Editing Forrest Gump (section)

== Symbolism ==
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=== Feather ===

{{Quote box |width=30em|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|quote="I don't want to sound like a bad version of 'the child within'. But the childlike innocence of Forrest Gump is what we all once had. It's an emotional journey. You laugh and cry. It does what movies are supposed to do: make you feel alive."|source=—producer [[Wendy Finerman]]<ref name="WorldTime" />}}

Various interpretations have been suggested for the feather present at the opening and conclusion of the film. Sarah Lyall of ''The New York Times'' noted several suggestions made about the feather: "Does the white feather symbolize ''[[The Unbearable Lightness of Being]]''? Forrest Gump's impaired intellect? The randomness of experience?"<ref name="LyallFeather">{{cite news |last=Lyall |first=Sarah |title=It's 'Forrest Gump' vs. Harrumph |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/31/weekinreview/it-s-forrest-gump-vs-harrumph.html |work=The New York Times |date=July 31, 1994 |access-date=October 21, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110801025155/http://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/31/weekinreview/it-s-forrest-gump-vs-harrumph.html |archive-date=August 1, 2011 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Hanks interpreted the feather as: "Our destiny is only defined by how we deal with the chance elements to our life and that's kind of the embodiment of the feather as it comes in. Here is this thing that can land anywhere and that it lands at your feet. It has theological implications that are really huge."<ref name="DVDEyes3">{{cite video|title=Forrest Gump-(Through the eyes of Forrest Gump)|medium=DVD|publisher=[[Paramount Pictures]]|time=23:27|date=August 28, 2001}}</ref> Sally Field compared the feather to fate, saying: "It blows in the wind and just touches down here or there. Was it planned or was it just perchance?"<ref name="DVDEyes4">{{cite video|title=Forrest Gump-(Through the eyes of Forrest Gump)|medium=DVD|publisher=[[Paramount Pictures]]|time=23:57|date=August 28, 2001}}</ref> Visual effects supervisor Ken Ralston compared the feather to an abstract painting: "It can mean so many things to so many different people."<ref name="DVDEyes5">{{cite video|title=Forrest Gump-(Through the eyes of Forrest Gump)|medium=DVD|publisher=[[Paramount Pictures]]|time=26:29|date=August 28, 2001}}</ref>

=== Political interpretations ===

Hanks states that "the film is non-political and thus non-judgmental".<ref name="WorldTime" /> Nevertheless, CNN's ''[[Crossfire (U.S. TV program)|Crossfire]]'' debated in 1994 whether the film promoted conservative values or was an indictment of the [[counterculture of the 1960s]]. Thomas Byers called it "an aggressively conservative film" in a ''Modern Fiction Studies'' article.<ref name="ByersAggCon">{{cite journal|last=Byers|first=Thomas B.|title=History Re-Membered: Forrest Gump, Postfeminist Masculinity, and the Burial of the Counterculture|journal=Modern Fiction Studies|pages=419–444|volume=42|issue=2|year=1996|doi=10.1353/mfs.1995.0102|s2cid=161822250}}</ref>

{{Quote box |width=30em|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|quote=All over the political map, people have been calling Forrest their own. But, ''Forrest Gump'' isn't about politics or conservative values. It's about humanity, it's about respect, tolerance and unconditional love.|source=—producer [[Steve Tisch]]<ref name="ByersAggCon" />}}
It has been noted that while Gump follows a very conservative lifestyle, Jenny's life is full of countercultural embrace, complete with drug use, promiscuity, and antiwar rallies, and that their eventual marriage might be a kind of reconciliation.<ref name="EbertReview" /> Jennifer Hyland Wang argues in a ''Cinema Journal'' article that Jenny's death to an unnamed virus "symbolizes the death of liberal America and the death of the protests that defined a decade" in the 1960s. She also notes that the film's screenwriter, [[Eric Roth]], developed the screenplay from the novel and transferred to Jenny "all of Gump's flaws and most of the excesses committed by Americans in the 1960s and 1970s".<ref name="WangStruggle" />

Other commentators believe the film forecast the 1994 [[Republican Revolution]] and used the image of Forrest Gump to promote movement leader [[Newt Gingrich]]'s traditional, conservative values. Jennifer Hyland Wang observes that the film idealizes the 1950s, as made evident by the lack of "Whites Only"-signs in Gump's Southern childhood, and envisions the 1960s as a period of social conflict and confusion. She argues that this sharp contrast between the decades criticizes the counterculture values and reaffirms conservatism.<ref name="WangStruggle"/> Wang argues that the film was used by Republican politicians to illustrate a "traditional version of recent history" to gear voters toward their ideology for the congressional elections.<ref name="WangStruggle" /> Presidential candidate [[Bob Dole]] stated that the film's message was "no matter how great the adversity, the American Dream is within everybody's reach".<ref name="WangStruggle" />

In 1995, ''[[National Review]]'' included ''Forrest Gump'' in its list of the "Best 100 Conservative Movies" of all time,<ref name="100ConMov">{{cite news |last=Quillen |first=Ed |date=May 7, 1995 |title=Why are modern conservatives so enchanted with Forrest Gump? |work=[[The Denver Post]]}}</ref> and ranked it number four on its "25 Best Conservative Movies of the Last 25 Years" list.<ref name="NRRanks2">{{cite news |last= |first= |date=February 23, 2009 |title=The Best Conservative Movies |work=[[National Review]] |url=https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2009/02/23/best-conservative-movies/ |url-status=dead |access-date=1 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180823083538/https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2009/02/23/best-conservative-movies/ |archive-date=August 23, 2018}}</ref> ''National Review''<nowiki/>'s John Miller wrote that "Tom Hanks plays the title-character, an amiable dunce who is far too smart to embrace the lethal values of the 1960s. The love of his life, wonderfully played by Robin Wright Penn, chooses a different path; she becomes a drug-addled hippie, with disastrous results."<ref name="NRRanks">{{cite news |last=Miller |first=John J. |date=February 23, 2009 |title=The Best Conservative Movies |work=[[National Review]] |url=http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=YWQ4MDlhMWRkZDQ5YmViMDM1Yzc0MTE3ZTllY2E3MGM= |url-status=dead |access-date=October 21, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101026032717/http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=YWQ4MDlhMWRkZDQ5YmViMDM1Yzc0MTE3ZTllY2E3MGM%3D |archive-date=October 26, 2010}}</ref>

Professor James Burton at [[Salisbury University]] argues that conservatives claimed ''Forrest Gump'' as their own due less to the content of the film and more to the historical and cultural context of 1994. Burton claims that the film's content and advertising campaign were affected by the cultural climate of the 1990s, which emphasized [[family values]] and American values, epitomized in the book ''[[Hollywood vs. America]]''. He claims that this climate influenced the apolitical nature of the film, which allowed many different political interpretations.<ref name="Burton September 2007">{{cite thesis|last=Burton|first=James Amos|title=Film, History and Cultural Memory: Cinematic Representations of Vietnam-Era America During the Culture Wars, 1987–1995|type=PhD thesis|date=September 2007|url=https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/10493/|access-date=July 30, 2022|archive-date=July 30, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220730123929/https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/10493/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Some commentators see the conservative readings of ''Forrest Gump'' as indicating the death of irony in American culture. Vivian Sobchack notes that the film's humor and irony rely on the assumption of the audience's historical knowledge.<ref name="Burton September 2007" />