Clarity On Fire

OK, so you know that part in Back to the Future when Marty McFly gets on stage during the Enchantment Under the Sea dance? He straps on a guitar and starts playing so that his teenaged parents will dance, kiss, fall in love, and ensure that he eventually gets born. Well, one of my favorite moments of that scene is when he loses himself for a few minutes in a crazy electric guitar riff of Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode. All the 1950s teens stop dancing and just stare at him, mouths slightly agape, before he comes to his senses and realizes they have never heard anyone play a guitar like that. Marty awkwardly gets up and mumbles, “I guess you guys aren’t ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it.” The joke lands because we, the audience, know how popular rock n’ roll will become. But to a 1950s teenager, Marty just looks sort of insane.  I love this vignette because it’s EXACTLY what happens to anybody who lives in a world that, in some way or another, isn’t ready for them—they’re misunderstood, labele