I Try to Reckon With Forrest Gump (1994) and Its Legacy on My Home State

At the risk of coming off like Forrest Gump at that bus stop, allow me to begin today’s newsletter with an anecdote.

The summer before my senior year of college, I flew up to New Jersey to hang out with Kevin, one of my best buds, right before our fall semester started. We kicked it around his hometown, including a day trip to New York City. And since we were both 21, we naturally hit up a few bars along the way.

Or we tried to, at least. The problem was I had lost my driver’s license at Six Flags a couple weeks earlier. I’d gotten it replaced before I flew north, but here in Alabama, they give you a paper copy of your license first, then the plastic copy arrives in the mail shortly thereafter.* So that’s what I brought with me on my trip.

I soon learned that New Jerseyites were not familiar with the paper license system. The first bar we went to, the bartender immediately thought it was a fake ID—and a laughably bad one at that. He did not believe me that Alabama gave out temporary paper licenses, and he refused to serve me an alcoholic beverage.

A man next to me at the bar was curious about the situation, though. “So you’re from Alabama?” he asked me. I told him that I was. Then he proceeded to politely interrogate me.

“You drive a pickup truck?”

“No, I’ve got a Jeep Cherokee. It’s a hand-me-down from my sister.”

“Hmm. You ever go hunting?”

“Nah, I’ve never been. Not big on guns. Sounds like too much work.”

“Alright. Who’s the starting quarterback for Alabama?”

“Oh, that’s easy. That’d be John Parker Wilson. He went to Hoover High School where my nephew plays.”

And just like that, I passed his test. “Serve this man!” the stranger said to the bartender. “I believe him! He couldn’t have made that last one up.” (It did not work, though. The bartender still didn’t serve me.)

I’d done a little bit of traveling by this point, but this was my first significant trip as an adult of drinking age. I’d never really been typecast as an “Alabama man” before. I was well aware of the stereotypes—especially being raised in a Birmingham suburb, knowing things were a lot different 30 minutes in any direction—but it felt different when the label was placed on me.

It’d be easy to blame Forrest Gump for the persistence of this stereotype. But as with most things in the American South, it’s not that simple. Since this downright inescapable film, which I hadn’t seen since I was a teenager, celebrated its 30th anniversary this year, I figured it was time for a revisit.**

I suppose I liked Forrest Gump just fine when I was growing up. Watching it was like a rite of passage if you lived in Alabama. My father even received a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. hat as a Christmas gift one year. Hell, the fact that it became a real restaurant chain just two years later is a testament to how powerful the film was.***

As the years went by and I grew to take cinema more seriously, though, I realized that Forrest Gump…isn’t exactly universally beloved.**** And though everything about the film beyond the plot points had begun to fade from my mind, I found myself unable to disagree with most of the criticisms I came across. Sure, it’s schmaltzy as hell. Yes, it oversimplifies—even distorts—a large swath of American history. And who was I to argue that the characterization of the titular protagonist isn’t offensive, or at least insensitive?

But then there was the Alabama of it all. My people simply love this film. And while I imagine that most natives of the Yellowhammer State don’t exactly see themselves in Forrest, I’d bet they believe he represents common Southern values. Gump isn’t just an everyman—he’s the epitome of an upstanding citizen, always doing what he’s told even when he doesn’t understand the mission (unless a loved one’s life is on the line). Good things happen to him, which must mean that he’s a good man. He’s an oversimplification of the American dream.

From a distance, you could argue that Forrest Gump pokes fun at Southerners by having Forrest stand in as their universal proxy. But Winston Groom—who grew up in South Alabama—didn’t have that in mind when he wrote the novel, of course. And I certainly don’t think that Robert Zemeckis—one of the most earnest filmmakers Hollywood has ever seen—intended to craft anything but a love letter to the small-town way of living.

So is Forrest Gump an American treasure or hackneyed trash? I wasn’t sure if I sat squarely on either side of the criticism fence. And maybe I’m guilty of having a level of self-fulfilling prophecy going into my recent rewatch because…well, I’ll put it in Forrest’s words: “I think maybe it’s both. Maybe both is happening at the same time.”

Perhaps the main thing complicating this wholly uncomplicated film is its reception. This wasn’t a film that was expected to be a sensation.***** But Forrest Gump went on to gross $678 million worldwide, win six Academy Awards (including Best Picture and three of the other four “major” categories), spawn the aforementioned restaurant chain, and even be named the official state film of Alabama.****** If it hadn’t done any of those things and simply recouped its moderate $55 million budget, would the citizens of Alabama still proudly claim it? Would large swaths of film critics and cinephiles still vilify it? Would it have any legacy at all?

I’ll never know for sure if that man at the bar in New Jersey had actually seen Forrest Gump. Perhaps he thought I had a similarly low IQ after I tried to buy a beer with a paper ID. Or perhaps he was charmed by our conversation on Southernisms the way millions have been charmed by Forrest’s accidental antics. Maybe both were happening at the same time.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

*At least this is what they used to do. Do we still do this, Alabamians? Or have we finally made the necessary technological advances in printing plastics?

**This rewatch was mostly inspired by Garden & Gun’s oral history of the film, which is a very good read even though it reminded me that this “Alabama classic” wasn’t even filmed where it’s set. (It was mostly shot in and around Beaufort, South Carolina.)

***No, I’ve never actually been to a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurant. And, Lord willing, I never will. I don’t even have to look it up to tell you that they’re serving farm-raised, imported shrimp.

****I often think about the moment in The Big Sick when Ray Romano’s character explains why he avoids the internet: “This is why I don’t want to go online. ‘Cause it’s never good. You go online, they hated Forrest Gump. Frickin’ best movie ever.”

*****As I learned from the Garden & Gun piece, many studios passed on optioning Groom’s novel before Warner Bros. eventually gave it a green light. But then, after one of their executives went to Paramount, they traded him the rights to Forrest Gump for the rights to…you guessed it…Executive Decision! (The film industry is wild.)

******I made up that last one. We don’t have an official state film. But you believed me for a second there, didn’t you? (We do have an official state crustacean, though. It’s the brown shrimp.)

Forrest Gump is now streaming on Paramount+, and it’s available to rent elsewhere.