# In Forrest Gump, what disease did Jenny have? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 13, 2000, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-forrest-gump-what-disease-did-jenny-have/45432 "2000-12-13T23:45:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![DooWahDiddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@DooWahDiddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DooWahDiddy)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2017, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-forrest-gump-what-disease-did-jenny-have/45432/101 "2017-10-02T20:56:53Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > …I don’t think anyone ever used the term “retard” in the movie… That right there should tell you why you shouldn’t have used it. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2017, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-forrest-gump-what-disease-did-jenny-have/45432/102 "2017-10-02T21:58:41Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I apologize if I offended Forrest. The fact still remains that Forrest and Bubba were retards, Jenny was a whore and Lieutenant Dan is an asshole. That doesn’t mean that they are bad people. You sometimes just have to work with what you are given kind of like a box of chocolates. To be fair, I don’t think anyone ever used the term “retard” in the movie. They used the more PC term, “local idiot”. According to my Google-fu, one of the girls (prostitutes?) with Lt Dan and Forrest in New York calls Forest a “retard”. Also, according to this site, it’s Hep C: [http://www.90skidsonly.com/1272811/secrets-behind-filming-forrest-gump-revealed/20/](http://www.90skidsonly.com/1272811/secrets-behind-filming-forrest-gump-revealed/20/) Go figure. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2017, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-forrest-gump-what-disease-did-jenny-have/45432/103 "2017-10-02T22:09:44Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Also, according to this site, it’s Hep C: > [http://www.90skidsonly.com/1272811/secrets-behind-filming-forrest-gump-revealed/20/](http://www.90skidsonly.com/1272811/secrets-behind-filming-forrest-gump-revealed/20/) That’d be the same thing mentioned [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=20511136#post20511136), which, as noted in the following post, has virtually nothing to do with the movie. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2017, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-forrest-gump-what-disease-did-jenny-have/45432/104 "2017-10-02T23:26:13Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > It’s no more ok to say the r-word than it is to say oriental. Even if it’s medically accurate, there’s a dozen better ways of describing his condition than using such a charged word. > [@Shalmanese](#): > > We all understand that it used to be a medical term in the same way that Negro was a scientific classification but the connotations its gained over the decades has turned it into a hateful slur that trivializes intellectual disability and dehumanizes people. “Retard” was never a medical term anymore than “psycho” is a psychiatry term. People who work with people with developmental disabilities STILL use the term “Mentally Retarded,” and in the correct context, there is nothing wrong with it. When someone is retarded, we generally say “a retarded person”; until the 1980s, there was a term “retardate,” which meant the same thing, but it fell by the wayside, because it was too close to “retard.” Granted, “retard” is short for “mentally retarded,” but it’s a short form **no one in the field has ever used** , just as no one in psychiatry has ever used “psycho” as an abbreviation of “psychopath,” or “psychotic.” ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2017, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-forrest-gump-what-disease-did-jenny-have/45432/105 "2017-10-02T23:28:32Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > According to my Google-fu, one of the girls (prostitutes?) with Lt Dan and Forrest in New York calls Forest a “retard”. So? People used “retard” as an insult all the time (and probably still do). Most people called “retarded” on the playground were not actually retarded. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2017, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-forrest-gump-what-disease-did-jenny-have/45432/106 "2017-10-02T23:58:05Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > So? People used “retard” as an insult all the time (and probably still do). Most people called “retarded” on the playground were not actually retarded. Let me get this straight. We just had the most severe mass shooting in U.S. history, Trump is still President. Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico have massive hurricane damage and the best thing we have to talk about are insults to fictional characters? Let’s talk about nigger Jim from Huckleberry Finn while we are at it. Jesus Christ on a stick, these types of things are what people are referring to when they talk about PC culture gone bad. I love the movie Forrest Gump but it has no relevance to anything in real life. He is just a retard that just happens to fall into every available opportunity by chance. The reason he was disabled is never given but I assume it was some kind of delivery complication rather than genetic. The whole point of the story isn’t about him. It is just a vehicle to showcase American history. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2017, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-forrest-gump-what-disease-did-jenny-have/45432/107 "2017-10-03T00:08:59Z")
I can change my language if it makes anyone feel better. Forrest was an intellectually challenged individual that was mainstreamed because his mother was kind enough to fuck the principal so that he didn’t have to go to a “special” school. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2017, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-forrest-gump-what-disease-did-jenny-have/45432/108 "2017-10-03T00:45:10Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I love the movie Forrest Gump but it has no relevance to anything in real life. He is just a retard that just happens to fall into every available opportunity by chance. The reason he was disabled is never given but I assume it was some kind of delivery complication rather than genetic. The whole point of the story isn’t about him. It is just a vehicle to showcase American history. Actually, polio was a major health threat for children especially until the late 1950s, when Salk’s vaccine became available. I remember going to the Public Health Center in downtown Minneapolis with my mother and brother to get inoculated when I was four or five (1959–60).\* So yeah, his having to wear leg braces was very much part of American culture at the time. \*Afterwards, we went to a planetarium show at the brand new MPS Public Library on Nicollet Avenue, before it became part of “The Mall.” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2017, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-forrest-gump-what-disease-did-jenny-have/45432/109 "2017-10-04T01:02:44Z")
**[Moderating]** > [@Shagnasty](#): > > The original book has Forrest hanging out with an ape and going into space as well. It is appalling bad and almost unreadable. I am still amazed that anyone was able to translate it into an Academy Award winning film (despite many opinions, I am still a huge fan of the movie and still think it is a brilliant touchstone). > > What I am saying is that the book(s) and the movie aren’t that closely related. I have read the books and seen the movie dozens of times. At least in the movie, she died of AIDS complications. That is made abundantly clear without being blatantly stated. It really doesn’t matter what the book says because the screenwriters completely rewrote the entire story to be a montage of late 20th century history as seen through a retards eyes. I’m ruling that “retard” falls into the same category as other offensive slurs, and giving a Warning for this one. “Retarded person” would carry the same meaning without being offensive, and “idiot” or “moron”, while old-fashioned in scientific usage, would still have worked. EDIT: On further review, I have rescinded the formal Warning, but “retard” is still not appropriate language. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-forrest-gump-what-disease-did-jenny-have/45432.md?page=5)