Robin Wright rejects ‘anti-feminist’ criticism of Jenny from ‘Forrest Gump’: ‘People have said she’s a Voldemort to Forrest’
Robin Wright is not here for any takes about Jenny in “Forrest Gump” being an anti-feminist character — or Voldemort, for that matter. In a joint interview with Tom Hanks for the New York Times, she shot down criticism of the character she played in the Academy Award-winning 1994 film.
In “Forrest Gump,” Wright’s character Jenny Curran is the object of the title character’s affection since childhood. She is abused by her father as a child, and leaves their small town as soon as she can, pursuing a hippie dream in search of a better life. She does not find one, and she suffers from drug addiction and turns to sex work to survive. Eventually, she reunites with Forrest, and he professes his love to her and proposes to her. They have sex one time, but she leaves without saying goodbye. Five years later, she returns to introduce Forrest to their son before she dies of a disease that goes unnamed in the film but is understood to be AIDS. Jenny is a tragic and complex character, and some critics interpret her as a woman who the film punishes for her choice to live a non-traditional life instead of being a wife and a mother.
Wright thinks feminist critics who interpret Jenny as an anti-feminist character are missing the point. “It’s not about that,” Wright told the Times. “People have said she’s a Voldemort to Forrest,” comparing her to the evil wizard who’s Harry Potter’s nemesis. “I wouldn’t choose that as a reference, but she was kind of selfish.”
In Wright’s interpretation, Jenny’s story is actually one of unconditional love. Jenny behaved selfishly and hurt Forrest, but he forgives her and loves her no matter what. What happens to her is not a punishment, but rather a cause-and-effect for things that she does.
“I don’t think it’s a punishment that she gets AIDS. She was so promiscuous — that was the selfishness that she did to Forrest. He was in love with her from Day 1. And she was just flighty and running and doing coke and hooking up with a Black Panther. And then she gets sick and says, ‘This is your child. But I’m dying.’ And he still takes her: ‘I’ll take care of you at Mama’s house.’ I mean, it’s the sweetest love story.”
Elsewhere in the interview, which is pegged to Hanks, Wright, and “Forrest Gump” director Robert Zemeckis and screenwriter Eric Roth’s new film “Here,” Hanks bemoans the “default cynicism” of critics who don’t like the de-aging technology that turns Hanks and Wright into younger versions of themselves. “I remain driven by this never-ending curiosity I have, about how it is true that good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people,” Hanks said. He’s talking about “Here,” but he could also be talking about “Forrest Gump.”