Former radio host Owens Lee Pomeroy once said, "Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: you find the present and the past perfect!" » It's common for people to exhibit nostalgia because they like to reminisce about happy times in their past or imagine themselves living in a fun time, like the 1950s. By feeling nostalgic for memories of the past or wanting to living in times gone by like the 1950s, people feel happier and their lives become more meaningful. In the film Back to the Future, a great feeling of nostalgia is provoked when Marty is transported to 1955, because everything seemed much simpler then. At that time, gender roles and family structure were much more defined. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essay In Back to the Future, seventeen-year-old Marty McFly is accidentally transported to 1955 using the ability of a DeLorean- a time machine car invented by his scientist friend, Dr. Emmett Brown. When Doc shows Marty this car early in the morning, he and Marty are greeted by attackers furious with Doc for stealing their plutonium, which he needed to power the DeLorean. After Doc is apparently shot by the terrorists, Marty rushes to the car and drives at 88 MPH (the speed needed to initiate the time travel feature), sending him back to 1955. However, Marty does not know what 'he did and is not sure. of his exact location until he picked up a newspaper in town and saw the date "November 5, 1955." While living in 1955, Marty encounters his father, George, spying on Marty's mother, Lorraine, from a tree. George slides from the tree into the street, but Marty stops him from being hit and gets hit himself. This event changes Marty's story because his mother becomes attracted to him. Throughout the film, Marty tries to get his mother, Lorraine, to fall in love with George so that the story remains as it was before. Meanwhile, Marty meets Doc from 1955 who helps him throughout the film to be able to send him back to his future home of 1985. For a week, Marty is forced to live in Hill Valley in 1955 and "starts" new trends along the way. . To escape the bullies, he creates a skateboard from a piece of wood placed on a board. He also sings and plays Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" (unreleased at the time) during the "Enchantment Under the Sea" dance, to the amazement of the students and principal. “I guess you guys aren't ready for this yet,” Marty said after leaving the crowd in silence after finishing the song. At the ball, Marty succeeds in making his parents fall in love and Doc is able to send him back to the future thanks in large part to the large amount of energy released by the infamous lightning bolt striking the Hill Town clock tower Valley. In today's society, we feel a lot of nostalgia because of the way life was in the 1950s. Most often, nostalgia for the 1950s is caused by the fact that "everything was fine in America, a period in which the United States truly fulfilled its destiny as world leader in every area that mattered” (Bellm). Because the United States had finished dealing with the Great Depression and World War II, the 1950s were something of a golden age due to the lack of conflict. One of the main reasons why many tend to look back on the 1950s with admiration is that it was a quiet time. In Back to the Future, nostalgic moments includeold-fashioned Coke bottles that required a bottle opener, the gas stations where the attendants quickly filled up your car, the restaurant where all the teenagers hung out on the weekends. As a society today, we tend to reminisce about all the fun times and how simple things seemed. In the world we live in today, it's nice to look back on those times and wonder if we will ever experience a time like that again in the United States. In the film, we see a sense of more obvious gender roles. For example, when Marty is hit by the car after saving his father, Lorraine takes care of him like a mother. And it's his mother. His mother starts to fall in love with him because that's how she fell in love with George. Throughout the film, Lorraine follows Marty everywhere and at one point says to her friends, "Isn't he a dream?" Meanwhile, George is a strange man once Marty is hit by the car because Lorraine was supposed to fall in love with George, not Marty. In the film, Marty tries to instill more courage in George so that he will be aggressive to win Lorraine's heart. In this 1955, Lorraine is very aggressive as a female with Marty. This is strange for Marty because in 1985 his mother told his sister that girls should never chase boys and be aggressive when meeting boys. As for George's situation, throughout the film he lacks masculinity when it comes to his dealings with girls. George is also bullied by a trio of bullies, most notably Biff. Near the end of the film, George finally has enough "masculinity" to punch Biff in the face after Biff takes advantage of Lorraine in the car during the "Enchantment Under the Sea" dance. With Marty's help, George and Lorraine fall in love again and the story remains the same. Family structure in the 1950s was much more different than it is today. In the 1950s, there were a plethora of nuclear families, that is, a family comprising a father, a mother and at least one child (“The Nuclear Family”). In the 1950s version of a nuclear family, the man works outside the home while the woman works inside the home caring for the children. As seen in Back to the Future, Lorraine's family consisted of her father, mother, and three children in total. His mother cleaned the house and cooked dinner while his father worked. In the film, the father is seen coming home from work with a brand new black and white television, something he had never had before. As a family, they all watched television together while eating at the table. In today's world, it's rare for families to eat together every night because everyone always seems so busy; parents work, children practice football, etc. According to CASA Colombia Research, "adolescents who eat family dinners at least five times a week report better relationships with their parents, less drug and alcohol use, less smoking, more frequent attendance at religious services, and levels of lower stresses” (Sodergren). Families who eat together are healthier physically and emotionally. One of the main reasons family life in the 1950s was more structured was because meal times were ideal for quality family time. The 1950s represent an era in which families seemed "golden" and structurally stronger than in today's world. In Back to the Future, Marty realizesthat things were not perfect in the 1950s. For example, when he takes Lorraine to the dance, she suggests that they "park", which prompts him to drink and be sexually aggressive towards Marty. When Marty questions her drinking ethics, she responds, "Don't be so square." Anyone drinks. In the 1950s, many children were growing up in families heavily affected by alcohol and physical abuse (Coontz). Today, we often overlook the negative aspects of the 1950s, and society often overlooks the trials the nation faced regarding rights. The reason we overlook these difficult times when we are nostalgic is selective amnesia (Coontz). This means we block out the bad parts of memories in favor of the good parts because we want to remember the better times. Obviously, nostalgic people want to feel good about themselves and therefore tend to focus on happy memories. As we age, our selective amnesia of childhood memories increases because we don't remember as clearly how those memories made us feel. According to researchers MalcolmMacLeod and Saima Noreen, who studied whether or not we can learn to forget our memories, personal meaning often changes with memories, making them less secure and easier to forget (Spiegel). The personal meaning of memories changes as we age, so we look at our past experiences differently (Moskalenko). This is an adequate explanation for the nostalgia of certain memories. Another scene in the film that provokes negative feelings for the 1950s is the first diner scene when Marty arrives in 1955. The scene involves the owner and a black worker arguing. . Marty tells Goldie, the black worker, that he will one day be mayor (in 1985). The owner of the place hears Marty and responds: “A colored mayor. This will be the day. As noted here, times for African Americans were not the best in the 1950s due to issues of segregation and civil rights. There were difficulties for African Americans and Mexicans who were prevented from voting in some states due to literacy tests that were not administered to whites (Coontz). Other issues included people not following the gender and sexual rules of the time and being “ostracized” (Coontz). Children were also encouraged to drop out of high school when they felt too struggling to attend school. Marital rape was also legal in the 1950s, and if a man beat his wife, authorities did not take it seriously. These problems existed in the 1950s, but we neglect to remember these memories when we are nostalgic. In the film, Marty's desire to return to his 1985 home represents his desire to want to live in his own time. While 1955 was fun to live and experience, he wants to go home because he wants to live like a teenager in 1985, where he is in a band and has a girlfriend who he loves very much. In general, we tend to be nostalgic for periods like the 1950s because we think it would be fun to experience society in a seemingly simple and different way. However, we forget how much we are meant to belong to the present moment because of all the people we love and those who love us. We were supposed to live in the moment and improve the world today. Although it is fun to reminisce about the past, too much nostalgia ultimately does us no good because it is not healthy. Studies show.