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Back to the Future
Movie

Back to the Future

1985 • Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi

Woke Score
1.4
out of 10

Plot

Marty McFly, a typical American teenager of the Eighties, is accidentally sent back to 1955 in a plutonium-powered DeLorean "time machine" invented by a slightly mad scientist. During his often hysterical, always amazing trip back in time, Marty must make certain his teenage parents-to-be meet and fall in love - so he can get back to the future.

Overall Series Review

Back to the Future is a time-travel adventure centered on the American ideal of self-improvement and the nuclear family unit. The story of Marty McFly's accidental trip to 1955 is a quest to fix his family's future by ensuring his parents, George and Lorraine, become happier, more successful versions of themselves. This narrative is driven by individual choice and courage, as George transforms from a cowardly victim into a confident husband and father by standing up to the local bully. The film presents an aspirational vision of the American Dream, where a positive change in personal character leads to generational prosperity and a restored, idealized middle-class life. The culture of 1950s Hill Valley is romanticized, and the entire plot is predicated on preserving a traditional, heterosexual family line. The morality is clear-cut: George's act of defending his future wife from a bully is the moment of transcendent moral action that corrects a multi-decade familial decline. Outside of minor, context-setting depictions of Libyan terrorists and a brief exchange acknowledging 1950s racial attitudes toward a Black character, the narrative avoids intersectional or civilizational critiques, focusing instead on a conservative, meritocratic ethos.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics2/10

The plot's focus is universal meritocracy, where the future is improved solely by George McFly finding the courage to act on his own merit. The main conflict is not based on immutable characteristics or systemic oppression. A low score is slightly elevated due to the use of Libyan terrorists as simplistic, evil villains at the opening and a brief scene that lightly acknowledges 1950s racism toward the Black character Goldie Wilson without making it central to the theme.

Oikophobia1/10

The central dramatic engine of the story is the hero's absolute need to restore his family's heritage and improve his ancestors' lives to secure his own existence. The corrected future is a clear restoration of the American middle-class ideal of a successful, functional nuclear family, directly countering the definition of hostility toward one's home and ancestors.

Feminism1/10

The entire family crisis stems from the father's lack of traditional masculine vitality, leading to an unhappy marriage in 1985. The solution is George's complementary transformation into a protective, courageous, and successful man, attracting Lorraine through strength rather than pity. The narrative is entirely pro-natalist, centered on ensuring the parents meet to have their children.

LGBTQ+1/10

The narrative is driven by strictly normative, reproductive logic: Marty must ensure his heterosexual parents meet and fall in love to guarantee his own birth. The film avoids centering alternative sexualities, and the concepts of 'queer theory' or gender ideology are absent from the story.

Anti-Theism3/10

The core of the film establishes an objective moral truth—courage is good, bullying and cowardice are bad—which dictates the future. While religion is not a primary theme, one of the main characters, Doc Brown, explicitly names the 'birth of Christ' as a historical event people would want to visit. There is no moral relativism or hostility toward faith.