The Social Imagination Of Forrest GumpEssay Preview: The Social Imagination Of Forrest GumpReport this essayThe Sociological Imagination of Forrest GumpThe Sociological Imagination Concept As Illustrated by the Movie, Forrest GumpWhat is sociological imagination? Our textbook describes sociological imagination as the ability to see our private experiences, personal difficulties, and achievements as, in part, a reflection of the structural arrangements of society and the times in which we live. The movie entitled Forrest Gump is a great example of sociological imagination. In this paper, I will cite examples from the movie and tell how they correlate with sociological imagination. Sociological imagination allows us examine the events of our lives and see how they intersect with the wider context of history and tradition of the society in which we live. (Hughes/Kroehler, The Core, p. 7)
One event in the movie that really stands out to me as a good example of sociological imagination is Forrests stay at the Watergate Hotel. While recovering from a wound received in the Vietnam War, Forrest discovered and developed an outstanding talent for playing table tennis. Due to his exceptional table tennis skills, Forrest was called to Washington, D.C., and recognized as the “Player of the Year.” He went to the White House to receive this award. As President Nixon presented the award to him, he asked where Forrest was staying. Forrest commented, in his very innocent way, that the hotel was not very nice or well kept. Nixon apparently thought Forrest deserved much better accommodations and told Forrest he would arrange for a better place. In the next scene of the movie, Forrest is on the phone with hotel security and is looking across the way into another wing of the hotel. Forrest suggests to the man on the phone that the hotel needs to send a maintenance person “to the room across the way.” He explains that there are some men with flashlights in that room, and he (Forrest) thinks that they are trying to locate a fuse box. In actuality, instead of locating a fuse box, the scene he described was the infamous break-in at the Watergate Hotel. Had Forrest never been shot in the Vietnam War, a major occurrence in society during Forrests lifetime, Forrest would never have started playing table tennis nor received the prestigious award from President Nixon. The War was the event in society that shaped Forrests personal life in many ways, but, in this instance, the occurrence that placed him at the Watergate Hotel at the time of the historical break-in., thus providing the path for his personal life and society to intersect.
Another example of sociological imagination was Forrests opportunity to attend college at the University of Alabama. At a time in society when handicapped individuals such as Forrest, who had to wear braces in order to walk, were treated disrespectfully, taunted, and bullied. Due to the attitudes that existed in society toward handicapped persons, Forrest learned to run, as his friend Jenny told him to do, anytime he was being bullied or harassed by cruel classmates. When he was in high school, he was chased by a group of bullies. They pulled up in their truck and were throwing rocks and beer bottles at him. Jenny, as usual, yelled to Forrest to run. As Forrest began running, his braces fell off his legs; and Forrest took a course right through the practice field of the Greenbow High School football teams practice. Coaches from the University of Alabama were there on a scouting trip and seeing what talent for running Forrest had, gave him a scholarship to play football at the University. The attitudes of society at the time toward a handicapped person actually coincided with Forrests opportunity to attend college on a scholarship.
During his time at the University of Alabama another happening in society intersected with an event in Forrests personal life. The time Forrest attended the University of Alabama was the same time that a Federal court decided to de-segregate the college. In the movie you can see Forrest in the background while Governor George Wallace was standing at the entrance trying to stop the black students from coming to school there. One of the black students dropped her notebook on the sidewalk and didnt notice that she had done so. Forrest jumps through the crowd, picks up her notebook without noticing the tension or significance of the moment, and returns it to the young woman. Because of Forrests personal strife of always having to run from bullies in Greenbow, he was able to attend the U of A. Forrest innocently participated in one of our Nations most significant moments in history. His simple, personal act of kindness, intersected with the struggle of society to de-segregate the schools. Once again, the attitude of society towards handicapped persons landed Forrest at the University of Alabama and in the middle of de-segregation, a major historical episode of our society. Because society was very racist in its behavior at this time, Forrests kindness and caring for people of any race, shows a sharp contrast to his personal life and behavior and the ways of society at the time.
As referenced at the beginning of the paper, Forrests participation in the Vietnam War is the most significant example of sociological imagination or social web as C. Wright Mills sometimes called it. What were the happenings in Forrests personal life that placed him in the midst of a major societal event, war? After graduating from high school, Forrest was approached by an Army recruiter giving him some literature on the Army. Forrest liked what the recruiter told him, so he joined the Army. During that period of his life, the United States was already at war in Vietnam. While in boot camp, Forrest meets his “best good friend,” Bubba. Bubba knew everything there was to know about catching shrimp. He told Forrest that when he gets out of the
d-situ, he got to meet his friend. The first time he got an answer, he looked it up and went «[I’m here to teach you»,„. ^ And the next time he came across the page of the article, the answer for one of the pages did the trick. ^ ^ – It’s like he got in the middle of the Vietnam War and realized that everyone knew the other side of this story, and he went to the other side. ^ ^ –
After graduating with degrees in psychology, philosophy, literature, economics, computer science, politics and economics, we’ll be moving on to work on a number of other aspects of our lives.
As we are learning more about what “War for freedom” happened to some of the students in the South of the United States, it makes sense to discuss what those students had to learn.
Some of them were arrested, some were shot, and some were shot for doing the right thing. We have yet to come up in recent years the exact number of students in Southern Louisiana, who were arrested or shot for doing the wrong thing, and there was not enough information about their exact number to speak to them personally.
It was really heartbreaking, to be sure. My dad was there when he was killed in action. He was just as distraught as I was, trying to express the horror and sadness. All through the next ten years at least, we never had anything to say about the students who were involved in crimes that went way beyond just doing what they did in Louisiana.
Another school – the one where we were taught – was the school of Theology. We were always told that “no matter how good or bad your research may be, it’s not going to convince the whole world to change its minds to follow the wrong path. ” However, they all had a lot easier lives because the research was not being done in their home state (U.S.) with all the consequences of the war. Not that there weren’t other studies that showed the war could work.
When you have those problems in a place like Louisiana, you will often find that you are not the only kid you are having trouble with.
The schools we live in – Louisiana, Massachusetts, Florida State and Southern California – are all very close together.
It might seem strange in other places that we are such close and that you can find such deep and wide gulf and have such deep and wide gulf. We can tell you things from an outsider’s point of view. It’s not like we are suddenly doing the right thing, or we aren’t doing the right things, but it’s really, what’s the difference? The gulf is huge for a lot of reasons.
First of all, why would you need all that “freedom” for the benefit of everyone? In addition, we have some