If you think those things are too silly, you should read the book. The book's premise after he gets home from Vietnam make everything you complain about seem like everyday normal things. Just go read the book and you'll appreciate this film way more.
Edit: If you don't want to read the book. Here is a copy of my post on another topic on this board. And there will be major spoilers of the book in it for anyone that's interested in reading the book. You probably aren't though. And I am not joking about any of this or making it up. It actually happens in the book. I also added extra stuff that wasn't in my original post.
Like Forrest getting in trouble with the law and going on a space mission for NASA to avoid prison time then crashlanding his ship on an island full of Cannibals. Then becomes friends with the Cannibal King who is a Yale graduate who teaches Forrest to play Chess.
Then after living with the Cannibals for 4 years he gets rescued and upon getting back meets Jenny and Lieutenant Dan again and becomes a wrestler called the Dunce.
Then when that doesn't work out he goes to Los Angelus where he both enters a Chess Competition and gets to film a scene in a Creature from the Black Lagoon movie with Rachelle Welch which doesn't work out doing the movie cause he takes Rachelle Whelch too far into the swamp and her clothes get completely torn off so he gets to carry her naked through a swamp, and a highway til he gets to a clothing store where he and Rachelle Welch get arrested by the cops cause of her being naked and Forrest looking creepy in a Creature from the Black Lagoon costume.
Then after getting out of jail by the guy who put him in the chess competition. He goes to said competition but makes the mistake of bringing his orangutan he's friends with (I didn't mention that part. He meets said orangutan when going into outerspace earleir in the book and its with him when he is on the island full of cannibals) until the ape goes berskek thus ruining the chess competition.
His rich friend who put him in that chess competition gives him a plane ride back to his homestate of Alabama where he finally creates his Shrimping Company by getting almost every person he's ever met to help farm shrimp until he needs help keep track of finances. Rachelle Welch even does ads for his company.
Then he runs for Congress with the Campaign slogan, "I gotta pee! After reading all that, you can probably guess why the film isn't like this. It's very ridiculous and it's obvious the author ran out of good plausible ideas halfway through and just said, "The hell with it! I'm gonna make this so ridiculous it's over the top and entertaining!" Oh and neither Jenny or his mom die in the book either.
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