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Did Forrest Gump and Forrest, Jr. Contract AIDS?

Trekker4747

Trekker4747

Boldly going...
Premium Member
In the movie Forrest Gump, Jenny dies after contracting "some kind of viris" in the 1980s. Though never said specificly it can be heavily implied from Jenny's drug using and promiscuous lifestyle in the 60s and 70s could've led her to contracting HIV/AIDS.

Now, Jenny and Forrest had sex after Jenny's free-spirit days in that time period and when she was trying to straighten her life out, she also has Forrest, Jr. in this time. So, did Forrest and Forrest, Jr. contract HIV/AIDS from her?

Isn't this kind of a dark ending to Forrest Gump? That Forrest, Sr. lifespan has now been signifigantly reduced (and he doesn't even know it) and Forrest, Jr's life is going to be a short one as well?
 
Trekker4747 said:
In the movie Forrest Gump, Jenny dies after contracting "some kind of viris" in the 1980s. Though never said specificly it can be heavily implied from Jenny's drug using and promiscuous lifestyle in the 60s and 70s could've led her to contracting HIV/AIDS.

Now, Jenny and Forrest had sex after Jenny's free-spirit days in that time period and when she was trying to straighten her life out, she also has Forrest, Jr. in this time. So, did Forrest and Forrest, Jr. contract HIV/AIDS from her?

Isn't this kind of a dark ending to Forrest Gump? That Forrest, Sr. lifespan has now been signifigantly reduced (and he doesn't even know it) and Forrest, Jr's life is going to be a short one as well?
Click to expand...

I think it's safe to say that neither one contracted the Human Immunodeficiency Virus.
 
Honestly, this is something I wondered after watching the film back in the theatre, but I guess we're supposed to walk away with the feeling that everything's all right. We do see Forest, Jr. as a child with no obvious health issues.
 
This is probably as good a time to ask as any. Is that actually Forrest in your avatar, Trekker? I'd been assuming it was, but I realized just now that I could be wrong.

On topic: I can't imagine this being true, yet not mentioned in the film. If they wanted to end the film this way, they might have, but they would have made it clear. The fact that they didn't leads me to believe that they both just "got lucky" and didn't get it. It's possible.

Really, doesn't "he got lucky" describe ALL of Forrest's life? Why would his luck run out (for no reason) right at the end of the film? It just doesn't fit.
 
It's not Forrest, though I guess it does kind of look like him that low-res picture, but it's Mike Nelson flanked by Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot all of MST3K fame. It's from the final scene of the final episode of MST3K when they're off the Satellite of Love and have gotten an apartment together in Minnestoa and decide to spend their time... watching cheesy movies.

:)
 
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Trekker4747 said:
It's not Forrest, though I guess it does kind of look like him that low-res picture, but it's Mike Nelson flanked by Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot all of MST3K fame. It's from the final scene of the final episode of MST3K when they're off the Satellite of Love and have gotten an apartment together in Minnestoa and decide to spend their time... watching chessy movies.

:)
Click to expand...

lol - never saw that.

I DID see the robots...just thought they were watching movies with Forrest for some reason!
 
Trekker4747 said:
It's not Forrest, though I guess it does kind of look like him that low-res picture, but it's Mike Nelson flanked by Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot all of MST3K fame. It's from the final scene of the final episode of MST3K when they're off the Satellite of Love and have gotten an apartment together in Minnestoa and decide to spend their time... watching chessy movies.

:)
Click to expand...

Danger, Diabolik, great episode. :techman: Remember watching it on the first run on Sci-Fi actually.

I don't think they did, certainly Forrest Jr. probably wouldn't have been alive long enough to be able to have Forrest see him off to his first day of school otherwise.

Interesting note, Jenny, in the original novel, didn't die. She died in the sequel novel, Gump and Co. to keep in line with the film and Forrest and son didn't contract anything there either. Forrest did see visions of Jenny, though... the novels were odd.
 
^^^ That's true... Forrest in the books was a bit different from Forrest in the movie. Forrest in the book, for example aced Optical Physics in college!
 
You don't get HIV/AIDS every time you have sex with a positive person. So no, he didn't get AIDS.

And is the child really his? I haven't seen the movie in a long time, but it seemed they had sex long before the child was born. I always just through she lied and she didn't know who the father was so she put Forrest name down.

The last time i saw the movie was about 10 years ago.
 
I figured she just didn't tell him until several years after Jr.'s birth. She was probably never going to tell him, but when she found out she was dying she decided to leave her son with his father.
 
In the movie Forrest Gump, Jenny dies after contracting "some kind of viris" in the 1980s. Though never said specificly it can be heavily implied from Jenny's drug using and promiscuous lifestyle in the 60s and 70s could've led her to contracting HIV/AIDS.
Click to expand...
When the film came out, my sister thought that, too. That Jenny had contracted AIDS.

However, that makes no sense historically. If Jenny had been a junkie in the mid-80s, then I suppose it's possible. But she wouldn't have picked HIV up through sexual contact during the 1960s -- while the AIDS virus had come to the United States sometime around 1969, it was confined to the homosexual population, and at late as 1982 it was still confined to that population, with a total outbreak in the mid-hundreds. It certainly wasn't a heterosexual disease at that point.

So, if the movie tried to imply that Jenny was an early AIDS victim, the movie is wrong.

It could be the cervical cancer virus that Jenny picked up. That would make sense.

In no way does HIV make sense.
 
By the early 80s? I think by then there were definitely a lot of heterosexual cases (mostly intravenous drug users). Jenny almost certainly could've died of AIDS and there is large probability that perinatal transmission to Forrest Jr. occurred.
 
Jenny Didn't die in the book, wiki said the author, a man named Groom, did kinda retcon Jenny (and Mother Gump)'s death(s) in his sequel, Gump & Co.
 
the_wildcard said:
Wasn't there a sequel to the first book? They never did make a movie of the second book though.
Click to expand...
The author refused to sign the rights over after the studio used Hollywood accounting to gyp him of his share of the profits of the first movie by claiming it was a failure.
 
Trekker4747 said:
In the movie Forrest Gump, Jenny dies after contracting "some kind of viris" in the 1980s. Though never said specificly it can be heavily implied from Jenny's drug using and promiscuous lifestyle in the 60s and 70s could've led her to contracting HIV/AIDS.

Now, Jenny and Forrest had sex after Jenny's free-spirit days in that time period and when she was trying to straighten her life out, she also has Forrest, Jr. in this time. So, did Forrest and Forrest, Jr. contract HIV/AIDS from her?

Isn't this kind of a dark ending to Forrest Gump? That Forrest, Sr. lifespan has now been signifigantly reduced (and he doesn't even know it) and Forrest, Jr's life is going to be a short one as well?
Click to expand...

The movie never said that she had AIDS so how can you.:confused:
 
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