Winner of six Academy Awards in 1994, including Best Picture and Best Director, Forrest Gump is a good-natured spin through late twentieth-century America. In an Oscar-winning role, Tom Hanks (1956–) plays Forrest Gump, a simple-minded hero with talents for running and catching shrimp. Appearing after a period of economic gloom at the start of the first term of the Clinton presidency (1993–97), Forrest Gump carried the uplifting message to "put the past behind you and move on." It must have been what audiences wanted to hear. The film grossed over $636 million at the box office.

Gump begins his life in Alabama. A sickly child in leg braces with a low intelligence quotient (IQ) of 75, his future seems bleak. He lives his life by a series of sayings from his mother, and the words "As my Mama always said" make up a large part of the script. Gump's down-home wisdom...