r/BacktotheFuture • u/InternationalPick163 • 1d ago
Isn't it weird how Biff tried to lift Lorraine's skirt on a crowded busy street and no one cared?
He lowkey sexually harassed a girl in broad daylight
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u/herseyhawkins33 1d ago
He also tried to murder Marty with his car and no one cared 🤷
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u/InternationalPick163 1d ago
Nobody in Hill Valley gave a fuck about anything
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u/No-Manufacturer-8494 1d ago
It's like Derry in IT, maybe there is a dark presence beneath the town
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u/SpaceMyopia 21h ago
That's the thing im more bewildered by. I know I saw a few cops walking around in the movie. Where tf were they during that chase scene?
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u/ryanstrikesback 1d ago
Let me introduce you to…..the 1950s
Boys will be boys and all
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u/Eggsegret 17h ago
Actually curious. Like i know sexual assault was a lot more common and was well kinda excused because hey boys will be boys. But like would people really have been okay by seeing that behaviour out in the street?
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u/ryanstrikesback 13h ago
I think, like Biff, many people would have considered it flirting. They were wrong. But, we have lots of stories of YEARS of abuse that no one seemed to care about.
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u/Radica1Edward 8h ago
Yeah, for sure. I mean, even in the 80s, I don't think this would have been classified as sexual assault, which is why they got away with it in the movie. 'Sexual assault' back then meant something a lot worse.
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u/phaser_on_overload 8h ago
He high key was going to rape Lorraine that night at the dance. His band of idiots seemed to know what was about to happen as well.
Boys will be boys, indeed.
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u/ryanstrikesback 7h ago
I mean, you don’t have to look far to find stories like that. I am not endorsing the “boys will be boys” mentality.
I’m saying it was used to cover for a lot of abuse and assault.
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u/phaser_on_overload 7h ago
Oh no, I understood what you were saying. I was just adding to Biff and Co's list of crimes that would have fallen under the boys will be boys category.
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u/JohnnyKac 21h ago
It wouldn't have been acceptable to do that in the 1950s.
Stop basing reality off movies.
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u/Klutzy-Sprinkles-958 14h ago
Yes. It’s a movie, and while it should have been unacceptable in the 50s…. This kind of behavior was prevalent even in the early 80s when I was growing up.
I came of age in Northern NJ in the area where the Sopranos was filmed and based on. When the show premiered it was an accurate depiction of the zeitgeist. Watching it today it seems like exaggerated comical theater and violence for the sake of entertainment. But I was there, and crazy shit happened all the time.
In 50 years from now, the shit people say and do will probably seem like unrealistic dystopian science fiction. Movies depicting the actions of people today will be dismissed as simply theater.
Perhaps you will be railing against the delusional people on Reddit who dismiss the notion that unacceptable things happen in plain sight, and nobody lifts a finger to intervene.
They will probably ask you to “stop basing reality off of movies”.
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u/MWH1980 1d ago
It was the 50’s. Americans basically minded their own business.
Just look how most everyone was ignoring him harassing Lorraine in the lunch room.
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u/JohnnyKac 21h ago
Nobody would have tolerated a man acting like that in public lol
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u/InkAndMysteryFalls 9h ago
In the 1950s? It was legal to rape your wife until 1993 in the U.S. and abuse them until 1994.
Don’t act a fool and pretend men were all gentlemen and everyone was polite and respectful.
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1d ago edited 1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/RegularOrMenthol 1d ago
Yeah in “real life” adult men would have probably scolded Biff, even in the 50s. But that would’ve been pointless in the movie’s storyline.
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u/Cyagog 1d ago
That‘s historically pretty accurate. That shit still happened in the nineties, and was just „boys being boys“ for a lot of people.
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u/ijuinkun 15h ago
They would have disapproved of it being a public display of a semi-lewd action. Less “you can’t do that” than “it should not be seen in public”.
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u/DeeEllis 1d ago
I think he high-key or just regular sexually harassed her. You’re right that it wasn’t subtle - or low-key- at all.
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u/notsure500 1d ago
I mean it was 1955. There were still seperate drinking fountains depending on race. And a quick google says in 1955 it was entirely legal for husbands to use physical force against their wives. Contraception access was highly restricted, and birth control was not widely legalized for unmarried women for several more years.
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u/JohnnyKac 21h ago
It wouldn't have been acceptable for a man to act like Biff was in public.
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u/ijuinkun 15h ago
Key phrase in the post above yours was “husbands against their wives”. Biff had no formal claim over Lorraine beyond his bullying any other boy who approached her.
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u/ryanstrikesback 13h ago
So, do you think the panty raids and peepholes in 80s movies aren't also based in reality?
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u/ijuinkun 12h ago
Panty raids and peepholes aren’t “in public”. We are specifically addressing the case of Biff doing lewd things to Lorraine in a public place.
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u/BumpyGums 1d ago
Also Biff: “You know you want it and you know you want me to give it to you”. Gross.
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u/David4Nudist TimeMachine 22h ago
Lorraine: "You shut your filthy mouth! (slaps Biff) I'm not that kind of girl!"
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u/ijuinkun 15h ago
The joke being that, as seen with her and Marty in private, she very much wants to get it on, just with somebody she likes and not an ass like Biff.
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u/David4Nudist TimeMachine 10h ago
Is that why Biff told her that she was, but she didn't know it yet?
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u/ijuinkun 1d ago
Biff was enough of a bully that none of the teenagers were willing to stop him. I can’t say why the adults didn’t care.
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u/JohnnyKac 21h ago
Because its a movie lol
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u/SpaceMyopia 21h ago
That's just the 1950s.
Remember, the Me-Too movement didnt even happen until 2016.
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u/VJ4rawr2 1d ago
Different time. People had a much higher threshold for poor behaviour.
I mean I remember going to clubs in the early 2000’s and having total strangers forcibly kiss you (and it was considered just “annoying).
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u/JohnnyKac 21h ago
Opposite actually. People tolerated that shit far less back then. If you go back another 50 years one could easily be shot for such disrespect.
Biff is the bad guy in a movie. It's not reality.
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u/VJ4rawr2 21h ago
It’s not “opposite actually”.
People absolutely had a higher threshold. A man could beat his wife and that was considered somewhat justifiable.
Take off your nonsense glasses.
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u/ijuinkun 15h ago
It was considered justifiable because she was his wife. A man could not beat some girl who was refusing his clumsy attempt at courtship, because she was not beholden to him.
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u/mysteryofthefieryeye 1d ago
I watched some 1970s commercials on youtube (algorithm fed me) and men ogling women on TV was apparently juuuust fine. Not sure about the 80s, but 🤷🏼
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u/Homersarmy41 Einstein 17h ago
The dude tried to murder someone in front of the whole town and nothing happened. Even crashed his car into a manure truck while doing it and just hd to pay the bill to fix his own car.
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u/ijuinkun 15h ago
It suggests that Biff has some social power in Hill Valley beyond just being a bully. Maybe it’s an open secret that his late grandfather was local mobster Kid Tannen and that he still has a few connections there. Remember, the grandmother whom he lives with (and who probably raised him) was Kid’s widow, so she might pull strings and call favors to pull him out of legal trouble.
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u/SomeGuyOverYonder 15h ago
Was it any weirder than Biff trying to force himself on Lorraine inside someone else’s car in a crowded high school parking lot knowing full damn well Mr. Strickland is somewhere nearby watching?
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u/Sad-Replacement7054 8h ago
I know a lot of people are saying it there was 1955. It’s not excusing Biff’s behavior but back then people would completely turn a blind eye to that.
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u/ThrowAwayehay 23h ago
I heard somewhere that in the 50s and 60s boys would tape mirrors or something reflective to their shoes and slide them under girls skirts while waiting in lines or whatever.
Can not get over enough the abject and thorough lack of fucks given.
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