George doesn’t save the day with his weak punch that Biff immediately blocks, nor the more powerful one he later uses to knock out his tormentor. He takes a moment to savor the victory over Biff, but George’s real evolution comes when he stops the assault. I recall getting the message immediately, understanding that I’d watched George stop an attempted rape. I didn’t know the term “bystander intervention,” but I knew what it looked like to see someone do the right thing.
As a kid just out of the fourth grade, I learned from that Back to the Future scene that it was the responsibility of boys and men to stop rape sexual assaults and rape. But given how that the scene is set up in the film, I wish we could go back in time and make it vanish.
Back to the Future’s 30th anniversary gives us a chance to see why it’s worth reflecting on how deeply popular culture can root itself inside of us, particularly with regard to our attitudes about race and sex. We can continue to indulge in the delights of our childhood, but they’re also worth taking seriously. While I appreciate the generically positive representation of the film’s black characters, I cannot say the same for how it depicted women and the violence visited upon them. Today, I can’t feel good as a feminist about how we saw George’s vindication come about.
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