War

I could definitely see how Orientalism was included in the scene where Forrest was in Vietnam with his platoon. It is clear that Hollywood recreated the Vietnam war and manipulated it to become Americanized. Imperial narcissism is shown by Forrest losing his innocence when he saw the carnage of war and his best friend, Bubba, fatally shot and die in his arms. Storey adds that in this subset of Orientalism there is nothing to explain but American survival. The film follows this idea, during the war scene nothing happened other than the troops marching until being attacked by the Vietnamese then we see the troops retreating until Forrest realizes he has to go back to save his friend from certain death. The movie only shows Americans being attacked and killed, never do we see Vietnamese being killed or even wounded, thus the audience views the American soldiers as victims and thus causing the viewers to forget about the politics and realities of the war. Immediately after we see the Vietnamese fire bombed by planes (only to stop their attack on Americans) the audience is distracted by seeing a heartfelt moment between Forrest and Bubba.