Over the course of recent years (namely 2020), Lieutenant Dan (Gary Sinise) from Robert Zemeckis’ Forrest Gump has become something of a cult hero, a New Year’s Eve talisman. One that represents an ever-dawning collective realization that there is nothing to celebrate when one year closes and another comes to an end. Last year’s New Year’s was a primary case in point, during which everyone was so stupidly convinced that with the conclusion of 2020 would magically come the conclusion of COVID-19. Or at least, the unshakeable belief in some glimmer of hope that things couldn’t possibly get worse… And that’s when the New Year was rung in with the Capitol riots of January 6th. An insurrection, honestly, that no one has fully seemed to grasp the weight of, and how that homegrown form of terrorism is not “gone,” merely dormant and waiting to lash out in some worse, more bombastic way in the near future. Maybe in 2022!
But back to Lieutenant Dan. It’s during his transition from 1971 to 1972 when he appears in that now iconic bar scene among all the revelers celebrating that we see something of everyone’s true inner essence on NYE. Subdued, existential, complacently horrified. Before arriving at that bar with Forrest, Lieutenant Dan had called upon the company of a couple women, including Lenore (Marla Sucharetza), who “gaily” remarks, “Don’t you just love New Year’s? You get to start all over.” Of course, that’s the great lie we tell ourselves. That we’ll be “better,” that things will be “different.”
Ultimately, it usually takes about only into late February to see that it’s all the same shit, theoretically another year. Which then leads into the accurate postulation that all time is illusory anyway. Another human construct designed, really, to benefit the quarterly reports required by capitalism.
Being in the Vietnam War undoubtedly made both Lieutenant Dan and Forrest aware of such a phenomenon. That time can accelerate and protract itself at will, no matter how much humans think they have a handle on and understanding of it.
After trying to join humanity at the bar (with little success), Dan and Forrest return to the hotel with Lenore and her friend, Carla (Tiffany Salerno). While the first hours of 1972 are supposed to at least get Lieutenant Dan what he paid for, a derisive mark from Lenore directed at Forrest prompts Dan to kick both women out. Lenore then lashes out at Dan, telling him he ought to be in a side show. Yet in those “magic” in-between moments that occur in the hours when one year has just transitioned to another, Dan briefly has hope (try as he might to deny it). Only for it to be dashed when he realizes that these women see him exactly as he does not want to be: a cripple, a freak. A loser.
Forrest is subsequently left with the voiceover insight, “I guess Lieutenant Dan figured there’s some things you just can’t change.” No matter the year, or how much time passes. In essence, rather than healing all wounds, time can actually only intensify them, build upon the trauma that was once fresh and turn it into a constant pain one becomes “used to.”
On a more global front, the passage of time can lead us only further into the dystopia that awaits. So yes, Lieutenant Dan has become a rightful mascot for New Year’s Eve and all its false promise (especially since 2020, the year that marked another irrevocable loss of cultural innocence). Which humanity buys into again and again, like a December 31st spell put upon it that gives everybody amnesia until the disappointment of the new year sets in.
