Is the "life is like a box of chocolates" line in Forrest Gump meant to be a joke? [duplicate]

Question

Full quote for context:

My mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.

I understand the surface meaning of this line. Boxes of chocolates contain a variety of shapes and flavors, and if you grab one, you could get anything. Life is unpredictable. That's how I've always interpreted the line.

However, I recently realized that you do know what you're going to get with a box of chocolates. Most of them come with a card or a printing that tells you which chocolate is which, and as far as I can tell, this was commonplace by the time the movie came out in 1994. So is it meant to be funny to an audience that will hear irony in the line?

On the other hand, Forrest grew up in the 40s-50s, at which time I don't think those cards existed in boxes of chocolates. So it would make sense as something she would say. And Forrest's mother, unlike Forrest, is not made out to be unintelligent herself. But we only hear the line through Forrest's retelling, so the humor could be in his misremembering a quote in a way that makes it completely untrue.

The more I think about this, the more likely I think it is that the line is meant to be a joke (to be clear, a joke told by the film itself, not a joke told by the character of Forrest) - it's not particularly poignant, so its cultural staying power is surprising to me unless I assume that it's meant to be funny. And I think it is quite funny when viewed with that lens. But I'm just not sure if the general public has been viewing it that way.

Answer 1

Please forgive the amateur psychology hour…

I always thought it was meant to be, in effect, a truism and therefore accepted, unquestioned, by Forrest - who wasn't really smart enough to question it on his own.

I don't see it as a joke, but as a way we are given to see that Forrest's view of the world is quite limited. He believes what he is told by his mother, without question. That we can see outside the box [no pun intended] of this little 'inspirational quote' is a clue for us, the audience, of Forrest's personality. We are given this quite early in the plot. It's a teaser, something you don't immediately see as a fallible philosophy, because it 'sounds true' at first hearing.

His mother gave him [probably amongst others] something to explain life's surprises. She was obviously at the same time very aware and very forgiving, if not defensive, of his special needs.
She was also aware of her own mortality and the need to prepare Forrest for life on his own in the big, wide world.

Taken that way, it isn't a joke, it's a preparation; an education.
That we immediately would think to look under the lid/on a card for an index to the contents is not a leap Forrest would take. He would accept this truism in the spirit it was intended.

I see this as one of the many clues to his character. Because the entire story is told from his perspective and he himself is unaware of his unusually low intelligence - though he tells of others in different ways remarking on it, in ways kind, unkind, even 'medical' - what he tells is only true from his perspective. Anything he didn't understand, we never see the misunderstanding, only Forrest's interpretation of it.

The very first time we see Forrest in the opening sequence, we are given some major clues for what is to come. The apparent randomness of the feather which he picks up. We don't yet know it, but the juxtaposition of muddy trainers and clean suit, the box of chocolates and him apparently waiting for something as yet unknown. His attempts at conversation, hesitant yet somehow inwardly confident are all clues as to his personality. We then set out on a journey, told from his perspective.
The perfect unreliable witness.
Slightly reminiscent of Peter Sellers' Chancy Gardener in Being There. You never know quite what is true, other than it is all true to the narrator.
Events in his life unfold without him ever looking under the lid. The feather analogy, writ large.