Is “Back to the Future” a piggyback on Marshall McLuhan?
How a 1967 philosophy book predicted the cinema classic
If you have read The Medium is the Massage, written by Marshall McLuhan, you know it is not your ordinary philosophy book. McLuhan used crazy fonts, upside-down words, and pictures that keep the reader engaged. Most high school kids aren’t into reading philosophy, but there are a few gems in McLuhan’s message that make it compelling.
Most teens would prefer to watch a great movie like Back To The Future, which has inspired generations with its concrete story line. Both the book and the movie are a bit whacko. On the surface, it looks like they don’t have anything in common. But when digging deeper, the comparison between the two shows a more meaningful connection. How, you might be asking? Zemeckis when creating the main character, Marty McFly, creates scenes that make Marty’s on the spot thinking shine.
Marty is a problem solver. McLuhan’s book has a lot of sprinkles of problem-solving throughout. Is it possible that Back to the Future piggybacked off of the Medium is the Massage because of human problem-solving and their views on education?
Marty McFly is just like any ordinary high school Joe. He has a girlfriend, loves trucks, listens to the popular music of his generation, and has a nut job acquaintance with a mad scientist. Yeah, an everyday Joe in every way. Except for the blatantly obvious fact that in the middle of the night instead of sleeping, he is participating in nutcase experiments.
Nevertheless, Marty thinks in the moment when faced with adversity. Although his education in high school was not great and the principal would tell him to his face he was going to be a failure like his father, Marty was actually really smart. When he is faced with the challenge of time traveling in the DeLorean with no way of returning, he has to think quickly to get back home. He knows his only hope is to find “Doc” and hope he has plutonium, which is used to power the vehicle.
Since Marty is now stranded in the year 1955, a whole 30 years in the past, everything in his hometown is so peculiar for him. I mean what would you do if you were sent back 30 years? Marty finds it hard to know where things are in his now even smaller town. Not to mention he is sticking out like a sore thumb because of the way he is dressed. It is tragically obvious he does not belong there.
Marty had to think quick or he was gonna be living the 1950s lifestyle. Marty dashed into the local diner, where he asks for a phone. The waiter looked at him strangely and asks if he wants to start a tab. Marty does not have a fricken clue what this man is asking of him. Tab? What is a tab? He must have been thinking. Using some good judgment he orders a drink. After paying the waiter, he shows him to the phone. So now what? Marty begins frantically searching for Doc’s number and address in a phone book.
This is a time where Marty was a problem solver. It is definitely not the only time he is challenged. On other occasions he encounters bullies and had to turn a scooter into a skateboard to escape them. He even had to create a sci-fi story quickly that convinced his dad to ask his mom to the dance to stop him and his siblings from fading away out of existence. I think we can agree Marty is pretty badass. When things were moving slowly at the dance between his mom and dad, Marty had to step in and play guitar to save the band and to have a slow dance so his parents would have their first kiss together.
While Back to the Future takes a more humorous angle at problem-solving, the book The Medium is the Massage points out that man has evolved in solving problems especially connected to communication and language: ”Until writing was invented, man lived in acoustic space” (McLuhan 48). What an interesting thought — man living in acoustic space. But once man began writing, engaging in another way to communicate, “The goose quill put an end to talk. It abolished mystery; it gave architecture and towns; it brought roads and armies, bureaucracy” (48). So, by solving one problem, in a way, man created another problem, the loss of being able to think freely. The “goose quill” eventually led to all kinds of technological advancements and different mediums.
One could argue that today, society is limited in how we think due to tweets that are limited to 142 characters, or to TikTok dances that usually run ten seconds. Why be limited? Even in the ’60s, McLuhan noticed that “We now live in a global village…a simultaneous happening” (63). What would McLuhan think about our global society today and arguments about China spying on Americans through TikTok?
McLuhan points out, younger generations can adapt to the changes much more quickly than older generations. Just like in Back to the Future, the younger generation solves the problems. Marty returns to the ’50s to solve the problem of getting his parents together. While McLuhan tackles more serious problems then that, he still says it will be up to young people to make a difference.
McLuhan believes that young people in the ’60s were held back by traditional education, “The classroom is now in a vital struggle for survival with the immensely persuasive ‘outside’ world created by new informational media. Education must shift from instruction, from imposing of stencils to discovery — to probing and exploration” (101). He could be talking about some schools today! Some teachers throw out information and expect students to memorize everything and then tell it back to the teacher.
In reality, students do best when they have a chance to discover and think for themselves, just as Marty did. Marty learned so much from Doc in what someone would say is a very non-traditional education, but he learned a lot more than he would have sitting in a classroom.
