Because Jenny's father had sex with her, she was sent to live with her grandmother while her father was being dealt with. Jenny wasn't safe in her own home because of her dad having sex with her and she and her father will get the help they really need and now he can't hurt her or her sisters anymore.
shareIt was a sad thing. It's why she ended up being so screwed up for so long.
shareYeah and imagine Jenny shoving her guitar at Forrest on stage when he was only trying to help her. I bet it was like getting slapped in the face by a woman when you're only trying to help her. I guess sometimes women just want to help themselves.
shareHow did the father get the help he needed? Assuming that is a social problem versus a penal problem would he have been forced to under go counseling? I don't see that happening in the rural South of the 1950's. I grew up in the Northeastern US during the 1960's and 1970's. My mother was a social worker then and I can say that social workers along with law enforcement were very much unwelcome in intervening in such a situation. For every case that made through the system there were a few others that the case stalled out by pressure being placed on the party or parties injured by such abuse. Jenny's father most likely maintained his behavior until the daughters were all gone from there for whatever reason. The man most likely died alone when the time came. Maybe he tried early on to deal with his wife dying but in the end he failed and his alcoholism definitely hurt him on several fronts. Dealing with that might have been the first practical step in upgrading his behavior but alcoholism was not considered a problem by most people at that time.
shareI don't think he got 'help' I think he rotted in jail.
Or caught a shiv after being the host of an ass party at the prison promenade.
Like I said to pioneer I doubt he got much more than a slap on the wrist if that. Not saying that he should not have gone to prison but it would not have happened given the time and place.
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But it's fun to think about that POS being the host to an ass party at the prison dance..
As much as I am a law and order type of guy I think counseling is the long term answer. To break the cycle. It satisfies our ego to imagine some guy in a movie doing a prison dance but all too often it is people we know who winds up being the offender. Would we have the same bravado if someone we know was not only accused but also was in fact guilty of such an offense? There would be fewer suicides perhaps if probable offenders could get treatment ahead of violating others. Still too much of a "boys will be boys" attitude in society with counseling being a "refuge for the weak." That needs to change.
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You're a better man than I Gunga Din.
I do understand to some small degree at least the demons that possess some people. Some may have rape fantasies, or murder fantasies, or child molestation/rape fantasies, but where I lose my understanding is when someone takes it from a fantasy and brings it to reality.
If Jenny's father wanted to rub one out thinking about her, I wouldn't care less. I have a feeling well over 99% of those who harbor latent sick fantasies of one sort or another keep it in their skull (which is a good thing).
But when a man places his sick wants over the innocence of a child (something children get but one chance at), that's when I lose my humanity and understanding.
To answer your question, yes - I would indeed have the same bravado if one of my brothers or one of my close friends raped a child. Eff them.
I would hope that he never thought about Jenny in that manner. I would imagine that he thought about Jenny's mother and things devolved from there. I agree with you that some people have some extremely sick fantasies and am glad that rape, murder, or molestation have never been a part of mine. Put me down as someone who believes parents should be watching over the content their kids view. Let them know that certain situations are never acceptable. That physical needs should not triumph over all else. I think that as a society we are badly losing this battle. That even having a kinky fantasy such as bondage still requires consent for all involved.
shareMy point is that as sick as Jenny's father's fantasy about Jenny might have been, it's infinitely better than what he ultimately did - put those sick fantasies into practice. Jenny's childhood and life would have been fine if her old man only had sick fantasies but kept them to himself.
Regarding parents watching over the kids, I can say from experience that I know many families where there were many siblings, and all of them were great except one kid who went bad for reasons we don't really understand.
I agree that a child's home environment has an enormous influence on the child's adulthood, but sometimes kids go wrong and it's just the way they're wired.
Jenny's dad was fictional, but there were and are many people like him. Unfortunately. Jenny's dad may have been abused as a child but it's no less likely that he's just wired that way. Many people have come from abusive and violent homes and are great adults.
Maybe someday we'll have the technology to look inside people's skulls and fix whatever it is that haunts them.
Not sure that you intended to respond to me. I said that I did not expect him to get help given the social attitudes towards abuse during the 1950's. He most likely went on if nothing happened other than a custody change which in itself seemed improbable for the time. It may not seem fair but would have been typical for the time. People did not go to jail then even if they perpetrated abuse or consume an excess of alcohol. Even in the Northeast where I come from and a generation after the events of the movie it was extremely rare that people were jailed for alcohol abuse even if it involved drunk driving. The usual "punishment" was an appearance ticket for "failure to keep right (of the median in the road)." It was only in the last 20-25 years that repeated drunk driving got someone placed in the state prison system and the screeching was incredible that a DWI offender spent time in Attica. They had a practice of sending where there was a bed available versus placing in a facility based on comparable offenses. The bottom line is while unfortunate for Jenny her father did not even get as much as a slap on the wrist. He drank himself into an early death.
shareit's the rural south and he's supposed to be poor. He's not guaranteed defense back then depending on the timeline. Gideon which gave counsel to indigent defendants in a criminal case was handed down in 1965. if Jenny were taken away as a child (probably 1950's) her father probably was jailed before the decision was made.
shareA lot of assumptions were made in that movie which were seldom true in real life. As a matter of practice the government very rarely poked into the lives of its citizens when it came to sexual abuse. The reason being people would abuse the law itself to gain retribution against their enemies. I grew up in a rural area of NY State during the 1960's and 1970's. Despite its reputation as a "progressive" state it seldom protected women and children from domestic and sexual abuse. My mother was a social worker in the county that we lived in. I was an astute young boy and could tell that the system did not protect people very well nor jail offenders. The amount of calls she got while home after office hours from the sheriff's department did not square up with what I read in the newspaper in terms of arrests made and court outcomes. Further, even a child can detect a pattern to establish abuse was happening over and over again often on a weekly basis in the same homes. If the system had real teeth to it somebody WOULD HAVE been dragged off to jail in short order then tried and then placed in the state prison system. I can recall kids that were embarrassed or angry to see me in school and it was because they assumed that I knew my mother and the sheriff's deputies were called to their homes. The prevailing attitude by the adults was as long as the taxes got paid a man was free to run his house as he saw fit. The same attitude no doubt prevailed in the more rural and conservative South. Most of us wish that Jenny's dad saw time in state prison but that certainly was not the reality for the time and place.
sharethey probably got him on something else--movie never said she went back to her father. Probably something like was behind on the poll tax he had to pay.
sharePoll taxes at that time and place were for unaccepted minorities such as African-Americans to block them out of the political system. Jenny's father did not fall into that category. The guy drank himself to death (alcohol poisoning). The movie for my experience was too far detached from reality. Nearly all kids were put into a foster home situation because the father was dead or absent plus was never placed with a relative. I have no sympathy for Jenny's father but his part of the story was written by somebody that never lived a life close to what happens in a rural and poor community. My sympathy is with the victims as I have known a few that committed suicide. Perhaps if counseling was available for a potential offender then those lives might have been saved. Saving potential victims is what is most important to at least myself.
sharepoll taxes were designed to keep anybody the local municipality did not like. It was predominately African Americans in the south, but since he apparently was short on money and probably spent it on alcohol instead, they could use that to declare it an unfit environment (him not being a 'good citizen'). South wasn't designed in that era to be fair.
shareSuch a poll tax would be like a Pandora's box when it came to practice. So much so that even fairly stupid people would be reluctant to engage a process that in time might bite them on the butt. If they really did not want Jenny's dad at the poll then a bunch of goons would pay him a visit to discourage him from showing up. Fairness has nothing to do with fear which nearly everybody who goes out in the world experiences. Too many people here and elsewhere get their views from watching television and movies. Real life is quite different. For one thing nearly everybody has real enemies plus potential enemies. Most people limit themselves from extremes such as limiting poll participation as it is hard to see the tipping until well after the event happens.
shareExactly, and he never attempted to get custody back from the grandmother. Because he'd have to find a way to pay for it (vs the alcohol). Jenny now lived near Forrest--who was on a former plantation (which had been in several generations). and dressed better than when she was with her father. So the grandmother has more money than the father.
shareWe don't know how things got to that point. It is entirely possible that Jenny and her sisters came home from school one day and found him dead. Which would open the door for a relative to take them. Quite different than a court room situation where the well being of the kids is in question relative to the father. That a relative could hold the father off from doing the same thing he did in his own home.
shareFrom Forest’s narration, the authorities moved Jenny to her grandmother’s because the father was a sexually abusive paedophile alcoholic.
shareForest never used the word pedophile and I doubt he would have understood the meaning of the word. Forest never spoke the words "sexual abuse". People here are reading into Forest's understanding of the situation without any evidence shown that Forest understands anything. Our readily identifying sexual abuse is another thing separate from anything Forest understands. The whole movie is about Forest being oblivious to many things but more clued in than most of us when it comes to religion. To accept God is to not be looking for evidence of God's existence in every nook and cranny. Anyways, it works better for the movie to be a little vague as to the end of Jenny's father. Jenny's father being imprisoned would be hard for the movie to ignore and it would be very unlikely that she would not take delight and expressing it for her father's imprisonment.
shareOf course Forest doesn’t describe what happened. As usual he explains events his way and we infer what really happened.
Forest says ‘Jenny’s father was a very loving man, he was always kissing and touching his daughters’ and that = he was a paedo.
Forest says ‘God didn’t turn Jenny into a bird but he had the police send Jenny to live with her grandmother’ which = the authorities intervened and moved Jenny to her grandmothers because they discovered her father was a sexually abusive paedophile alcoholic.
The father could have died and the outcome still could have been the cops took Jenny and her sisters out because there were no parents there to care for them. That would have been one of the few ways for them to get moved and not have to go through the courts. Time would have been needed to screen an alternative home when any parents are still living. Time would have been needed to schedule a trial assuming the father was facing prosecution. As stated before most locales back then moved at a glacial pace in terms of pulling kids out of the parents house. We are not going to agree on this. If Jenny's father faced the wrath of the legal system works for you than that is that. I just know that in reality justice was very rarely swift if it even got as far as the courts. 95 percent of the time things such as child abuse got swept under the rug. It does not make a person feel good but that is how it was.
Forest's statement about Jenny's father being a loving man is for the benefit of the audience but does nothing inside of the movie to advance Forest's understanding of the matter or lend a direct clue as to the father's fate.
Forest says Jenny ‘didn’t have to live there no more’, there’s no mention of her father dying, so we can infer that she was moved by the authorities because her father was a violent drunken paedo.
When people die, as they do throughout the film, Forest says so.