Back to the Future Story Circle | Lorraine Baines

Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, critical analysis leads us to some hard truths. Such is the case with the film that was, at one point, by favorite movie of all time: 1985’s Back to the Future, written and directed by Robert Zemeckis.

“But Matthew,” I hear you say, “Back to the Future is a classic! How can you do this to it? You must hate it!” And that’s not true. I love Back to the Future, warts and all, I really do. But I believe firmly that the lessons of Structure can teach us a lot about how to be better writers in the future (no pub intended), so when we examine works through a structural lens we don’t get to pick and choose what we see. I will say up front: I still love this movie, it is nostalgic for me, but it has a massive flaw at its center that I rarely see discussed. And I don’t think they tried to do this, I think it was a mistake. So here we are, let’s talk about Lorraine Baines and the Story Circle.

For those for whom this is their first time stumbling across an article or lecture of mine or the Story Circle in general, it’s a way of mapping out a character’s story arc in a consistent. Understandable way that has been noted in most media since the 1900s. Put simply, it is the foundation from which the vast majority of story is built, and it goes like this:

1. Show who your character is. Usually by showing them at home and at work, with someone they love and with someone they hate. 2. They Want Something. Characters are defined by their wants. It can be simple or complex, but once you've established who your character is in the first two scenes, you need to show what they want that's different from that. 3. They Enter an Unfamiliar Situation to get what they want. 4. They adapt to that new situation: This is actually THREE scenes, much like Step 1 is two scenes. In these scenes they: meet friends, meet enemies, and overcome a minor obstacle. Basically they're learning the ropes of their new environment. 5. They Get what they want. 6. They Pay a Heavy Price for it: Actions have to have consequences. 7. They Return to where they started, 8. Having Changed: To me these two go together, it's the Compare/Contrast of the literary world. How do you SHOW that your character has changed? You put them in a similar situation as at the start, and you have them act different. Like an A / B test. If things went differently the second time, but all other factors were the same, then it must have been them that changed. It's like proving it to the audience.

Eight points. That’s it. That gets you most of story, and if you divvy up the different variations of it, I think it covers 99% of them. Actually, I think it covers all 100%, but I’m told that kind of absolutism is hubris.

With that in mind, let’s look first to our main character: George McFly. Now you might be saying, hey wait, isn’t Marty the main character of Back to the Future? And the answer is: No. He’s the point-of-view character, the character through which we experience the narrative, but he isn’t the one who goes through change. That’s George.

1. We start off with a neat trick, because we have a lot of ground to cover. So much that it would be difficult to see George at home and at work, especially since we see everything through Marty’s eyes. What’s a screenwriter to do? Well they simply have George’s boss, his high-school bully Biff, come over and berate him in his own home. That’s work and home taken care of, and we see George interacting with someone he hates (Biff) and someone he loves (his family), and in both measures, he’s just pathetic. He even states aloud his fatal flaw here: “I’m sorry, I’m just not good at confrontation.” (Ie: has no confidence / won’t stand up for himself.

But we aren’t really done with the first part of George’s Story Circle yet, because Zemeckis pulls a neat trick: rather than using two scenes to show George at home at and work, he economizes those two together, and instead shows George is 1985 then in 1955: so we get to see the man he became, and how he ended up that way, and get an even broader picture of the man. Brilliant.

From there George all but states aloud his 2. Desire (want) to have more confidence. To have the confidence to show others the stories he writes, or to ask Lorraine out, the woman who we know will become his wife in 1985. This ties in directly with Marty’s want, which is much more immediate: he has interfered with the timeline and has risked becoming unmade because his parents don’t meet, so both George and Marty have aligned goals: getting George and Lorraine together.

George 3. Enters an Unfamiliar Situation: his friendship with Marty, as Marty attempts to teach him how to be confident, imparting on him the advice that “if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything” which adult George will later say back to Marty upon publication of his book, showing the effect it had on him.

George 4. Adapts to Marty’s lessons, this is sort of glossed over, but it’s there, as Marty tries to teach him to be confident (“Yes, dammit George, swear.”). They hatch a plan to make George seem more confident than he is: Marty will pretend to take advantage of Lorraine, allowing George to stop him and play the hero. George 5. Get what he wants in that this plan succeeds… though not in the way he would have expected. Biff was taking advantage of Lorraine, not Marty. But, seeing her in trouble and how wrong it is, George gains the confidence he’d never had before and tells Biff “you leave her alone.”

6. Pays. Biff attacks George ruthlessly. He seems like he’s about to break his arm. George is 7. Back where he started being bullied by Biff, but 8. He has changed now. He coils his fist and strikes Biff, knocking him out.

We then get another Return Having Changed moment on the dance floor, when it seems like George will return to his nebbish ways and let someone take Lorraine away from him, only to stand up for himself at the last minute and kiss her. We then get a THIRD Return Having Changed upon returning to 1985 to see that, as a result of coming of age through a moment of confidence instead of cowardice like in the original timeline, George is a confident, published author with a happy life and marriage, and (for some reason) he employs Biff as his car cleaner. Why would you employ the guy who tried to take advantage of your wife? Anyway, that’s the least of this movie’s problems.

So you see how that works, yes? George has a Positive Story Arc, he changes in a positive way.

Now let’s look at Lorraine Baines.

Just like with George, we begin and end Lorraine’s Story Arc in 1985: 1. We see her at home with people she loves and hates all at once, her family. She seems absolutely miserable, and talks about kissing her husband for the first time as though it were a death sentence. We presume she doesn’t have a job outside the house, but no information is given. Ironically, she protests Marty’s girlfriend as being “too promiscuous” and claims she was never like that, setting up that she was, absolutely, like that. I mention this not only it segues into how we see her in 1955, but also I feel like this is played for laughs when it actually sets up a major flaw in her arc that the writers were not considering, I’m convinced. Let’s move on.

2. She states, out loud, that she Wants Marty McFly. Or rather Calvin Kline, but you feel me. I’m going to call him Marty for ease of writing. She wants him, and she states aloud to her friends “I don’t know who he is, but I am going to find out.” This is a very clear 3. Enters Unfamiliar moment. It’s rare that you can feature characters so blatantly stating their Enters Unfamiliar to the camera in this way, and it’s obvious, but it certainly helps the viewer. She 4. Adapts to this Situation by trying repeatedly to proposition herself to Marty: at school, after following Marty home, and prior to this in her own home. (Good Rule of Threes here). Finally she 5. Gets what she wanted: she is parking alone at a make-out spot with Marty. And in kissing him, she realizes there’s something wrong. That he’s like a brother (he’s actually her son). Some would call this her “Pays a Heavy Price,” but actually…

6. Lorraine Pays and Heavy Price when a drunk Biff seeks revenge on Marty for an earlier slight, interrupting their “make out” session instead of George. He assaults Marty, then sees Lorraine and decides to get in the car with her and sexually assault her.

…

… sigh.

… I don’t mean to sound squishy or anything. I write horror. I have written some messed up stuff. But it is the year 2025 as I write this. If anyone out there finds themselves plotting their female character’s “Pay a Heavy Price” moment and they put down “Gets Sexually Assaulted,” please stop and try again. It’s not that S.A. isn’t an important topic that should be used or discussed in media, but it should never be used as a “punishing” or “pays a heavy price” moment. Even in 1985.

That’s not even the bad part, although it’s pretty bad.

Once George knocks up Biff, they go to the dance floor, and Lorraine is 7. Back where she started: she is enamored with a boy, just as she was at the beginning, only now it isn’t Marty, it’s George. … But, 8. She’s Changed. Lorraine is not acting like herself. She’s being demure, she’s not going after George, she’s waiting for him to make a move rather than making one herself.

Compared to her previous self she seems downright traumatized, which… actually, makes sense.

But George kisses her and the day is saved, the timeline is restored to something like its original state. And then when we return to 1985, Lorraine is… happy. She and her husband love each other, they’re pinching each other playfully, giggling. They even look younger than they did in the old 1985.

So what’s the lesson here? What are these two Story Arcs saying, individually, and as a pair?

George’s narrative arc is positive as we said. He learned to be confident. If you’re confident you can accomplish anything, you can have the life you want.

And Lorraine? Lorraine has a negative arc, at least I think so. Lorraine’s arc teaches us that if you’re promiscuous and forward, if you’re a woman who tries to take control of her sexuality, you will end up miserable with a bad life. But if you’re demure and instead cow-tow to the requests of your confident man, you will be rewarded with a glorious, happy life.

Fucking. Ew.

And taken as a pair? Almost worse. Each arc individually is gross, but taken as a pair it says something disastrous about which genders in our society are allowed to be confident. Men being confident is natural and things will turn out right, women being confident is bad, and things will turn out bad.

Oh what a god damn mess. And I stress they did not try this. The writers, I don’t think they tried this. I think they didn’t consider Lorraine’s arc at all, I think they just had her act as a tool for the arcs of the men around her without thinking about the broader implications of that.

So map out your character arcs before you hit publish, young writers. If you’ve found you’ve inadvertently messaged something like this, consider changing it. Woof. 

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