Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
For the most part, the history of TV and movies has been a wondrous and larger-than-life adventure, expanding our imaginations and our emotions. But sometimes that history has gotten weird. That’s where we come in. Welcome to So THAT Happened, a corner of the internet devoted to dredging up some of the most surprising pop culture moments and reminding you how weird pop culture history actually is.
This week, we’re doing things a little differently. Instead of talking about a questionable moment in pop culture history that most of the world has intentionally forgotten about, we’re diving into the realm of what could have been. Remember your favorite time-traveling teenager? Turns out he was a little homophobic and very offensive in one of the Back to the Future‘s deleted scenes.
For the most part, Back to the Future is as family friendly as time traveling comedies about feeling up your mother in the 1950s can get. Sure, there are some zany 1980s sexual mixups as well as some sexual innuendos that flew over most children’s heads, but for the most part, the Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd classic is a solidly PG movie. It’s Delorean fueled, non-offensive fun for the whole family! However, it wasn’t always that way.
WTF HAPPENED?
In the ‘50s, Marty understandably hesitates when Doc tells the time traveling teen he has to hit on his own mother. Misunderstanding, Doc makes the creepy comment that Marty doesn’t have to worry about hitting Lorraine; he just has to take a few liberties with her. That’s when Marty dives into what’s really bothering him. Marty tells Doc that feeling up his mother is the kind of thing that could mess him up for life. But Marty isn’t worried about disappearing or having a future fascination with incest. His fears are much less politically correct:
What if I go back to the future and I end up being … gay?
HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?
From a plot perspective, the conversation makes total sense. Obviously Marty is worried about flirting and potentially getting intimate with his mom. That’s a horrifying prospect that’s normally not the source of limitless comedy. Back to the Future is a brilliant but very weird movie.
NO, HOW WAS THIS POSSIBLY CREATED?
As a whole, mainstream movies in the ‘80s did not handle homosexuality delicately. Marty McFly is far from the first or the last movie character to make a cringe-worthy gay joke. However, what sets this offensive remark apart is how tonally out of sync it is with the rest of the film. Like I mentioned before, Back to the Future is largely a fun and inoffensive piece of comedy, but Marty’s line is delivered like something out of a raunchy mid-2000s Seth MAcFarlane movie. It’s the culmination of a series of brash and clumsy jokes. Even if this scene didn’t imply that people can turn gay or that homosexuality can be the cause of incestuous parental relations, it’s not really funny. I’m not sure why the line didn’t make it to Back to the Future’s final cut, but I’m glad it didn’t.
BONUS WTF MOMENT: The McFly Family Was Weirdly Cool With Lorraine’s Attempted Rapist
If George didn’t bust into the car when he did, Biff was totally going to rape Lorraine. That’s so obvious, it’s practically a fact. Lorraine was screaming for Biff to stop, and he did not slow down. In the new timeline, Lorraine knows that she was almost sexually assaulted, George knows that his wife was almost sexually assaulted, and yet they still let the monster responsible for all that trauma hang around their lives. Sure, he’s working for the McFlys, but still. This family has an oddly chummy relationship with Biff.
