Would “Johnny B Goode” really have shocked teenagers in the 50s, though? A lot of things in the movie were played up for effect.
It’s just a movie. It’s hardly a realistic depiction of how people in the 50s would have reacted or how a teenager from the 80s would have reacted in the 50s.
The movie doesn’t work as well unless the reactions are totally out of proportion to what the ‘real’ (as ‘real’ as things get in a movie about a time-traveling aluminum car) reactions would be.
A lot of posters are treating the movie version of the 50s as realistically depicted and that’s absolutely bizarre to me. Of course it wasn’t. It’s the Hollywood nostalgia version of the 50s.
Hell, even at the time, Friends and Seinfeld were castigated for all white casts. And I do love Seinfeld, as I was in my teens when it was one, but it’d totally be seen as #FirstWorldProblems the television show today.
For example, when he first arrives in town, we see a car arrive at the Texaco station and several guys rush out to deal with the car, one to fill the gas, one to check under the hood, another to clean the windshield, another to check the tire pressure. Surely the service was never like that?
Johnny B Goode doesn’t shock the 50’s teenagers. They think it’s an an awesome swingin’ tune (which it is) and start dancing to it. What shocks them is the crazy guitar-solo crawling across the stage kicking the amps over performance that Marty gets into at the end. Which I think would be legitimately shocking to anyone who hadn’t seen that kind of musical performance. It shocks the other musicians too.
Yeah, he knocks over the amp; he does jumping windmills; he plays a short part of the solo with a tapping technique (which didn’t really start becoming mainstream until the late 60s, according to my Googling); he plays quite “out” towards the end of the solo – meaning that he’s playing outside the blues scale and key that would typically be used for that kind of solo (you would see “out” playing in jazz, but in that context it would be unheard of – in fact, it still sounds a bit jarring to modern ears, I would say.) And, of course, the general physically theatrical nature of the solo. Up until that point, it’s relatable, but “fresh” enough that you have the seen with Marvin Berry calling up his brother Chuck to introduce him to this hot new sound.
I don’t know… I never got the impression that he was judged to be particularly cool by his peers in the 1980s, but the whole thing was meant to imply to the audience that he was cool despite everything else. But he hung around with his band, and the eccentric weirdo scientist in Hill Valley, and his family was kind of wretched and not wealthy at all. That doesn’t scream someone who would be regarded as cool.
Even at the time, I sort of had an impression of Marty McFly as being sort of an ‘everyman’ level of cool - not a dork or dweeb, but not “cool” either. I mean, where would he have been in “Sixteen Candles”? He wouldn’t have been Jake’s buddy, I suspect, nor Farmer Ted’s, but somewhere in between.
I don’t know about that… some people are certainly more sensitive about other groups than they were.
But what I was saying is that the show was about First World Problems, even at the time and even among white people. And that was kind of the point- it was a “show about nothing”, as made evident by their “problems” and how absurd and trivial they actually were.
I think this is correct, but I also think he’s intended to be regarded by the audience as cool. He’s a striver and a little bit of an outcast. Misunderstood by those around him but bound for greatness.
My interpretation of Marty’s situation: Remember the exchange with the principal?
Strickland : [pushes Marty a little bit] You got a real attitude problem, McFly; you’re a slacker.You remind me of your father when he went here; he was a slacker, too .
Looking at his family…Dad is a wimp, mom’s an alcoholic; his brother works a fast food job, his sister isn’t meeting any guys. His uncle is a jailbird. He’s a loser by association, according to the town.
I think people in their 30s and older often realize what a weird family they came from. Somehow while still in high school, he realizes his family’s flaws. He’s cool, but townspeople don’t see it, as though there’s a caste system that has determined his place. But he believes in himself. And some might think Doc is a nutcase, but Marty’s friends with him—so he isn’t prone to prejudice, even though others are prejudiced toward him.
