(Responding solely to the headline and subhead because I still do not accept the pivot to video.)For almost 40 years now, some people have insisted on treating Back to the Future as if it contains some deeply buried Freudian subtext.It’s not subtext. It’s text. It seems weird and uncomfortable because it’s supposed to be weird and uncomfortable and you are not special or interesting for noticing something that is explicitly mined for humor and conflict.(The general “you.” I have no ill will toward Michael J. Fox because I am not a monster.)
Yeah, it’s not like it’s super complicated. If you watch it as a kid you go, “Ewwwww that’s gross!” And if you watch it as an adult you go “Ewwww that’s gross!” The only thing that’s slightly evolved is your definition of gross – as a kid you don’t really quite understand the implications of “parking.”
Exactly, it’s too explicit to be creepy. I might be willing to have this conversation about a more self-serious film—say, Mothers & Lovers, the movie Marc Maron’s character on Glow hoped to produce before BTTF came out; but sadly, that one was…aborted cancelled erased from existence.
You guys know Lea Thompson’s not really his mom, right? Because by the end there, it seems like not.Of course it was weird. That was the whole conflict. And he didn’t almost have sex. She was into an age-appropriate guy who she had no way of knowing was her future son. He never expressed a bit of interest, was obviously uncomfortable, and didn’t reciprocate at all when she kissed him.
I guess if there’s anything truly off about it all, it’s that his plan was to put his mom into a threatening situation. I do think it’s clear he’s uneasy about it all along, though, even as he’s laying it out for George.
Yeah, Back to the Future was aimed, in part, at the same people who’d spent the last few years laughing their asses off at Animal House, Porky’s, Revenge of the Nerds, and Sixteen Candles.Some of that’s clear from how it portrays George being a peeping Tom and Marty’s plan for the night of the dance. It’s not treated as smart or admirable behavior, but the attitude is much more “uh-oh, this won’t end well” and not “what is wrong with this guy?”Also, the people who’d been watching teen/college sex comedies in the late 1970s and early 1980s weren’t prudes. They weren’t tricked into enjoying a movie whose humor subtly relies on an Oedipal subtext. Those audiences loved seeing movie heroes in weird, raunchy and uncomfortable sexual situations. Which is why Zemeckis and Gale made “Marty’s mom wants to get in his pants” an overt source of jokes and dramatic tension from the minute the characters “meet” in 1955 until she kisses him in the car and snaps out of it.
I think what is really odd is that they still associate with Biff on a friendly basis in the new timeline. This is the guy who bullied George and tried to rape Lorraine. You’d think they would want to stay the hell away from him in the timeline where Biff wasn’t George’s supervisor anymore.
With all respect to Michael J. Fox, I wish he would have been clear that his character intended to sexually assault his mother and not just “have sex.” He even tells his father the whole set up: He would try and “park” before the dance, and she would get angry with him. When his Dad asks why, he states that “nice girls” get angry when you “try to take advantage of them.”The whole scene is literally him trying to get up the nerve to sexually assault his mother so his father could come rescue her, but to his surprise his mother is into it—and now he’s uncomfortable going through with it.When I saw it first at age 9 I regret that I didn’t register just how icky and rape-culturey this whole thing is.
This is silly, but a much better question I always had with the movies was why George McFly’s 1885 maternal ancestor looks like his wife. Is it a deliberate joke about Marty’s family being inbred or just something they didn’t think about too long?
15 Comments
“pretty cute” feels like an understatement.
“Thermonuclear hot, almost made Howard the Duck watchable” is closer.
This seems like quite a big fish story to describe that encounter as “almost having sex”.
(Responding solely to the headline and subhead because I still do not accept the pivot to video.)For almost 40 years now, some people have insisted on treating Back to the Future as if it contains some deeply buried Freudian subtext.It’s not subtext. It’s text. It seems weird and uncomfortable because it’s supposed to be weird and uncomfortable and you are not special or interesting for noticing something that is explicitly mined for humor and conflict.(The general “you.” I have no ill will toward Michael J. Fox because I am not a monster.)
Yeah, it’s not like it’s super complicated. If you watch it as a kid you go, “Ewwwww that’s gross!” And if you watch it as an adult you go “Ewwww that’s gross!” The only thing that’s slightly evolved is your definition of gross – as a kid you don’t really quite understand the implications of “parking.”
Exactly, it’s too explicit to be creepy. I might be willing to have this conversation about a more self-serious film—say, Mothers & Lovers, the movie Marc Maron’s character on Glow hoped to produce before BTTF came out; but sadly, that one was…aborted cancelled erased from existence.
You guys know Lea Thompson’s not really his mom, right? Because by the end there, it seems like not.Of course it was weird. That was the whole conflict. And he didn’t almost have sex. She was into an age-appropriate guy who she had no way of knowing was her future son. He never expressed a bit of interest, was obviously uncomfortable, and didn’t reciprocate at all when she kissed him.
Exactly. You know who really thought it was strange?Marty McFly. That’s the joke.So it’s no surprised the guy who played him thought so too.
I guess if there’s anything truly off about it all, it’s that his plan was to put his mom into a threatening situation. I do think it’s clear he’s uneasy about it all along, though, even as he’s laying it out for George.
Yeah, Back to the Future was aimed, in part, at the same people who’d spent the last few years laughing their asses off at Animal House, Porky’s, Revenge of the Nerds, and Sixteen Candles.Some of that’s clear from how it portrays George being a peeping Tom and Marty’s plan for the night of the dance. It’s not treated as smart or admirable behavior, but the attitude is much more “uh-oh, this won’t end well” and not “what is wrong with this guy?”Also, the people who’d been watching teen/college sex comedies in the late 1970s and early 1980s weren’t prudes. They weren’t tricked into enjoying a movie whose humor subtly relies on an Oedipal subtext. Those audiences loved seeing movie heroes in weird, raunchy and uncomfortable sexual situations. Which is why Zemeckis and Gale made “Marty’s mom wants to get in his pants” an overt source of jokes and dramatic tension from the minute the characters “meet” in 1955 until she kisses him in the car and snaps out of it.
I think what is really odd is that they still associate with Biff on a friendly basis in the new timeline. This is the guy who bullied George and tried to rape Lorraine. You’d think they would want to stay the hell away from him in the timeline where Biff wasn’t George’s supervisor anymore.
With all respect to Michael J. Fox, I wish he would have been clear that his character intended to sexually assault his mother and not just “have sex.” He even tells his father the whole set up: He would try and “park” before the dance, and she would get angry with him. When his Dad asks why, he states that “nice girls” get angry when you “try to take advantage of them.”The whole scene is literally him trying to get up the nerve to sexually assault his mother so his father could come rescue her, but to his surprise his mother is into it—and now he’s uncomfortable going through with it.When I saw it first at age 9 I regret that I didn’t register just how icky and rape-culturey this whole thing is.
Can we just hear Michael J Fox talk, and not hear some mouthbreathing “journalist” talk over footage?
This is silly, but a much better question I always had with the movies was why George McFly’s 1885 maternal ancestor looks like his wife. Is it a deliberate joke about Marty’s family being inbred or just something they didn’t think about too long?