American Icons: Forrest Gump

scally33312 years ago

It is always best to start the discussion of any topic by first defining the term to be discussed. An American icon is someone who embodies many of the characteristics that make America the greatest country in the history of the world. The icon that has been selected for this piece was a world class athlete who lived life on the edge. A war hero who pushed the boundaries of contemporary norms. A master of the boardroom as well as the bedroom. A corporate tycoon with small business roots and an affinity for center-right politics. A philanthropist who was never afraid to trade hands with anyone. At first glance, his life seemed delightfully simple, but upon further examination, it was deceivingly complex. Here is the story of Forrest Gump, an American Icon.

The story begins with a young Forrest Gump teaching another American icon, Elvis Presley, a risqué new dance move. Neither of them knew it at the time, but this dance move would make a generation of baby boomer women collectively cream their panties when Elvis debuted it on the Milton Berle Show in front of 40 million people. The dance featured an array of aggressive pelvic gyrations, and was instantly labeled “an outright attack on public morality.” The parental outrage over this dance cannot be overstated.

Remember the response to Nipplegate? Well that was nothing compared to the controversy that ensued over the “Hound Dog” dance. Instead of just ripping open Janet Jackson’s shirt and popping out her nipple, Justin Timberlake would’ve had to have torn open her pants and had a thick, vascular strap-on flop out in order to whip the country up into that kind of frenzy. In the eyes of 1950’s America, pop culture had irrevocably crossed over to the dark side, and it was all thanks to some gimpy-legged kid named Forrest Gump from Greenbow, Alabama.

In addition to developing a dance routine that induced orgasmic incontinence among a generation of women, young Forrest had a preternatural ability to find and connect with emotionally-fragmented women. On the bus ride to his first day of school, Gump saddled up next to a young woman named Jenny. At this point in the movie, we don’t know much about Jenny, but we quickly learn that she has a rocky relationship with her father, as evidenced by a scene where he chases her through a cornfield while screaming her name and wielding a near-empty bottle of whiskey. On a side note, does this guy know how to party or what?

After the cornfield scene, Gump and Jenny begin spending a lot of time together, which is a heads-up move by Gump. Is there anything more attractive than a woman who despises her father? I can’t think of one. That is actually the first thing I have listed on the “Interested In” section of my MuslimMingle.com profile.

Over time, Forrest and Jenny start to go together “like peas and carrots.” Gump is able to make her feel safe, and helps her forget about her chaotic home life. When she is with him, she loosens up and lets her guard down, which is not an easy thing for a damaged girl to do. It takes a guy with a special skill set to bring down that wall, and Forrest had that skill set.

I’ve always found that it’s a good idea to have a guy with that particular skill set in your group, because it usually pays dividends at places like the strip club. You’ve got a much better shot at getting a few erotic dancers to come back to an after-party at the house if you’ve got a guy like Gump talking to them, as opposed to your other buddy who flings a fist-full of crumbled-up singles on stage and screams, “Now show me your kidneys, whore!”

Jenny and Forrest remain close throughout high school, but come to a fork in the road when it is time to go to college. Jenny attends an all-girls school, while Forrest gets a full ride to play for Bear Bryant at the University of Alabama, despite the fact that he never played a down of high school football (he was too busy chasing the muff around). Gump went on to dominate college football much like Bo Jackson dominated Tecmo Bowl. He was even named to the All-American Team and got a free trip to the White House to meet the President of the United States. We get an insight into Gump’s political leanings on this trip, and let’s just say that the ole boy did not disappoint. Gump slugged fifteen Dr. Peppers, and blew off a handshake with JFK because he had to squirt. He also said the best part about meeting the liberal icon was “the food.”

Other than his on-field accomplishments, we don’t know much about Gump’s college years, except for one scene where he goes to visit Jenny at her school. This is a classic scene that many of us can relate to. Forrest shows up, unexpected, late one night to Jenny’s dorm, presumably drunk and looking for ass. Jenny is nowhere to be found, so Forrest waits for her in the rain. Suddenly a car pulls into the parking lot. It’s Jenny and she’s returning from a date with another guy. Uh oh.

Gump runs over to the car and unleashes a bevy of right hand haymakers into this unsuspecting fella’s face before the guy speeds off, leaving Forrest and Jenny alone in the parking lot. After a brief argument, Jenny invites Forrest to sneak up to her room. Jenny quickly undresses and the two of them engage in some heavy petting. Forrest quickly discharges a load into Jenny’s roommate’s bathrobe (TFTC) and turns out the lights without finishing Jenny off (TFTC).

At first, I was a little bit disappointed that our Icon didn’t leave Jenny with a torn rectum and a gullet full of spunk, but then I remembered that he had been waiting in the rain for hours, and probably used up most of his energy beating the piss out of that other dude. After all of that, he probably just wanted to squeeze one out and call it a night. As a guy that has left every single girl that I’ve ever been with profoundly underwhelmed on a multitude of occasions, I can understand that. Plus, he got his, so who really cares if she got hers, right? Power move.

After college, Forrest answers the call of duty and signs up to fight for his country, which was a pretty ballsy thing to do considering this was a time of war. In Vietnam, Gump proves to be a war hero, and is awarded the Purple Heart and the Congressional Medal of Honor, which is America’s highest military honor, awarded for “personal acts of valor above and beyond the call of duty.” Not exactly a participation trophy. Gump was awarded the Medal of Honor by another liberal icon, President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Upon receiving the Medal, Gump dropped trou and mooned LBJ, proving once again that Forrest Gump has no love for the Left.

While Gump is in DC receiving his Medal of Honor, he randomly bumps into Jenny, who is there with a bunch of her Pinko friends protesting the war. They spend a few hours catching up before Jenny takes Forrest to an underground meeting of the Black Panther Party to meet her boyfriend Wesley. Gump and Wesley don’t exactly hit it off, mainly because when Jenny introduces them, Wesley looks Forrest up-and-down and condescendingly asks, “Who is the baby killer?” Now, that would be an appropriate question to ask if Wesley was being introduced to Casey Anthony or Dr. George Tiller, but when you say something like that to a highly-decorated war hero, you deserve to be aggressively water-boarded with a bucket full of Magic Johnson’s saliva.

Jenny then confirms Wesley’s status as a top-shelf doosh when she tells Forrest that he is the president of the Berkley Chapter of the S.D.S., which is a far-left student organization from the 1960’s that is comparable to today’s Occupy Movement, i.e. a bunch of soft, entitled, self-impressed, suburban white kids who desperately want to be part of a “movement” so they can wallow in their own self-righteousness. Jizzbags.

The introduction is abruptly cut short when a Black Panther interrupts the conversation and begins preaching to Gump about his group’s philosophies, while Jenny and Wesley drift off to the corner of the room and begin to argue. Gump, completely ignoring the militant Panther and scanning the room for someone better to talk to, notices that the argument between Wesley and Jenny is heating up and quickly turns physical when Wesley winds up and decks Jenny in the face. Enraged, Gump takes a running start and form-tackles Wesley over a table, before unloading a series of right hands leaving Wesley with a fractured orbital bone and a menstruating nose.

Although I wish Gump would’ve caved his head in with a sledgehammer, I still had a giant tent in my pants watching him beat the snot out of Wesley. Wesley is such a detestable character, and not even because he raised his hand to Jenny. No, he’s so loathsome because he’s the 1960’s version of the ass clown who wears Che Guevara t-shirts and goes out of his way to tell you he doesn’t own a TV because he’s too busy reading Chomsky and listening to Coltrane, even though you didn’t ask. Guys like that deserve to be sodomized with a broken whiskey bottle.

Gump should have been awarded a second Medal of Honor for administering that beating, because it showed an enormous set of onions. He went into the headquarters of the Black Panther Party and beat the hell out of one of their members, while they all stood by and watched. That would be like a white guy showing up by himself and picking a fight at the Source Awards. Tip of the cap, Private Gump.

After the DC incident, Gump and Jenny decide to head their separate ways –- Jenny back to the West Coast and Gump to NYC. While in NYC, Gump runs into his old war buddy Lt. Dan Taylor who is now an unkempt, embittered alcoholic living off the government teat, i.e. everything I aspire to be. Gump sticks around NYC for a few days to hang with his buddy, and we see that Gump truly knows how to get after it. The scene is New Years Eve 1972 and Gump has one hell of a clam jam with a double amputee and two hookers named “Long Limbs Lenore” and “Cunning Carla.” Not too bad for a guy that far removed from his college days. Sure beats what I did for NYE last year. I spent the night strollin’ for colon outside of a Conoco latrine. I got rejected by a twice-divorced mother of three who had a lazy eye and severe neck acne, so I went home and self-flagellated to an Internet clip of a large-breasted Scandinavian woman painting with her menstrual blood.

But Gump didn’t stick around NYC for too long because he had money on his mind. He made his way back down to Alabama and invested every penny he had into a shrimping boat, which he used to form the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. In a brief period of time, Gump managed to turn his small business into an international seafood conglomerate, which made him wildly successful. But it was an early investment in a start-up by the name of Apple that catapulted Gump to ‘Captain of Industry’ status. He now had more money than he knew what to do with, so he used his wealth to give back to his community. He renovated churches, built hospitals, and donated heavily to his alma-mater.

But just because Gump had Scrooge McDuck money didn’t mean that he forgot how to live life on the edge, and have a good time. Right around this time, Jenny comes back into Gump’s life. We hadn’t seen much of Jenny lately, except for a brief scene where she was contemplating suicide in a California hotel room after tying-off and booting heroin with a swarthy, mustachioed gentleman, who still remains one of the most underrated characters in American cinematic history.

When Jenny arrives at the Gump estate, she is in pretty rough shape, so she spends the first few weeks detoxing in the guest bedroom. On the last night of her visit, Forrest gives her an aggressive raw-dogging, which raises a few eyebrows, because as we all know, having condom-less sex with an HIV-infected heroin junkie is about as safe as drinking Greg Louganis’ bath water with an open canker soar. But that is what I love about Gump. He lives life on the edge.

The next day, Jenny leaves town, so Forrest decides to embark on a three-year, coast-to-coast run across America. Many speculate as to the reason for Gump’s journey, but no one really knows. My guess: he was probably trying to sweat out all of that HIV that he had just contracted. Fornicating with an unclean woman will lead you to do some pretty crazy things the next day. I usually just shower profusely and try to pretend like I don’t notice the painful genital lesions. Gump went on a three year run. To each his own, I guess.

After the run, Forrest and Jenny reconnect one last time where she tells him that he is the father of her son and that she is “sick,” AKA “dying rapidly.” Jenny passes away shortly thereafter and Gump assumes all parental responsibilities for Forrest Jr., which is the best thing that could’ve happened to the kid. Given her track record, one would imagine that Jenny would make Dina Lohan look like a stable and responsible parent.

And that is the story of Forrest Gump. No one knows what happened after that. Hopefully Gump and his son lived a long and happy life. But even if his T-Cell count dropped rapidly after the story ended, he could still take comfort in knowing that he led a life that will never be duplicated, worth of American icon status.