Disturbing Real Talk: Marty and His Mom Would've Made A Good Couple
In Back to the Future, Marty McFly has to go back to the past to help his parents fall in love. But there is one major flaw with the movie -- and that's Marty totally should have ended up with his mom, had he actually been just Calvin Klein and not his mom's time-traveling son. It's a modern-day Oedipus Rex -- another great love story (had one of the romantic leads not come out of the other romantic lead.)
When you fall in love, that initial gut feeling is often the right feeling, and Marty McFly and Lorraine McFly nee Baines both had the hots for each other right away. When Marty awoke in 1955 to find his young mother leaning over his pantsless body, he was caught by surprise by her beauty. "But you're hot!" he ejaculated. Lorraine also came on hot and heavy for the teenager she would give birth to thirty years later. The requited love is weird if they're related. It's not if they're not.
Lorraine takes care of Marty after he's hit by a car, which is the inciting incident of 98% of romantic melodramas. Lorraine develops Florence Nightingale Syndrome for Marty, tending to his wounds and thinking about him when he's not around. The only reason why Marty wasn't into it is because he knows it's his mom. If they didn't climb the same family tree, he'd be singing a different tune while skipping his way to pound town.
Who else do you think Lorraine should end up with if not her own son? Biff Tannen? He's a bully. George McFly? He's a dweeb. Hill Valley is devoid of quality men. That town has to import dudes from different time zones just to have even one eligible bachelor.
If you're in a small town and you're stuck between someone who's too dumb to understand the expression "make like a tree and leave" or someone who spies on women undressing under the guise of "bird watching," you're going to latch on to the first non-weirdo you come across, especially if they're as foxy as Michael J. Fox. Sorry, but Lorraine shouldn't have to end up with a rapist or a pervert.
Lorraine and George don't even have anything in common. George likes reading science fiction and being a creepy loner. Lorraine likes smoking cigarettes and giggling with her popular girlfriends. Lorraine would totally shit on George's nerdy novels. You know it. Marty, on the other hand, has tons in common with his mom (besides their genes.) They both seem to be cool kids and don't respect their dads.
The only arena where Marty and Lorraine aren't compatible is physically, which is understandable, seeing as how they're related. If they weren't, they would probably have a lot of sexual chemistry, which reinforces the whole point we're trying to drive home. No, they should not date in this current version of Back to the Future where they are mother/son. Yes, they should pounce on each other like lions in heat in an alternative version of Back to the Future where they are not mother/son.
For someone who doesn't want to bone his mom, Marty sure does talk about her a lot. Marty practically gushes about Lorraine to his dad. Yeah, Marty's trying to set up his parents so he doesn't disappear from existence, but come on. You don't use such flattering tones if there isn't a hint of something there. If you, as an audience member, didn't know about Marty and Lorraine's family ties, you'd want them to get the sexual tension over with and hook up already!
Marty and Lorraine both seem to be jealous of the romantic partners the other one ended up with. In the present of the movie/future of the past/past of the now-present, Lorraine doesn't want Marty to go on a camping trip with his girlfriend Jennifer (who kind of looks like her -- especially in the second movie when they replace the actress with Elisabeth Shue). Is that the ugly monster jealousy rearing his head?
And when Marty both watches his parents dance and sees his siblings opposite-fade away while playing "Earth Angel," he throws daggers at George with his gaze. He knows that Lorraine, would she not conceive his older brother shortly after that moment, is the one who got away.
And that is the true tragedy of Back to the Future. Yikes.
Top image: Universal Pictures
