Beloved classic Back to the Future was released in 1985, when moviegoers were swept up in the tale of one Martin McFly and his zany friend Doc Brown.
This newly rediscovered deleted scene shows Marty (Michael J Fox) expressing concern to Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) that “feeling up his mother” might damage him permanently. He worries that when he goes back to the future, he might end up — gasp — gay!
“This is the kind of thing that could screw me up permanently,” Marty reasons. “What if I go back to the future and I end up being…gay?”
Director Robert Zemeckis was wise to keep this one on the cutting room floor.
Watch below:
h/t HuffPost
dennis.sweden
Ah, really! Calling that homophobic really is a bit of a stretch, isn’t it?! I’d hate to come back to the future as straight. That doesn’t make me “heterophobic”.
lykeitiz
Or worse yet…..he could come back with Parkinson’s.
Daniepwils
@ lykeitiz
Okay now that isn’t right to say! But that is too damn funny! Wow. So wrong yet so funny.
MarionPaige
maybe the joke worked better with Eric Stoltz, who was originally cast as Marty
techbeanie
Newly discovered? This was on the BTTF trilogy DVD set released in 2002. Also, this is far from homophobic. A straight man wouldn’t want to end up being gay just like a gay man wouldn’t want to end up being straight.
Xzamilio
@techbeanie: Actually, a lot of us wish we had ended up as straight, but that’s mostly due to our upbringing and the societal stigma at certain points in time. But, I get what you mean. I love who I am.
demented
I don’t understand “wanting” to be whatever orientation you are. Being comfortable with it, yes. But not investing any emotional weight in it. It’s like saying “I wouldn’t want to be this race or ethnicity!”
As for the joke, I don’t get it. It would have made more sense if Doc had found him crying and scrubbing himself in the bathtub, which is what a NORMAL guy would do if he found out he felt up his mother.
Kieran
Hollywood has LONG history of promoting the idea that being gay is “screwed up” as this movie’s hero so bluntly puts it.
In the seventies and eighties this kind of casual Hollywood “humor” at the expense of gays was commonplace. Homophobic audiences ate it up. I’m surprised the scene was cut.
In the forties and fifties, by comparison, the concept that a man could be gay was largely ignored. If it existed at all, it was only in those effeminate types who wanted to dress up like ladies.
Paco
I get it. The cheap joke was supposed to highlight the difference between the 1955 and 1985 meaning of the word “gay”. By that point in the film, the differences between the two cultures had already been played out successfully without the need for a homophobic gag. I’m glad the scene was cut, even if it was only cut for reasons other than being seen as homophobic.
bobbyjoe
The original “Teen Wolf” film from the 80s also contained a similar gay-panic joke (though I think it went further and used the word “f*g”).
However, these days the tv adaptation of “Teen Wolf” is one of the gayest shows on tv, not just in that it regularly features gay characters (and, ahem, actors like Colton Haynes), but in its whole sensibility.
And Michael J. Fox, who was in both 80s films in question here, soon went on to headline the sitcom “Spin City” in the 90s, which prominently featured Carter, a major breakthrough non-stereotypical gay character, who was a central part of the cast, two years before even “Will & Grace” premiered.
So things do change.
Billy Budd
@Kieran: Hitchcoc* made TWO movies where the protagonists were gay assassins: “ROPE” and “Strangers On A Train”.
Kieran
@Billy Budd: I haven’t seen ROPE, but I know in ‘Strangers on a Train’ there was never any mention of any character being gay. Although Farley Granger, the actor playing the hero of the movie was in fact gay.
jason smeds
Relax – it’s just a silly movie made by those with limited intelligence.
Quintly
For me it’s the most funniest movie every. Still talking about it with old class mates. They even have a wiki page for this scene 🙂
Billy Budd
@Kieran: The crazy man who approaches Granger and proposes to switch muders is clearly portrayed as stereotypical gay, with colorful clothes, hated his father and was obsessed with his mother, etc etc. If you read the book by Patricia Highsmith, you will be even more assured that he is gay.
Cagnazzo82
@lykeitiz: Oh thi sis just awful. I feel bad for laughing.
lykeitiz
@Daniepwils: @Cagnazzo82: LOL!….We can ALL make jokes, right?
wpewen
I sensed a real strong uptick of homophobia during the 80’s due to AIDs from people who previously were pretty cool about it. In California the remains of the hippie/counterculture people didn’t much care about gays during the 70’s, in fact they were generally quite welcoming, part of the reason LA/SF was really a fine time during the entire 70’s period. Things got weird real quick even in SF and stayed that way for a while. The late 70’s in some ways was an even better time for gays on the West Coast than now-we had not heard of gay Republicans yet.
tdx3fan
I have to agree that calling that homophobic is a major stretch. 1980s movies are littered with references like this that were really nothing more than camp at the time. Let us not forget that some of the most sex filled gay movies were made during that same generation.
6. Querelle – Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1982