Persuasive Communication in Forrest Gump

forrest meme 2

This assignment is intended for Persuasion, or COMM 333. Our class was assigned to address, and analyze in detail, a film or documentary that includes examples of persuasion taking place either in a workplace, in advertising product placement tie-in, interpersonal persuasion, or in relationships. The film I have chosen to analyze is Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump is a film about a man named Forrest, played by Tom Hanks, who describes his life to all of these different people he meets while sitting on a bench waiting to confront the love of his life, Jenny. His life is full of stories. Some of these stories include growing up mentally disabled, growing up with leg braces, growing up meeting all kinds of different people, growing up being bulling, growing up fighting in the Vietnam War, and growing up dreaming of living in a house with Jenny one day. The film persuasiveness captivates its audience through the implementation of product planting, the application of Forrest’s credibility, the application of social comparison theory. From watching a Forrest Gump once more, I noticed how many different corporate products are used in the film. “Placing products in movies and TV shows” is known as product planting (Gass & Seiter, 2016). Some examples of product planting in Forrest Gump were Forrest’s Nike shoes, the Apple trademark on the letter Forrest received in the mail, the Dr. Pepper that Forrest drank, the Curious George book, and the Walmart Smiley face created when Forrest wiped his face on a t-shirt while running. It was an interesting experience paying close attention to an aspect of a film my eyes used to overlook. I had to wonder if they were in the film on purpose as an advertising tactic. Personally, other than the Walmart smiley face, none of the product implementation used in the film ever really had any effect on my experience from watching it. Some persuasive tactics are formed throughout Forrest’s childhood with constant words of wisdom provided by his mother on what he should remember even when he’s an adult. Others come from Forrest, unintentionally, persuading the people sitting on the bench with him that they should listen to his life story, because they might learn something about life from learning about his life. Forrest, to me, is most credible source used in the movie, because he is telling strangers his story through his eyes alone. Credibility is defined as “judgements made by a perceiver concerning the believability of a communicator” (Gass & Seiter, 2016). Forrest is also credible because he performs secondary dimensions of credibility from his body language while he talks to these strangers. Two of these dimensions are composure, “remaining calm, cool, and collected”, and sociability, “friendliness or likeliness” (Gass & Seiter, 2016). An audience can infer there are some moments when he is calmer than others, depending on what part of his life he is talking about, even if his expression isn’t always directly seen by the audience. One example is comparing how he talks about Jenny to talking about Bubba’s death, or the war in general. With Jenny, his tone is more happy and in almost seemingly in awe. With Bubba and the war, his tone is more serious. However, just like most people when they talk about their life story, he expresses in detail every moment with excitement and occasional humor which draws the audience in to be interested in his story. In raising his voice with excitement, he also expresses some dynamism, or “extroversion”, in his tone when he talks to these strangers on the bench (Gass & Seiter, 2016). He shows that he is comfortable with talking to people he doesn’t know because he has credibility in having experience with talking to strangers. He also exerts confidence when he talks about how he stood in front of a microphone, in front of thousands of people, explaining how he felt about the war. Social comparison theory is applied the film is when Forrest quotes statements made by his mother. This theory suggests that “we determine traits & characteristics by comparing ourselves with others” (Lietzmayer, 2018). Forrest implements this by comparing the context of what his mother said in the past to using her statements, in a different context, to describe his own wisdom that he gains from his present. A couple of examples are when he says “Momma always said life is like a box of chocolates you never know what your gonna get”, or “Momma says you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes, where they goin, where they've been” (Zemeckis, Tisch, Finerman, & Starkey, 2001),. He’s comparing situations from when these quotes might have made sense to his mother when she said them in the past to how they can be used to his advantage in explaining his present. He also repeats another phrase he learns from his mother throughout the film. He says “Momma says stupid is as stupid does” (Zemeckis et al., 2001), and he repeats that every time someone asks him whether he is stupid. Through repeating these quotes to other people, Forrest beliefs are exposed in how he views and carries himself as a narrator. His mother uses this theory to compare Forrest to other children at the beginning of the film. She says, “Don’t ever let anyone tell you that they’re better than you Forrest. If God intended everybody to be the same, he’d of given us all braces on our legs” (Zemeckis et al., 2001). This is a way of her telling Forrest that he is different because of his disability, but that doesn’t mean other people are better than him. From that, we can infer that because of his respect and admiration of his mothers words, that he never thought of himself as lesser because of what he went through as a child. These statements gives the audience a better indication of who he is, where he came from, and what he stands for. It also shows who he deems as credible in his own life, and where he received the lessons he’s learned about life from. Another way this theory is applied to the film is when Lieutenant Dan asks Forrest if he knows what it’s like to not be able to use his legs, and Forrest replies that he does (Zemeckis et al., 2001). Their situations are instantly compared through this exchange, and it shows they also learn a lot from one another from dealing with the similar disabilities. This makes Forrest persuasive in having other credible sources he can refer to if someone were to ask him a question about his statements, thoughts, and actions. Overall, I’ve learned from this assignment how to analyze what I’ve learned about persuasive methods of communication, and how to apply that to various versions of film and media. I paid attention to aspects of persuasion in Forrest Gump that I never would have before writing this assignment. I also learned that there is persuasion in just about everything I watch and read, and paying attention to specific theories and concepts will help me to be better prepared for any job I decide to apply for. I will also keep in mind how beneficial it is to advertise a product or idea more ways than one, and how important being creative is in any type of persuasive strategy. Reference Sources Gass, R. H., & Seiter, J. S. (2016). Persuasion: Social influence and compliance gaining. (5th ed). New York, NY: Routledge. Lietzmayer, T. (2018). Credibility. Retrieved from http://ple.odu.edu/courses/201810/ comm333/modules/4/assignments Zemeckis, R., Tisch, S., Finerman, W., Starkey, S., Roth, E., Burgess, D., In Schmidt, A., ... Paramount Pictures Corporation. (2001). Forrest Gump. Hollywood, CA: Paramount Pictures.