IfForrest GumpExploring the life of the main character, he finds himself in the midst of some of the most important historical events of the 1960s and 1970s, but how accurate are the film's depictions? Released in 1994 to critical acclaim, Forrest Gump eventually won the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Actor for Tom Hanks. Though a cultural phenomenon at the time, Forrest Gump has continued to polarize audiences, with some believing it to be a hollow ode to baby boomers and 20th-century glamor while others see it as a compelling tale of division and passion see in American history.
Forrest Gump tells the story of a naïve man from Alabama with exceptional talents and a kind heart in the second half of the 20th century. as forest (Tom Hanks) navigates life and the world around him alone, his only constant being his love for Jenny (Robin Wright). Forrest continues to play football at the University of Alabama, fight in the Vietnam War, meet several Presidents and find the BubbaGump Shrimp. Though he's never really done with Jenny, she reveals they have a son, and after he dies, he will still be Forrest.
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Forrest is essentially a neutral tour guide in the second half of the 20th century, comically involved in some of the most controversial and notable historical events without having strong opinions on their politics. While Jenny either takes an active part in some of the significant phenomena or falls victim to them, Forrest is carried away with little influence or awareness of his importance. timeForrest Gumpused actual historical events to present Forrest and his acquaintances as products of the tumultuous American narrative, many of the actual events have been adjusted to accommodate Forrest's involvement and dramatic impact.
Elvis dance moves
When Forrest was just a boy, a pre-fame Elvis Presley came to his house. One day Forrest starts dancing while Elvis plays guitar and sings in his room. The dance moves that Forrest demonstrates are the hip-swinging moves that would become Elvis' signatures. Forrest Gump's Elvis also sings a rough version of what would become his hit "Hound Dog." A little later, Forrest and his mother watch Elvis perform the song and dance on TV, shaming Forrest's mother.
Forrest Gumpdoes not give an exact date of when Elvis slept in the house, but the timeline of his appearance puts it around 1956. The program that Forrest and his mother saw Elvis perform on was The Milton Berle Show on June 5, 1956. By this time Elvis had been on the road for about a year and a half, making several television appearances and hitting the radio with "Heartbreak Hotel." While he was already making a name for himself, it was that look and his outrageous dance that made him a star.
The comic aspect of Elvis' inclusion is that Forrest and his bizarre dancing in the greaves inspired Elvis' controversial cymbal dance. Unfortunately for Forrest Gump's accuracy,ElvisIt is rumored that at his first paid concert in Tennessee in 1954, he began moving his hips to cover up nervous tremors in his legs. Since Elvis was traveling long before he appeared in Hound Dog, it's odd why he would have stayed at the Gump House instead of a hotel.
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George Wallace stand am Schultor
As a student at the University of Alabama, Forrest was present at Alabama Gov. George Wallace's infamous "stand at the schoolhouse door" where he attempted to prevent two admitted black students from entering the school. The event took place on June 11, 1963, when desegregation was enacted within the resisting South. What Forrest Gump didn't represent wasPresident KennedyAlabama Executive Order sends Alabama National Guard to physically remove George Wallace. He eventually moved out after continuing to express racial ideals, and Vivian Malone and James Hood successfully enrolled as the first two black students at the University of Alabama.
Forrest Gump alternates the scene between Forrest physically witnessing the incident in the crowd and real-world newsreels of the event. The film finally unites the points of view when Forrest is digitally rendered in the background of the actual broadcasts. Forrest notices the racist tendencies of his football coaches when they watch the news and sees Forrest carefully picking up and returning Vivian Malone's notebook that he dropped on the way inside. Malone never really dropped anything, and the actual video appears to show her holding a purse instead of a notebook, but the edit was a clever way to involve Forrest directly.
Forrest meets JFK
As a successful player at the University of Alabama,Forrest Gumptravels with the varsity soccer team to meet President John F. Kennedy at the White House in 1963. As with his narration of most historical events, Forrest Gump is spliced between Forrest regarding fake news and his physical presence at the event. Impressed by all the free food and drinks at the event, Forrest drinks at least 15 bottles of Dr. Pepper. When the football team meets individually with the President, all Forrest can say is "I have to pee" while shaking hands with JFK. Then he tells how a few weeks later the President was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
While Forrest Gump wanted an easy way for Forrest to meet one of the most famous American presidents of all time, the event at which they met never happened. The Collegiate All-American Football team was announced on December 6, 1963. This would schedule the meeting a few weeks later.jfk was murderedon November 22, so there was no way the two could have met in that capacity.
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Vietnam War
Many of Forrest Gump's historical events are presented as brief excerpts, while the Vietnam War occupies a significant portion of Forrest's life in the 1960s and 1970s. Forrest entered the Vietnam War in 1967 with the 47th Infantry Regiment, which is actually a United States regiment from World War I. Forrest believes his department is looking for a single man named "Charlie," which is actually the nickname the US gave to the North Vietnamese. He befriends the other men in his battalion, particularly Bubba, a southerner with autism spectrum disorder, who asks Forrest to go into the shrimp business with him. Bubba is tragically killed on the battlefield and Forrestissent is wounded at an army medical facility.
LotsVietnam War Veteranshave praised Forrest Gump's fight scenes for the accuracy of what they experienced. The only aspect that many have criticized is his running across the field, which would not be successful for anyone on the battlefield unless they were an exceptional runner like Forrest. DefinitelyVietnam War VeteransThey also praised the film for typically portraying Forrest as the same person he was before the war, which has been the experience of many. While not specific to the Vietnam War, Forrest Gump also addresses the tense return to war with badly injured veterans such as Forrest's friend Lt. Dan.
Anti-war march at the Pentagon rally
During military leaveForrest GumpReturn to the United States and visit Washington D.C. As he walks around taking photos, a woman mistakes him for part of the "Vietnam Veterans Against the War in Vietnam". March with the group to the center of the anti-war march at the Pentagon rally. A man in an American flag T-shirt who keeps "saying the 'F' word" brings him onstage to speak in front of a monster crowd. A soldier removes the speakers and interrupts Forrest's speech. After announcing her name, Jenny, who is a counterculture protester at the rally, runs through the Reflecting Pool to meet up with Forrest.
One key piece of information that Forrest Gump omits is the name of the man in the American flag t-shirt: Abbie Hoffman. Hoffman was a well-known activist in the late 1960s and early 1970s, played by Sacha Baron-Cohen inThe Trial of Chicago 7. Forrest's participation in the event is entirely fictitious: no woman ran through the reflecting pool to meet the speaker, no speeches were given by Vietnam veterans, and speakers were not deliberately muted. What the film liked was the sheer size of the crowd and their enthusiasm: more than 50,000 protesters from a variety of backgrounds, hippies, war veterans, middle-class professionals and black activists, attended the rally.
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Ping-Pong Diplomacy
While recovering from his injury in the military hospital, Forrest develops into a talented table tennis player. Graduating from destroying other soldiers to play against himself, he is eventually sent by President Richard Nixon to play on the All-American Ping-Pong Team in China. The event became known as "ping-pong diplomacy" due to its instrumental nature in healing the relationship between the twoUnited States and China. Forrest was one of the first groups from the US to come to China in more than 20 years, returning home as international table tennis champions and celebrities.
Forrest Gump's portrayal of ping-pong diplomacy is quite accurate if you swap Forrest for Glenn Cowan, who actually took on the title of ping-pong star. China and the United States had been fighting over a Chinese embargo on Americans for the past 20 years, until they realized international ping-pong could bring nations together. American player Glenn Cowan faced Chinese player Zhuang Zedong positively at the 1971 World Table Tennis Championships in Japan, allowing the two nations to find common ground to improve their diplomatic relations. The event that Forrest attends took place in April 1971, after Mao Zedong andRichard Nixonagreed to allow the US table tennis team from the United States to play matches in China for a week.
Get involved with John Lennon and the Dick Cavett Show
Forrest's table tennis skills made him a national celebrity and earned him an interview spot on The Dick Cavett Show alongside The Beatles' John Lennon. Forrest Gump inserts Forrest into the real-life interview and edits it so that Forrest, John and Dick's comments inspire the lyrics to Lennon's hit "Imagine." The actual interview took place on September 8, 1971 and had Lennon's wife Yoko Ono in place of Forrest where they discussed why the Beatles had broken up. In the Forrest Gump version of the interview with Dick Cavett, Dick asks questions about Forrest's ministry and time in Vietnam, recorded in 1994 with Tom Hanks and digitally rendered in 1971.Interview mit John Lennon.
The Watergate Scandal
Forrest talks about how the US ping-pong team was invited to the White House to meet with President Nixon, where Nixon personally sent him to a "better" hotel in the Watergate complex. That night, Forrest sees men in another building searching an office with flashlights. Thinking the men are having trouble finding a fuse box, Forrest calls the hotel to let them know and to send maintenance. The next scene from Forrest Gump cuts directly to Nixon's televised resignation speech and indicates that Forrest was responsible for reporting the Watergate scandal.
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The Watergate Scandal is an infamous political scandal involving a home invasion at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington D.C. and the attendance of President Nixon. an investigationWatergate und Nixonit was conducted shortly after whistleblowers leaked information to national newspapers and Nixon left office. While Forrest Gump offers a clever way to get Forrest involved in Watergate, the exposure of the scandal didn't come from an onlooker staying at the hotel. Also, the US table tennis team never stayed at the Watergate Hotel or met with President Nixon at the White House in June 1972.
What Forrest Gump 2 planned and why it was cancelled
Eric Roth, who wrote the original 1994 Forrest Gump film, had actually planned and written a sequel that would have involved Forrest in more historical moments while raising his son Forrest Jr. These would have ranged from the AIDS epidemic to Forrest's appearance on the back of O.J. Bronco from Simpson to Forrest dances alongPrincess Diana. Roth actually wrote an entire treatment of Forrest Gump, but it was one of the biggest historical events of the early 21st century that prevented the sequel from actually happening. As Roth recounts, “I wrote the sequel, I literally wrote it the day before 9/11. we looked at each other and said, 'This movie doesn't make any sense anymore'" (viaEW). Basically, 2001 wasn't the right time for whatForrest Gump2 would have offered. It's probably for the best that the sequel didn't happen anyway, since moments like the one with O.J. Simpson wouldn't resist today.
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