# How bad was Forrest Gump's mental deficiency? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 28, 2012, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226 "2012-02-28T04:48:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226/1 "2012-02-28T04:48:36Z")
Has anyone analyzed what Forrest Gump’s mental issue was supposed to be? If simple retardation, how bad was it? He seems to me to be functioning at a pretty high level throughout most of the movie. He’s undeniably slow and awfully naïve in most respects, of course, but shows excellent learning skills in some areas (“THAT IS A COMPANY RECORD! WHY DID YOU REASSEMBLE YOUR RIFLE SO QUICKLY GUMP?!”) and I can’t imagine a totally unperceptive dummy would have the survival skills to be his company’s designated VC rat hole investigator. Or is the movie inconsistent, showing Gump as unrealistically sharp at such times, given his level of retardation at others? I also wondered whether a kid like Gump have been kept out of school in the 50s and whether he’d be put into a slow learners’ class today. ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226/2 "2012-02-28T04:58:09Z")
Before your edit, you wrote “growing up in the 50s” and that’s just it. Forrest Gump would not have been able to understand the concept of the `50s, let alone the `60s and all its connotations. He lived year by year, if not day by day. He Forrest Gumped his way through his entire life. It wasn’t [“have you considered your _ **future** _, son?”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army) it was “what’s I’m gonna do after high school?”. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226/3 "2012-02-28T05:08:11Z")
I doubt anyone living at the time “understood the concept of” the 50s or 60s and all their implications. You’re living in the 2010s, do _you_ understand the concepts of this decade and all _its_ implications? (Not an idle question–it’s neither here nor there, but I have suspicions that this particular decade will make the 60s look like a child’s birthday party. But we’re all Forrest Gumping along as we must.) But of course I’m interested in the OP from a medical or psychological standpoint for the most part. ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226/4 "2012-02-28T05:20:18Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > You’re living in the 2010s, do _you_ understand the concepts of this decade and all _its_ implications? _I’m_ living in the [2000s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s). 🆒 The future never happened. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226/5 "2012-02-28T05:28:37Z")
He probably had the same problem Chance from Being There did, which is to say Hollywoodbullshititis 😃 I’m not a medical professional, but I’d say Forest is somewhere on the autistic spectrum. It is what best fits what we see on screen. I’m surprised no one has called Jenny a rapist, first time she saw the movie my wife instantly was squicked out by that. She said the way they made it seem like Jenny was directing the whole thing made it worse(come here Forest etc) I wondered if the genders were reversed would people have been comfortable with that relationship? I think the movie is pretty inspirational beyond the social commentary as a story of a person with a mental problem finding their place in life and not only becoming functional but prospering, in a world much like our own that is not kind or forgiving. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226/6 "2012-02-28T06:01:12Z")
FG reminds me a lot of my brother who is/was IQ tested in the low 90s. The easiest way I can describe Jim is that he’s a case of “arrested development” - it’s like he grew up to about the age of 14, and that’s about it. Socially, intellectually, even sexually (I don’t think he’s ever been laid except due to peer pressure when he was in the Navy), Jim is a lot like an over-grown 14 year-old. Jim is fully functional, can set his mind at some tasks and do very well at them (for example, he decided to lose weight and set about it with a single-minded determination that would be hard to achieve if he were more capable of intellectual and emotional distractions), but the adult world is full of complexities that he doesn’t really understand. He loves his dogs and is puzzled (and easily swayed) by people, especially people in authority. To ask Jim his opinion is to get the opinion of the last person he talked to about this subject, and don’t _ever_ think he’s capable of keeping a secret. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226/7 "2012-02-28T06:25:17Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > but the adult world is full of complexities that he doesn’t really understand. . Probably applies to most people 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226/8 "2012-02-28T06:56:41Z")
I’ve heard that Forrest has aspergers. ---
**Author:** ![Namkcalb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Namkcalb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Namkcalb)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226/9 "2012-02-28T07:42:31Z")
His IQ was stated to be 75, just below the minimum to allowed into a mainstream school. Hence the scene with the squeking bed ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226/10 "2012-02-28T11:05:44Z")
Does an especially low IQ have to correspond with a medically/psycologically classified “condition”? Can someone have an IQ of 75 and just simply be a “person with an IQ of 75”? ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226/11 "2012-02-28T11:37:31Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > Or is the movie inconsistent, showing Gump as unrealistically sharp at such times, given his level of retardation at others? This. He ran his own business operating a fishing trawler. True, he ran it unsuccessfully, but he ran it. That takes a \*lot \*of intelligence. Most small businesses fail within the first twelve months, yet he managed to keep his afloat. Even in the 1960s, the amount of planning and paperwork required to purchase a boat, register it, maintain it was huge. Then there is the issue of navigating the boat. Even bluewater navigation is not something that can be picked up quickly and easily by the average person in a class, yet he taught himself how to do this with no instruction at all in a matter of months. There’s no suggestion in the movie that he regularly got lost, ran out of fuel, and had to be rescued by the coastguard, yet this is what would happen if you or I tried to operate a shrimping boat with no training. He says that he remembered everything that Bubba told him, but if he learned that way then he is even more of a prodigy than if he taught himself though trial and error on board. In the real world a person with an IQ of 75 has difficulty learning how to tie their shoes and tell time. They will never master basic life skills like how to operate a chequing or credit account. They are retarded, and quite severely so. Gump, as you note, is shown as being a slow learner, but not in any sense retarded. To me he seems more like someone with a biological memory problem. He doesn’t retain new information well, so his knowledge base is limited, but what little he does learn he is able to use as well as anybody else. We are told in the movie that he is moderately retarded, but nothing he does or says actually indicated this. He lives by his own code of morals, and so appears socially awkward, but he never exhibits any particular social \*problems \* that aren’t common to 90% of the population. He definitely suffered from Hollywoodbullshititis, which can be confirmed by the fact that his love interest succumbed to a classic case of [MMD](http://www.omenaheights.com/love_story_page.htm). > [@](#): > > I also wondered whether a kid like Gump have been kept out of school in the 50s and whether he’d be put into a slow learners’ class today. As he was supposed to be, with an IQ of 75, he would definitely be in a special ed class, or more likely a special ed _school_. As he was in the movie, with an ability to read, write, tell time etc sufficient to enlist in the army and navigate his won boat. No way. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226/12 "2012-02-28T15:33:39Z")
> [@Namkcalb](#): > > His IQ was stated to be 75, just below the minimum to allowed into a mainstream school. Remember, though, this was in Alabama. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stafford_cripps/32/7167_2.png) [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stafford_Cripps)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226/13 "2012-02-28T15:48:30Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > . > In the real world a person with an IQ of 75 has difficulty learning how to tie their shoes and tell time. They will never master basic life skills like how to operate a chequing or credit account. They are retarded, and quite severely so. Not officially; the DSM IV definition of “retardation” defines it as having an IQ below 70 **and** having impaired skills in some important areas of activity (which could include dressing and maintaining one’s finances). The word “severe” is only used for an IQ of below 34. From professional experience, I know that many people with an IQ of below 70 can tie their laces and tell time independently. I would not expect many people with an IQ of 75 to be unable to. I’m not sure about managing a bank account - some with an IQ of 75 may need help with that but I would expect some to be independent. I couldn’t really comment on Forrest Gump - I only saw it once years ago, there’s probably a lot of artistic license gone into his characterisation. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226/14 "2012-02-28T15:51:25Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > Remember, though, this was in Alabama. “God damn it, Gump! You’re a god damn genius!” ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226/15 "2012-02-28T16:01:25Z")
The idea of Mysterious Movie Star Disease, which Blake links to, may have originated in the parody of _Love Story_ in _Mad_, where it was called Old Movie Disease. TV Tropes has an entry for it, calling it Soap Opera Disease: > **[Soap Opera Disease - TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SoapOperaDisease)** > > Common ailment found on the Soap Opera. It is notoriously difficult to diagnose and often exhibits vague symptoms. Often fatal, but the victim can linger on for a long, long time. Sometimes results in a lengthy coma which, upon the victim's … Of course, even by the time of the \*Mad \*parody, it was vaguely understood to be a common thing. This is what happened in classic Hollywood movies when a character played by a star died. They didn’t want to be seen on screen as looking bad, so even at the edge of death any characters they played had to be shown as still beautiful. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226/16 "2012-02-28T16:37:36Z")
> [@Namkcalb](#): > > His IQ was stated to be 75, just below the minimum to allowed into a mainstream school. And just above that of the Academy members who decided it was the best film of 1994. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226/17 "2012-02-28T17:41:10Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > This. > > He ran his own business operating a fishing trawler. True, he ran it unsuccessfully, but he ran it. Gump’s shrimping operation was a success, although arguably due to a combination of luck and Mother Nature. Hurricane Carmen wiped out all of Forrest’s competitors, leaving all of the shrimp for him. He bought several boats and Lt. Dan invested Gump’s money in “some kind of fruit business” (Apple, Inc.). So Gump actually became quite wealthy. ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226/18 "2012-02-28T17:50:57Z")
I always figured Lt. Dan took care of the finances based on the “investment in some kind of fruit business.” ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226/19 "2012-02-28T18:18:19Z")
In the book (which the movie is only _very loosely_ based on), he’s a savant. In college for football, he’s failing remedial English (and PE), but acing the graduate level physics class he stumbled into. In the movie, he’s basically portrayed as borderline autistic with better soft skills than most autistic people have. He doesn’t really understand people or society at a high level, but his loyalty and disarming honesty make him pretty easy to get along with. He clearly has a _very_ good memory and the ability to follow instructions precisely, but little or no creativity. I don’t think there’s any indication that he has a mind for business at all. He buys the boat with the proceeds of his ping pong endorsement deal, and is ignorant and distracted enough that he lets it run into something else when he bails out in excitement over seeing Lt. Dan. Given the “fruit company” reveal later, I think it’s safe to say that Dan handles the business end of things entirely. He lucks into his success in shrimping and, arguably, in just about everything else, though it’s a reasonable interpretation of the movie that working hard and being honest and trusting will lead to success, but will be viewed by cynical people as luck. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226/20 "2012-02-28T18:24:33Z")
Gump could have had an IQ above 75 and just tested badly. If he was unused to the test procedures, or distracted, or just having a bad day, that could have cause a significant drop in his score. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-bad-was-forrest-gumps-mental-deficiency/614226.md?page=2)