World History Blog: Back to the Future!

In the movie Back to the Future, Marty McFly goes from 1985 to 1955 where the town is looking quite different. From 55' to 85' I feel like they lost innocence but gained more rights. An example of this is the movie theater in 55' gets turned into a pornography show. The film seemed to be right about racism in the fifties. In the fifties, black people pretty much had the worst or lowest jobs.
The mayor of Hill Valley was working in the ice cream parlor when he was a teen in 1955. When he thought running for mayor sounded good, the response was, "A man of your color! No way!" In the 80's, his color did not stop him from being mayor. Other differences were that the kids were more aware of the dangers of smoking and drinking in the 80's compared to the 50's. The teens in the eighties seemed more mature.

In 1985 they talked about the future. Now we don't seem to care about the future beyond two years. The only thing we look forward to in the future is movies coming out soon. (AKA Star wars, Sherlock season 4, and others.) It is like we gave up the hope of flying cars and such because either the fuel is too expensive or other problems. Marty gave me in 2016 the "new" idea of the open, unzipped vest, as he wore it in 1985.

Marty McFly is a hopeful musician who is dating a girl name Jennifer Parker. He lives in Hill Valley, California with his dad George McFly, who gets bullied by a man named Biff, his mom Lorraine, who is overweight, depressed, and an alcoholic, his brother Dave, who works at the local Burger King, and his sister Linda, who is complaining about not having a life or meeting any boys. When Linda complains and brings up boys, Lorraine reminisces about how she met George, he was "bird watching" in a tree and fell, right in front of her father's moving car.