from the Vietnam War, and addresses the thousands of people in the audience. Interestingly, he gives an entire speech and no one hears any of it, yet they all applaud. While the entire audience is celebrating for no

People tend to find meaning in all aspects of life, and they rely and examine symbols to gain further insight into their life. Symbolism is prevalent in numerous films, however, in the 1994 film “Forrest Gump” by Robert Zemeckis intertwines symbolism to introduce the general themes of the film. In the film “Forrest Gump” the filmmaker focuses on the interesting life of Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump is an innocent honest man, who like many, has overcome adversity to achieve success. This same adversity helps Forrest and his general outlook on life. Through all these obstacles, he is an all star football, receives an honorary medal in the Vietnam war and sets up a successful shrimp business. As the film progresses, Robert Zemeckis, does an excellent job of adding important symbols that help the audience gain a better understanding of the characters and the film itself. This adversity and perspective on life is personified through objects such as the box of chocolates which represent uncertainty, the feather which appears at the beginning and the end and furthermore, the concept of running is a repetitious symbol in the film, all have important roles in shaping the lives of characters portrayed in the film.

The Sociological Concepts in Forrest Gump The movie, Forrest Gump explains the life of Forrest Gump from his youth years to adulthood, and how he became a football star, war hero, a ping pong champion, and shrimp boat captain. During the film it shows many sociological features, including racism, child abuse, gender, politics, and the Vietnam War. Benjamin Buford Blue or Bubba Blue is one of Forrest’s best friends. Bubba soul purpose in life was to be a shrimp boat captain; everyone in his family was captain. Bubba claims, “I know everything there is to know about the shrimpin’ bidness.”

Forrest Gump is a classic American movie that attempts to subvert the hegemon of American masculinity. In Gump’s simplified southern world, gender roles and expectations are very cut and dry, Gump attempts to turn the patriarchy on its head through the relationships he makes, but still falls victim to masculine expectations. Gump challenges our idea of masculinity by respecting people of various backgrounds and races, falling in love with Jenny, and becoming a respected solider of the United States Army. White men in the Jim Crow south were expected to have prejudices, and react violently when someone does not fall on line these expectations. Gump and Bubba have an unusual relationship for the time period of the movie.

This puts us as the viewers into a position to see what the time was like around his life. It gave us a chance in both the movie and the book to see more of the adventures that he was on and how they all affected him in his development as a character. It was used instead of creating many new events to just keep the idea of some of them and add Forrest into that event. Giles Hugo, a writer for the online site The Write Stuff, he talks about how the producers of the movie kept the idea of Forrest’s adventures in Vietnam saying “ Gump does save a bunch of his buddies in the jungles of ‘Nam” (Hugo 2). A lot of the events that happen to Forrest in the book are transferred over to the movie for major plot lines. Such as playing Ping-Pong in China or being a shrimp boat captain and meeting a few presidents. Without keeping these events as major story lines, the movie would not have had very much to go on.

This is a story of a man who is highly naïve, some would say slightly mentally challenged, who travels the world and is involved with many political events that occurred from the 1960’s to 1990’s. He faces hardships and overcomes adversity. In the final scenes devastating news is given to Forrest; the conclusion in this movie really pulls the whole movie together and makes it very satisfying. The exposition of this movie is right out the box with this film. It starts with a feather floating high in the shy aimlessly, drifting down towards the ground. At first the audience thinks nothing of it, however, as we later on see, this feather floating and landing on the ground in front of a dingy, worn pair of running shoes, is a symbol of the story. It is a symbol of the life of Forrest Gump, a man who drifts everywhere and becomes a part of many cultural events. We then come to realize that Forrest is a little slow and does not perceive the world as the majority of people do; with this we find a lot of verbal irony on Forrest’s behalf. The set-up is that Forrest is pushed away by his peers except a little girl named Jenny. Forrest is the protagonist in this film and his friend Jenny is the antagonist. Goodykoontz and Jacobs describe a protagonist as the main character in a movie; they also describe the antagonist as the character in conflict with the main character