History Film / ForrestGump

* BastardBoyfriend: Jenny goes through a bunch of them, in particular the hippie who slaps her and tries to defend his actions as being angered by the Vietnam and bullies Forrest for being a veteran.

** He assumes Music/ElvisPresley died "from singing too much songs, or something".

-->'''Forrest:''' (Narrating) When I got home, I had no idea, but Mama'd had all sorts of visitors.
-->'''Mama Gump:''' (on-screen) We've had all sorts of visitors.

** Forrest narrating things that people have said to him, followed immediately by them saying it on-screen. This even extends to Forrest himself.
-->'''Forrest:''' (Narrating) Now when I got home, I had no idea, but Mama had had all sorts of visitors.

* BeenThereShapedHistory: Forrest does a lot of this, from teaching Music/ElvisPresley his hip-swinging dance to inadvertently exposing the Watergate scandal.

* JuliusBeethovenDaVinci: An example that doesn't rely on household names. The movie suggests that whoever coined the phrase "Shit happens" also developed the design for the smiley face logo, taught Elvis how to dance, and uncovered the Watergate break-ins.

** Forrest remembers where everyone in his battallion was from. Except Tex. He can't remember what state Tex was from.
*** Everyone in his PLATOON. An Army battalion can have around 1000 people, too many people to remember by name, whereas a platoon will have around 40-50 or so.

* RealityEnsues:
** Forrest jumps off his boat and swims over to Lt. Dan. The unmanned ''Jenny'' promptly slams into a dock.
** When about to meet JFK, Forrest drinks fifteen Dr Peppers and ends up suffering a PottyEmergency. Luckily, he is able to meet JFK and make it to the bathroom in time.

* UnfortunateNames: Forrest is named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general who went on to become the first Grand Wizard of the KKK. This is awkward, seeing as how he would describe Bubba as "[[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment my best good friend.]]" Forrest being Forrest, he didn't really understand what the KKK was. This is probably why the first person he talked to (a black woman) got on the next bus right away, even though it's not her bus. It becomes somewhat ironic in light of General Forrest leading the Klan for only one year before dissolving it and ordering the members to burn their white robes and hoods, mind.

* ImpliedRape: Although not outright stated, this is why when Forrest and Jenny were best friends in elementary school, she asked him to help her hide in the cornfield from her father, as Forrest mentions that her father was a loving man who was always "hugging and kissing" Jenny and her sisters. He later gets arrested and has his children taken away. Later, when Jenny briefly comes back after giving up her hedonistic life, she throws rocks at her old abandoned house, and breaks down crying, and though Forrest doesn't know what exactly happened in that house, he knows it's bad. After Jenny dies, [[DestroyTheAbusiveHome he pays for her father's house to be bulldozed, as he only knows that it brought her bad memories]].

* ImpliedRape: Although not outright stated, this is why when Forrest and Jenny were best friends in elementary school, she asked him to help her hide in the cornfield from her father, as Forrest mentions that her father was a loving man who was always "hugging and kissing" Jenny and her sisters. Later, when Jenny briefly comes back after giving up her hedonistic life, she throws rocks at her old abandoned house, and breaks down crying, and though Forrest doesn't know what exactly happened in that house, he knows it's bad. After Jenny dies, [[DestroyTheAbusiveHome he pays for her father's house to be bulldozed, as he only knows that it brought her bad memories]].

* EmphasisOnTheWrongSyllable: Forrest gets shot in the butt-TOCKS in Vietnam.

* AnAesop: The moral of the movie as stated by Forrest in the end is essentially, while people don't know the cards fate will deal them, they also choose what to do with them. They both have a hard start in life, but Forrest runs ''towards'' his challenges, while Jenny always runs ''away''. This is shown throughout the movie as Forrest often meets with success with the opportunities he's given through no action of his own but always makes the most of them by giving 100% of his effort and being TheDeterminator. Contrast with that is Jenny, who is smart, beautiful and creative while constantly putting herself in places to do some serious meaningful things (civil rights movement, protesting the Vietnam war, etc.) but never gets anywhere because she can't or won't work through her own emotional trauma at the abuse she suffered as a child. Forrest succeeds in spite of his mental handicap while Jenny fails because of her emotional handicap because Forrest always faces his trials, obstacles and jobs head-on while Jenny always runs when things get bad.

* {{Bookends}}: The ObjectTrackingShot of the feather and Forrest waiting for a bus.

* TheDiseaseThatShallNotBeNamed: Jenny is suffering from some sort of viral disease, which hasn't been identified, and for which there's no treatment. Justified, since the term "AIDS" would not be coined until several months after her death.

* AdaptationPersonalityChange: Does this with Jenny (making her a vapid party girl), Forrest's mom (who loved her son but was much less in charge), and to an extent Forrest himself, who in the books is an IdiotSavant and much less InspirationallyDisadvantaged. For example, in the novel, it's Jenny who winds up pressuring Forrest to stop meandering from one weird occupation to the next and finally settle down, Lieutenant Dan is seemingly just using Forrest's abilities in a series of money-making schemes, and Forrest himself is much more crass and outspoken. The movie has been accused of promoting a conservative agenda, but this may have just been an attempt to turn it into a nostalgia trip for Baby Boomers without getting political at all. For example, Forrest refers to UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar as "a bunch of shit" multiple times in the novel, farts in public, and uses racial epithets toward both blacks and Asians.

* NiceToTheWaiter: After getting rich, Bubba's mother hires a (white) housekeeper, and they're implied to have a much friendlier relationship than she did with any of her own employers.

* AnAesop: The moral of the movie as stated by forest in the end is essentially, while people don't know the cards fate will deal them, they also choose what to do with them. They both have a hard start in life, but Forrest runs ''towards'' his challenges, while Jenny always runs ''away''. This is shown throughout the movie as Forest often meets with success with the opportunities he's given through no action of his own but always makes the most of them by giving 100% of his effort and being TheDeterminator. Contrast with that is Jenny, who is smart, beautiful and creative while constantly putting herself in places to do some serious meaningful things (civil rights movement, protesting the Vietnam war, etc.) but never gets anywhere because she can't or won't work through her own emotional trauma at the abuse she suffered as a child. Forest succeeds in spite of his mental handicap while Jenny fails because of her emotional handicap because Forest always faces his trials, obstacles and jobs head-on while Jenny always runs when things get bad.

* AdaptationalUgliness: Though no one would call Tom Hanks "ugly", his everyman looks are frequently mentioned, whereas the novel Gump was described as being 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighs 242 pounds, covered in muscles. At one point, he's put before a crowd shirtless and literally called "Adonis". A recurring theme is his physical attractiveness and muscles helping him get away with things others with his mental troubles and abrasive personality wouldn't, and getting him jobs like stuntman, astronaut, and pro wrestler.

* {{Mooning}}: Forrest does this to President Johnson when he is asked to show his "war wound", which required him to drop his pants. See ExactWords for more details.

** During the live broadcast of the first moon landing, everyone at the Army hospital (except Lt. Dan, who's staring out the window)is watching Forrest play Ping-Pong with himself and ''no one'' is watching the TV.

It's the tale of Forrest Gump, a good-natured but simple-minded man from [[TheDeepSouth Greenbow, Alabama]], telling his life story to other people while waiting at a bus stop. As the story continues, you find Forrest [[BeenThereShapedHistory touching important events and people]] from [[TheFifties the 1950s]] to [[TheEighties the 1980s]] (ranging from Music/ElvisPresley to several Presidents), rising to his own measure of fame and fortune in the process, mostly by just being himself. Because he is so simple-minded, he doesn't fully understand the significance of everything that he has done and just sees himself as an average person just living his life. But he's forever pining for his childhood sweetheart Jenny (played by Hanna Hall [[TimeshiftedActor and]] Robin Wright).

Groom published a sequel to the original novel, ''Gump & Co.'', in 1995, but due to UsefulNotes/HollywoodAccounting cheating him out of his fair share of royalties from the film's smash success, refused to license the rights to an adaptation, snarking that "I cannot in good conscience allow money to be wasted on a failure". Producers went ahead with sequel plans anyway, with a draft script being handed in on September 10, 2001 - when 9/11 happened one day later, the film's very [[TheNineties '90s]] approach to referencing and commenting on past events instantly became dated and all sequel plans were dropped.

Groom published a sequel to the original novel, ''Gump & Co.'', in 1995.