The University of London’s Royal Holloway college asked over 3,000 people to pick the “perfect family film”, and the result was Back to the Future (1985), reports BBC News.
Interestingly, the Sun reports that researchers said the film topped the list “because it combines the perfect mix of ingredients — comedy, romance, social justice and adventure — essential to family viewing.” I first came across this report elsewhere, and wasn’t quite sure what to make of the claim that “social justice” was a part of this film until I read the Sun story, in which a researcher defines “social justice” as basically nothing more than the “good guys” winning. (Contrast this with the DVD, where one of the filmmakers actually apologizes for the fact that the original film bought into Reagan-era materialism, by defining success in terms of owning a better car and wearing better clothes, etc.; this, supposedly, was rectified by the more “spiritual” implications of the sequels.) But then I saw the BBC report and learned that, when asked to pick the most important ingredient in a “family film”, only 4% of the respondents picked “social justice”, well behind the results for sex appeal, suspense, fantasy, romance, adventure, and especially comedy, which got 40% of the vote. So it sounds to me like someone mentioned “social justice” just because they thought would be good for the sound bite.
And is it just me, or is it a little funny that the “perfect family film” is one in which a guy’s mother falls in love with him?
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