Back to the Wizard

Like everything else in Back to the Future, the Ozy Wizard graffiti on Marty McFly's high school wall is not without meaning or intent. The "writing on the wall" clearly refers to The Wizard of Oz and the special but subtle role it plays in BTTF. It points to the many elements of the 1939 classic that come up throughout the 1985 sci-fi. In following this sign, in going back to Oz, we discover many parallels and similarities between the two movies.

The movies' outer adventures may be different, but the inner journeys are the same. In both cases the protagonist resolves his inner problem with the dominant parent in his/her life. Where Dorothy's journey is in mother space, the maternal container, Marty's journey is in father time, the masculine progenitor of the future.

Despite the fictional element of time travel, Back to the Future may seem too authentic to suggest the inner journey that runs through the fantastic Oz. As if BTTF is too entertaining to contain anything else. True, the movie does not have Oz's clear archetypes, symbolic objects and unconscious characters. And yet, its tight screenplay, the cinematography, its word play and use of metaphors, all suggest a healthy dose of the unconscious. Just as Dorothy meets the displaced characters from her sepia-toned reality in her Technicolor dream, Marty meets his parents when they were his own age, in 1955. As it were, Marty's 1955 is Dorothy's Oz. Where Dorothy's seeks a home of her dreams, over the rainbow, Marty's quest, as suggested by the title of his father's published book, A Match Made in Space, is to make it possible for his parents to have a rematch made in time. In solving his parents' problem, Marty resolves his. Interacting with the past, he reshapes the future.

Just as in the opening scene of BTTF Marty is hurled back by the blast of the overloaded speaker and looks ahead through its torn opening (forming a visual metaphor of the movie's title), in going back to Oz and then coming back to BTTF, the movie is easily seen as an up to date Oz. In viewing BTTF with Oz in mind, we see the movie with an added perspective, and vise versa. After all, this is what the two movies are about: returning to the point of departure and seeing it as it is for the first time.

Since it first came out in 1939, The Wizard of Oz has become part of our collective consciousness. It is one of our most popular modern myths, enchanting audiences young and old. Beyond the fairy tale narrative, the movie's fantastic images and subtle metaphors have made it a cultural icon, a true classic. Moreover, the movie is a classic example of what Joseph Campbell calls "The Hero's Journey." This time, though, it is the Journey of the Heroine. The movie is literally and metaphorically an unconscious journey. I would even venture to say that it is largely due to the journey paradigm that The Wizard has come to have such a lasting presence in our culture and our lives. The movie has been cited in many other movies, possibly more than any other. The Yellow Brick Road is a household metaphor that harbors many meanings. Dorothy's famous line, "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more," has appeared in countless movies, usually when the hero crosses the threshold and finds himself in a new and unfamiliar world, what is often the dreamy landscape of the unconscious.

Dorothy's dream-journey speaks to us all because the Yellow Brick Road of her dream is the royal road to the unconscious. And as such, to better understand her dream-journey it is best to follow the metaphor road. For as in dreams, the metaphors reveal the underlying meanings. They reveal the unconscious in terms of the conscious. In Oz the metaphors reveal how, while unconscious, Dorothy comes to confront and integrate the unconscious forces that are personified by the different characters she encounters on her adventure in the Land of Oz. In dealing with the archetypical witch of her dream, Dorothy comes to terms with the dark side of the Mother that she projects on Miss Gulch.

However subtle this theme may be, this dealing with the dark side of the mother surely contributes much to the movie's special appeal and enduring relevance. It not only reflects the workings of Dorothy's unconscious, it reflects ours as well. Through Dorothy's journey home we return to ourselves. After all, we all have to free ourselves from the hold of the introjected Mother if we are to become independent individuals. We all want to feel that "There's no place like home."

The coming of the shadowy forces into Dorothy's life is suggested in the opening sequence, by the first words of the movie, "Is she coming yet?" What is coming, of course, is malevolent side of the mother that Dorothy does not accept and therefore projects on Miss Gulch. But as often happens, cut off from Dorothy's consciousness, the shadowy side becomes an autonomous figure that demands to have its day. This side, like Miss Gulch, "owns half the county," half of Dorothy's psyche. Whereas in Kansas Aunt Em and Miss Gulch represent the two halves, in Dorothy's dream they are represented by Glinda and the Wicked Witch.

Actually, Dorothy's dream of dealing with the two sides, the Good Witch and the Bad Witch, and her need to balance them, is introduced by two unassuming sequences from her life in Kansas.

In the first sequence we witness Dorothy's first try at balancing the two sides by her walk on the railing of the pigsty fence. Having eaten from the tree of knowledge, as signified by Toto's having trespassed into Miss Gulch's garden, Dorothy is presently unable to balance, to contain, Aunt Em's two sides. Just as each farm hand is introduced and characterized for what he lacks, Dorothy's walk on the railing symbolizes what is wanting in her present life and what she needs to undertake to amend it--to balance the two sides of the internalized Mother that are about to battle over her soul. For the homeostasis of her childhood has been drastically disturbed. Her falling off the railing to the right side and into the pigsty symbolizes her present predicament. Having become aware of the two separate halves, of good and evil, her fall is just as much her Fall.

The other manifestation of the two sides starts with Miss Gulch coming for Toto. Defending Toto, "He didn't know he was doing anything wrong," Dorothy tries to explain his mischievous behavior. Toto, like the unconscious, does not know the difference between good and bad, what is permitted and what is forbidden. Typical of the impulsive drive that he represents, he does what comes naturally. And as part of her Self, Dorothy rightfully identifies with him. "I'm the one that ought to be punished. I let him go in her garden." When this plea does not help and Dorothy turns to Em, suddenly she is not as assertive as she was before Miss Gulch's appearance. She tries to handle the situation "gently," but this does not deter Miss Gulch, who came fully prepared with an order from the sheriff, the unseen patriarchal authority. "Now, we can't go against the law Dorothy," Em remains true to the right side that she represents. "I'm afraid poor Toto will have to go." The other side, Miss Gulch, agrees. "Now you're seeing reason."

In this confrontation the only one who stands up to the "wicked old witch" is Dorothy. With the ineffective Uncle Henry presently out of the frame, Dorothy is pictured in a symmetric mise-en-scene, standing between the seated women, not unlike a fulcrum in a set of scales, balancing the two sides of her psyche. "Oh, no, no! I won't let you take him!" she fights for what is hers (and part of herself). "You go away, you. I'll bite you myself."

As these two sequences demonstrate, the dark Mother is a subtle but invariable presence in Dorothy's life, even before she crosses the threshold to the Land of Oz. Whether we are aware of it or not, this dark and all-too-often neglected side both attracts and repels us. Dorothy's confrontation with the Witch is the same inner conflict we all have to resolve if we are to grow up. Just as many fairy tales deal with the heroes and heroines who are forced to give up their dependent attachment to their mother, so in Oz Dorothy deals with the difficulties of letting go her childish and illusory attachment to the benevolent M. And she does it by dealing with the malevolent Mother. By overcoming the Witch and all that she represents, Dorothy finds her heart's desire. This is how she becomes an individual. Individual in the sense of being one--not divided in two. In her "return to the land of E Pluribus Unum" with Toto, Dorothy has retained her intuitive powers. She has returned in toto. This is the true feeling of home.

After this quick look at The Wizard of Oz, after a brief tour in Dorothy's psychological back yard, in returning to Back to the Future, Marty's journey back in time takes on new meanings. Just as Dorothy's efforts to return to Kansas bring about her rediscovery of home, Marty's efforts to return to the future bring about a home rediscovered, where he has the kind of parents every kid dreams of.

A Hero's Journey in Time

As already noted, after going back to Dorothy's journey down the Yellow Brick Road, it does not take a great stretch of the imagination to see Back to the Future as a male Oz. Indeed, in juxtaposing the two movies side by side, we discover a surprising number of similarities. Marty's opening words, "Anybody home?" even takes up where Dorothy's "There's no place like home" left off. Both heroes' home life leaves much to be desired, though the McFly home seems worse off. The two protagonists are inadvertently transported to another dimension in space and time. Each one has to complete a crucial task before returning home. Dorothy must obtain the Witch's broomstick, Marty must get his parents to fall in love. A storm transports Dorothy to Oz; a storm hurls Marty back to the future. In both movies the special worlds of the journey is an unconscious rite of passage. What changes is the heroes' perception.

Like Dorothy, Marty is a likable everyman we enjoy watching and easily identify with. When the two cross the threshold to the special world of the journey, both seek the person who can help them return. But, like true heroes, they only return after resolving their conflicts--Dorothy with her Mother, Marty with his Father. In their encounter with Professor Marvel (who appears as the Wizard in Dorothy's dream) and Doc Brown, Dorothy has a picture of Em and Marty of the three McFly children. These parallel sequences are also surprisingly alike. Both these "learned" figures try three times to guess the hero/heroine's identity. But the similarities do not stop here. The characters in one movie also have their counterparts in the other. BTTF being a science fiction, Einstein has replaced Toto. George corresponds to Em and Biff (with his three companions) is both Miss Gulch and the Wicked Witch. Emmet Brown is analogous to Glinda, the Wizard and Professor Marvell, all three rolled into one.

On a broader scale, there is the parallel quest of both heroes. Both come to terms with the dominant parent in each of their lives. In each case it is of the same gender as the hero/heroine, as fits the nature of the shadow. Like Luke Skywalker's confronting Darth Vader (who makes his appearance in BTTF), the two movies are about the hero/heroine coming to terms with the dark side of their father/mother.

Although Back to the Future is no less a journey than Oz, somehow it has not received its due appreciation. Perhaps its comical nature and fast moving story conceals its underlying themes and historical (mythical) allusions. But the movie is much more than first meets the eye. It is packed with many motifs and scenes from such myths and legends as The Odyssey, the Holy Grail and Oedipus. All in all, Marty McFly undergoes the same journey as the heroes of these myths. His is merely happening in a modern setting.

1) Like the Grail Knight in the well-known myth, Marty is called to save the clock tower and, by his own words, change history. Like the wounded king in the ancient myth, the crowned head of the McFlys, who live at the "regal" Lyons Estate, is a "wounded" Father, who hardly presents a paternal image his son can emulate and follow in his footsteps. Furthermore, the towering symbol of patriarchal authority, the keeper of the collective time, has ceased to function, suggesting a paralyzing spell on the whole town, as when the wounded Fisher King brings desolation upon his kingdom. True to the Grail myth, the young Marty, with his orange "life saver" as his armor and the electric guitar as his sword, has vowed to change this by changing history. In his inadvertent journey back in time, he redeems his father and saves the clock tower by having his car absorb the lightning's electricity. In this way he is truly the Grail Knight, restoring the life of the king and the prosperity of his kingdom.

Marty's journey in time is about changing times past by redeeming his father. Ultimately, his future lies in his father's past. Instead of George initiating his son into manhood, Marty initiates his father. He appears before him as Darth Vader (Dark Father), which recalls Luke Skywalker's saving his father from the dark side. As this sequence suggests, Marty is truly the father to the man. He redeems him so that he can be a successful son to a successful father. Like the past and present re-election slogans, the two take the future in their hands.

True to his heroic stature, Marty brings new strength to his father and new spirit to the young people of Hill Valley. At the dance that Doc calls a "rhythmic ceremonial ritual," with an "axe" borrowed from his "dark" shadow, the Marvin of Martin, the way he rocks "Johnny B. Goode" is truly a heroic performance. Even the black musicians, whose rhythm and blues music is the bedrock of rock and roll, are taken back, as if asking themselves, "Where did this white boy come from?" By bringing rock and roll to Hill Valley, as the King of rock and roll himself had brought it to the world at large, Marty injects new energy and restores life. He frees the teenagers of Hill Valley from Biff as Dorothy freed the Munchkins from the Wicked Witch of the East and the Winkies from the Wicked Witch of the West.

2) Whereas Dorothy's journey is a dream, which she thinks is real, Marty believes his very real journey is a dream. "It's all a dream. Just a very intense dream," he keeps saying to himself. Nevertheless, what awaits him in Hill Valley of l955 is nothing less than what Dorothy discovers in the Land of Oz. Even the road to the town, which he must walk (follow), recalls the Yellow Brick Road. In Marty's case, however, what was formerly a "dream" is now a "nightmare." "Mom, is that you?" he finds himself in his mother's bed. "I had a horrible nightmare, dreamed I went back in time." This suggestive scene with the mother in the boudoir can be easily read as Marty reliving his primal Oedipal scene, every boy's dream and nightmare. Only this time it is the mother who has the hots for her son. And likewise, it is she who resolves her attraction (desire) to Marty. As for Marty, he relives his oedipal attraction to his mother fully aware, conscious, of what is happening. He experiences both the forbidden desire and the forbidding taboo. Rather than seeking to usurp the father so that he can have the mother to himself, Marty must get his father to take his place as the mother's object of desire.

The oedipal drama comes up again when Marty and Lorraine are in the car on the night of the "Enchantment Under the Sea" dance. Once more, Marty is a comical and reluctant Oedipus. Unlike Oedipus, who was blinded by pride and punished himself accordingly by physically blinding himself, Marty is clearly not blinded to the fact that Lorraine and George are his parents. Unlike Oedipus, Marty not only resolves his oedipal conflict but keeps his vision as well. He gets a pair of parents that "look great," and a girlfriend who is "a sight for sore eyes." But then again, Marty's pride was never his strong side; hubris was not his tragic flaw. His major flaw seems to be his lateness; he has "no concept of time." If anything, he is a "slacker" like his father, a member of "The Pinheads," a far cry from the bigheaded Oedipus.

In a way, BTTF is an upside-down Oedipal drama. Rather than kill his father and marry his mother, Marty save his father from being hit by his mother's father. Furthermore, he appears before him as the "Dark Father," instructing him to ask his mother to the dance in his stead. His very existence depends upon their coming together on that fateful night. As intimated by the parents talk of a rematch in their tennis game and the cover and title of George's published book, A Match Made in Space, which arrives at the end of the movie, Marty's journey is a "Rematch Made in Time." Like Dorothy, who returns to the home she dreamed of, Marty brings his parents together according to his "heart's desire."

3) Unlike Dorothy, who does not know her adventure is a dream, Marty is perfectly aware that he is in a living nightmare in 1955. Likewise, he can only wake from his 1985 nightmare by going back in time and changing history. His predicament gives new meaning to the line by the "Irish McFly" (or "Irish Bug," as Biff calls George), James Joyce's Stephen Daedalus, "History is a nightmare from which I'm trying to awake." In fact, surprising as it may seem, there are a number of parallels between this light comedy and Joyce's Ulysses and Homer's Odyssey. While George can be seen as Bloom, in 1985 Marty is both Stephen and Telemacus; in 1955 he is mostly the cunning Odysseus. His "1955: A Time Odyssey" takes only a week, but it is enough time for him to overcome all the obstacles that hinder his going back to his Penelope in 1985. In those seven days he confronts the oversized Cyclops and has his hands full with a 50's model of Circe and Calypso rolled into one. Just as Odysseus was detained seven years under the enchantment of Calypso, not realizing that so much time had passed, his own "Enchantment Under the Sea," so does Marty, in the words of Doc Brown, has no "concept of time." And when the time comes to slay the suitors, it is George who takes the leading role--with perfect timing. Whereas to Marty Biff is the Cyclops, to George he is the arche-suitor. He and his likes want his Penelope for themselves. To cap things off, the figure of Neptune that we see in the "Enchantment Under the Sea" dance, looking askance at George, is the same god who hounded Odysseus and planted scores of hardships and distractions in his journey back home.

Just as Dorothy resolves her mother problem, Marty has to resolve his father problem. After all, what kind of man is he to become with a loser for a father that he feels he comes to resemble more and more? What is he to do when this fact keeps staring him straight in the face? "You got a real attitude problem, McFly," the principal, who wants Marty to toe the accepted line, drives the message home. "You're a slacker. You remind me of your father when he went here. He was a slacker too." This figure of authority not only cuts his father down to size, he also dismisses his father substitute. "Now let me give you a nickel's worth of advice, young man. This so-called Doctor Brown is dangerous, he's a real nutcase." Even worse, Marty cannot escape his own reminding. "What if they say, ‘Get out of here, kid. You got no future.' I mean, I just don't think I can take that kind of rejection. Jesus, I'm beginning to sound like my old man."

Perhaps the only consolation in this father-son predicament is that Marty is not alone. Robert Bly comments on this in his best selling book of the early 90's, Iron John, subtitled, "A Book About Men." In writing about the American man, Bly could be easily talking about Marty McFly.

Unlike the sons described by Bly, however, Marty not only gets a chance to investigate his father. He gets to change him as well, from "an object of ridicule" to one of admiration. "George, you ever think of running for class president?" a girl asks him on the dance floor after his heroic act as George the Dragon Slayer. But even before that, perhaps echoing the Oracle's prophecy to Oedipus, Marty, upon being told by the principal that "No McFly ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley," retorts back, "Yea, well history is gonna change." In journeying back in time, Marty rewrites his-story and awakes from his nightmare. Or as another young man, who plays out his Oedipal drama to its tragic conclusion, has so eloquently put it, "The time is out of joint; O cursed spite/That ever I was born to set it right."[2]

Where Dorothy comes to terms with the dark side of the mother, which allows her to see Em as she truly is, rather than as she would like to see her, Marty's changing history is his coming to see George differently. The wounded father, after all, is more his internalized (introjected) father than the father himself. This is underscored by the fact that from start to finish, with the exception of the "night of the storm," George is always pictured from Marty's point of view. Only on the night that he liberates himself is George seen "objectively," not through Marty's eyes. "I never knew he had it in him," he tells Doc. "He never stood up to Biff in his life."

A seemingly small but significant difference between BTTF and Oz is in the ending. For a moment, seeing Marty in bed in the same position and same clothes he wore before embarking on his journey, we are led to believe that, like Oz, it was all a dream. But the very next scene proves otherwise. Whereas Dorothy's adventure comes to an end with the melting of the Witch, and the movie ends with her waking from her dream with the whole family around her bed, except for Miss Gulch, Biff, Miss Gulch's counterpart, is part of the picture. Rather than destroyed, he is subjugated. He is in the service of the head of the McFly household. Perhaps because BTTF is a more realistic and comical fairy tale than Oz, the shadow figure is not killed; it is integrated in the life of the McFlys.

The outer change in the McFlys, from utter losers to a picture of success, mirrors the inner change that Dorothy has undergone. She alone has changed. In her efforts to get back to her Kansas farm, she has attained a feeling of home within herself.

Whereas on her journey in Oz Dorothy develops her thinking and feeling functions and becomes more courageous, as symbolized by her three companions, in his journey in time, along with changing his-story, Marty rewrites three of our culture's foremost myths. The Fisher King and his kingdom come back to life. Telemachus gets back his father and Odysseus regains his home. Oedipus rematches his mother and father, puts them back together again, according to his heart's desire.

Reflecting on both Oz and BTTF brings to mind a line from a philosophy professor, the subject of a documentary, in Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors: "Love is a return and undoing of the past."[4] In a way, this hefty sentence articulates what is explored most wittily in these two highly entertaining movies. While Dorothy learns that "home" is not over the rainbow but in her own metaphoric back yard, in Marty's case we see that in order to live more fully in the present, in order to discover the "Power of Love," the song which opens BTTF, he has to return to the past and undo the "mistakes we all make," as suggested by the closing song, "Back in Time."

Like fairy tales and myths, the two movies tell us something about ourselves. Like Dorothy and Marty, we have to come to terms with our shadowy parts that are mostly tied, one way or another, with our emotional ties to our parents. We have to come to terms with who they truly are, with their frailties and faults. We have to see and accept them as human beings, with their imperfections and darkness. And that is precisely what Dorothy and Marty do on their journey in space and time. The two come to see their parents as they are. They each come out of the unconscious spell they are under. Dorothy wakes up from her dream, Marty wakes from his nightmare.

Dorothy's first words upon her return, "Oh, Auntie Em, it's you," express her relief and joy to see Em. But they also suggest, as fits the metaphoric journey, that Dorothy sees Em as she really is. Her exclamation, "It's you!" can very well mean that she sees the whole Em. Up to now she only saw one side. Likewise, Marty's "You guys look great," which also come at the end of the movie, point to his new and positive way of seeing. The fact that Marty himself remains as he is, that he does not change, supports the idea that what has changed is his way of seeing. The nightmare he had awaked from was all his own. Like Dorothy, Marty returns home and sees it for the first time, which is another way of saying Back to the Future. With the changed father (and mother) figure, Marty can better contend with such future tasks as becoming a father, which is precisely what Doc informs him he has become in the future.

What Allen's fictionalized philosopher, Lewis Levy, says at the end of Crimes--"We define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are in fact the sum total of our choices."[5]--can very well sum up Oz and BTTF. In the spirit of the two movies, the future is in our minds and in our hands. This is what Glinda means when she tells Dorothy, "You always had the power to go back to Kansas." It is what George means in his last line of the movie, "Like I always told you, if you put your mind to it you could accomplish anything."

[1] Robert Bly, "Iron John," p. 99

[2] William Shakespeare, "Hamlet," Act I, Scene V

[3] Samuel Osherson, "Finding Our Fathers," p. 227

[4] Woody Allen, "Crimes and Misdemeanors,"

[5] W. Allen