Originally published via Armageddon Prose:
I stumbled on a meme that really tickled my Jungian misogyny bone.
It got me to thinking about the plot in Forrest Gump. I decided then and there that I had a moral obligation to do this critique of possibly the worst female love interest in literary history who was meant to be a protagonist of sorts.
“Bye Forrest, I’ll be back when you’re a shrimp billionaire and I’m a single mom with AIDS,” reads the meme, encapsulating essentially the entire arc of her character.
— Single Moms Posting Ls (@MomsPostingLs) November 20, 2023
Countless times throughout the story, Forrest altruistically attempts to rescue Jenny from herself and her terrible decisions, like when he found her playing guitar naked at a seedy hick resort in the middle of nowhere, after getting kicked out of college for doing porn, to a crowd of drunk perverts who absolutely had no interest in her as an artist.
Instead of thanking him, she yells at him, tells him he “doesn’t know what love is,” and flags down some trucker for, presumably, cocaine and sodomy.
There are numerous other instances of the same dynamic throughout. You know the thing.
And, then, after all of the years of rejection and abuse and thanklessness, Jenny has the audacity to summon Forrest so that she could pawn his (alleged) son off onto him — whom she hadn’t told him existed for years — because she’s dying of AIDS from all of her intravenous drug use and nightclub orgies.
The tragic thing is that this work of fiction aligns so closely with reality — the lived experience of men, if you’ll indulge the Social Justice™ terminology — that it might as well have been a documentary on post-feminist revolution gender relations in the West.
I apologize profusely to any American readers whose patriotic sensibilities are offended by this statement of absolute fact: Western women, and in particular American and British ones, are the worst. I wish it weren’t so; I wish I could honestly say they’re the best.
But that would be a lie.
Don’t take my word for it.
Look at the subcultural outgrowths.
MGTOW.
OnlyFans.
Incels.
Etc.
Life is like a box of chocolates; thank the good Lord, I found a wonderful Slavic woman in the mountains of Vietnam who is absolutely nothing like Jenny.
If you’re reading this lost in the swamp of American femininity, such as it is, and ever feel like searching for greener pastures, they’re out there.
Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.
Follow his stuff Substack if you are inclined to support independent journalism free of corporate slant. Also, keep tabs via Twitter.
For hip Armageddon Prose t-shirts, hats, etc., peruse the merch store.
Insta-tip jar and Bitcoin public address: bc1qvq4hgnx3eu09e0m2kk5uanxnm8ljfmpefwhawv
