i enjoyed movies more before the internet....RE: Jenny

i guess im a sucker for punishment since i find reading other people's opinions on movies typically irritates me and i am left with a feeling of wishing i hadnt done so....yet i seem to come here to discuss films anyway. so getting it out of the way i admit im a hypocrite.

i am aghast at all of the hate for jenny. i understand she was selfish and used forrest on numerous occasions but all in all her heart was in the right place and she protected him numerous times as well. she was a victim of childhood physical, emotional and sexual abuse who never quite got her life together afterward which is not uncommon in those circumstances.

i can tell by some of the comments and opinions on here that you people have never endured much hardship in life or known anyone who has been a victim of such abuse that you would be so crass in your hate for this character. i had a friend just like jenny when i was a kid who was always at my house and never wanted to go home. my parents got sick of her always being there and one time they wouldnt let her eat with us (she often stayed for dinner) and they told her to go home. then she asked if she could sit on my porch and wait while i ate so i said ok and didnt tell my mother...but i put the porch light on for her (it was winter so it was dark out by dinner time). and when dinner was over i went outside to get her and my mother saw that she was there and said "oh she's back again??" and i said she never went home she was waiting for me to finish eating. so my mother literally began to cry and i didnt know why, i was only like 7 or 8 at the time and didnt really understand what was happening but i guess at that point my mother realized what was going on and so she never said no to her staying again.


jenny is my favorite character in the film. not the most likable but the one with the best arc in my opinion. i absolutely love the scene where she comes back to the childhood home as an adult and throws rocks and later forrest has it torn down, which is just a parallel to how her own life was torn apart from the abuse she endured within those walls.