She gets so much goddamn hate from people who have seen the movie. It's like they tuned out completely at the normal human experience just because they think Forrest is adorable.
Jenny didn't think she was in love with Forrest because she thought she was taking advantage of him the same way her father molested her.
For fukks sake, Forrest is retarded.
Jenny, out of everyone who's ever met him, knows this best of all. She knows that her closest friend and only loved one is a fukking idiot.
Imagine for one second everyone in the world who knew about your father looked at you either as a victim or as something disgusting, but that one man doesn't, because he's mentally challenged.
Jenny believes that her closest friend will never mature like she does. He loves her like he would anything and everything else, so long as its nice or cuddly, like a pet or a sibling, at least in her mind.Her father treated her like shyt, and there was no way in hell others didn't do the same when they found out she was molested. She would have wanted to feel loved.
That's where she gets the abusive relationship crap. She wants so much to be loved that she doesn't understand that they are taking advantage of her. She thinks that as long as they aren't forcing her to have sex, that's normal. Getting beat on, pressured to drug addiction, and dragged around into whatever dangerously extreme political bands they're into is just fine, as long as they don't rape her. That's why she's so shocked when Forrest defends her from harm. Why would anyone do that if what they're doing to her is normal?
She keeps leaving Forrest behind because she convinces herself that he doesn't really love her. She convinces herself that his affections are shallow, since he would never be able to really understand love either.
I mean really, how many of you honestly think someone who is that mentally challenged could understand the complexities and nuances of love?
If that scene with Forrest and her in her college dormroom had the genders reversed, people would be so fukking uncomfortable about that scene because it'd be inching so close to rape. Jenny knows that. She realizes that. That is why she shuts off her feelings for Forrest, above any other reasons to stay away: she thinks she is molesting him.
Towards the end when he tells her he does know what love is, asks her why she doesn't love him, she finally gives in and does sleep with him.
When she realizes she’s pregnant, she hides her child from him, because she thinks he shouldn't have to worry or pay for something she thinks he can't handle.
But, then she gets sick. Doctors don't know what it is, but she's going to die. Her kid is only a few years old. Can you imagine struggling with that decision to tell your victim that they have a kid and now they have to take care of it because you're going to die? That's what she struggles with before coming to terms with the fact that she's happy with him, and he's happy with her, and that's what love actually is. It's something simple and unconditional, and even Forrest can understand it.
It takes her her whole goddamn life to figure out that love is just that simple, and she dies months afterwards. She realized she had been running away from what made her happy, and it isn't wrong, and she only gets so much time together before it's over.
And instead of realizing that narrative even exists in the story, people just bytch about how Jenny is such a slut, but she won't even love the only person who cares about her.
