Obviously AIDS.
My two cents…
I honestly don’t believe that Jenny’s death was any kind of political statement. I think the main point behind Jenny’s character was what can happen if you spend your life running away from problems instead of facing up to them.
When Jenny’s a kid, one of her first bits of advice to Forrest is “just run away” (from the bullies). She repeats it when she’s older and Forrest is about to leave for Vietnam: “If you get into trouble, just run away.”
That’s her philosophy of life in a nutshell. Her actions during most of her life (especially her drug use) can be seen as ways of “running away.” She doesn’t seem to be in the hippie movement because of any philosophical convictions…she just heads off to San Francisco on a whim. Granted, she is at the political protest in D.C., but there isn’t much indication that she has all that much of a political conviction–she seems to be there mainly because her boyfriend (who slaps her around) is also there.
Only…her running doesn’t seem to give her any peace. When we glimpse her, she’s only ending up with abusive boyfriends, and is later seen attempting suicide.
When she takes off after having slept with Forrest, the cab driver asks her where she’s running to, and she answers, “I’m not.” It’s not true…instead of trying to come to terms with her mistakes and build a life with Forrest, she runs off, convincing herself it’s what’s best for Forrest.
Forrest himself tries running away…literally. But after a couple years of doing so, he realizes that it’s not the answer, and goes back to his life.
Eventually, Jenny comes to realize the same, and is able to build a life (however short) with the only person who’s ever loved her unconditionally. But how much trouble could have been avoided if she’d tried to deal with her problems instead of running away from them?
Anyway, that’s just my opinion, and YMMV, of course, but that’s what I took away from it.
To the best of my recollection, in the novel Jenny doesn’t have a fatal illness. Her character in the book, and much of the plot of the book, is quite different from the movie.
Ok, so maybe they were trying to make us believe that she died of AIDS but she didn’t.
Has anyone read the book? I’m not eager to do it but it came out on 1986.
I’ll just follow the hepatitis theory unless someone can prove it wrong xD
Jenny shared her birthday, July 16, 1945 (see tombstone) with Trinity, which used an implosion-design plutonium device, presumably exposing her and all others in the film to low grade radiation, also presumably inducing the loss of innocence that we see throughout the film. Any exposure to ionizing radiation, even at doses too low to produce any symptoms of radiation sickness, can induce cancer due to cellular and genetic damage. Survivors of acute radiation syndrome face an increased risk developing various forms of cancer later in life. The bomb was the cancer.
Stuckinastupidmovieitis
Bubba was AFAICT a good boy who followed the rules and died faster than Jen-nay.
I always took it to be AIDS too.
The other diseases mentioned here were easily identifiable at the time.
The earliest mention of AIDS I can recall was circa 1984, when there was a segment on the news in which they were speculating that it was a mutation of the Feline Distemper virus. That ought to put into perspective what a mystery it was and how desperate we were, as a society, to figure it out.
I was only 11 at the time, so you can imagine it was a growing concern in adult circles for several years before it came to my attention.
I well remember as well in 1985 when Rock Hudson revealed that he was gay and had AIDS. I still remember the day he died, October 2, 1985. At the time, AIDS was a death sentence, and it remained a death sentence until well into the 90s.
It was a very scary era.
With respect to Forrest Gump, I think it MUST be AIDS, dramatically speaking. Jenny represents the loss of innocence through the years - the dark side and negative consequences of being a feather on the breeze of life and history. Both she and Forrest live their lives that way, going where life takes them without much planning or resistance. Forrest has only good results, and she has only bad.
The sexual revolution occurred in the span of the movie, and the good times were over when AIDS came around, and sex could kill you.
Within the narrative of the film, the timing of when she contracted AIDS is a little vague. If we to are assume she is clean and sober and at peace at last when she visits Forrest and the conceive Forrest Junior, then she must’ve already had the virus by then.
nm, I just realized how old this is.
That’s because he was black, which is even worse than being a slut.
I don’t think it’s as easy to characterize the people in the movie as you think. Gump is mentally retarded and wore a leg brace as a child. His mother was abandoned by his husband and was willing to seduce the principal of the school to make sure that Gump got to attend regular school. His one true love was sexually abused as a child and later was a promiscuous hippie who was beaten by her boyfriend. One person he admires is black (and after his death Gump makes his family rich) and the other is handicapped because he lost both legs in the war. And these are the heroes and heroines of the story. Politically the movie may be inept and naïve, but it was trying to show that these groups had admirable people in them.
I’ve always thought that the movie was tragic in more ways than that. Gump gets to experience some truly extraordinary events during his lifetime, but in a sense they are wasted on someone who can’t appreciate them.
Walker (Texas Ranger) did later tell the boy he had AIDS.
Pneumonia, due to her choice of clothes while performing on stage.
It was probably Lupus, its always Lupus.
If it was AIDS, remember she could have also gotten it from a blood transfusion after Jr. was born.
It was mentioned somewhere by the producers(?) that it was Hep C which was unknown in the early 80’s. Yes it could have been HIV but that would be extremely unlikely at that time.
Naw, it wasn’t Hep C that killed Jen-nay, it was Hep Hop.
As was EVERYTHING that happened to Forrest.
I graduated high school in 1981. And there were plenty of AIDS jokes going around school. So it was well known by the first part of 1980.