Will The Actual Biff Tannen Please Stand Up?
This week?s readings dealt with the virtual and the actual. For the most part, they seemed pretty metaphysical and I had kind of a hard time following them in places. So, when I have a hard time following something I try to relate it to something I?m familiar with. In this case, I thought of something that was perhaps a bit unexpected, but I kept coming back to it as the theme. And when I came up with this post?s original title (?1.21 Jigga Who? Jigga When??), I had to run with it. Besides, what could be more metaphysical than a screen door on a battleship?
Silva states that ?hyperreality is a means of bringing a fake past inside the real present. American society likes to produce copies of a past that has never existed? (p. 55). As Baudrillard would point out, this is not more true than on our television or movie screens. Shows like ?American Dreams? are exemplars of this. It is indicative of a kind of cultural nostalgia, which Luc Sante (author of Low Life) defines as a desire to exist in a simpler time. And since childhood was our personal simpler time, everything prior to our birth must be included as idyllic. One series of films that makes the effort to inject a nostalgic fake past into the present (or at least the present for story): Back to the Future (BTTF). In BTTF I see a metaphor for the theories put forth in our readings for this week, starting with Deleuze?s multiple Adams. I plan to relate the multiple Adams to multiple Biff Tannens in the first two BTTF movies and pose the question will the actual Biff Tannen please stand up.
Deleuze, based on his reading of Leibniz, presents us with the idea of many possible worlds, only one of which may exist at a time. The world in which Adam sinned is incompossible with the world in which he did not sin ? but both are just as possible. He states that our world is made up of ?singularities.? I took singularities to indicate individual events in which a divergence is possible. Deleuze states that worlds a compossible (can exist together) as long as singularites converge, but they become incompossible when they diverge, or go separate directions (p. 60). Put differently, he says ?they do not pass through common values? (p. 61). I think Borges gives a more clear description of the idea when he says there is an ?infinite series of times, in a growing, dizzying net of divergent, convergent and parallel times? (p. 34). BTTF gives us a perfect illustration of this concept.
In BTTF there are two distinct singularities, providing us with at least three different Biff Tannens. The first singularity occurs when George McFly has the choice to either punch Biff or let him take his date. This possible divergence leads to either Biff as George?s boss (Boss Biff) or Biff who waxes George?s car (Waxing Biff). The second singularity occurs when Marty mishandles the Sports Almanac, allowing Biff to find it and use it, resulting in the actualization of Biff who owns casinos (Mogul Biff). Further evidence of the incompossibility of these worlds is given when Doc Brown himself draws a diagram on the chalkboard explaining that the space-time continuum (referred to by Levy, interestingly enough; more on that later) diverged at a point in 1955, altering the reality of 1985. While this is in regard to Mogul Biff, the concept can easily be applied to Waxing Biff?s presence at the end of the first film as well.
So, we can now be sure of at least 3 incompossible worlds, each with a different Biff. Which are virtual? Which is actual? If we look at Levy, they are all both virtual and actual, but at different times. He says that ?the virtual is that which has potential rather than actual existence? (p. 23). Following that line of thought, at the beginning of the series Waxing Biff and Mogul Biff are the virtual Biffs, because they are only potential, they do not actually exist in Marty?s Hill Valley of 1985. So does that mean that Boss Biff is the actual Biff Tannen? Maybe. Levy says that actuality is gained through ?the production of new qualities, a transformation of ideas, a true becoming? (p. 25). Unfortunately, we don?t know enough about Boss Biff or his past to know if such a transformation ever occurred. So, instead we need to look at the actualization of one of the virtual Biffs.
In the first film, George punches Biff, knocking him out. We learn upon the film?s return to 1985 that Boss Biff, a jerk that wrecks George?s car, has been replaced by Waxing Biff, a somewhat bumbling near-servant that wouldn?t dare upset Mr. McFly. In the 30 years since the divergence, new qualities have certainly been produced in Biff: he has become humble and even friendly. Waxing Biff was only a possible reality in 1955, but after the singularity he became actualized as defined by Levy.
So, is Waxing Biff the actual Biff Tannen? Probably not according to Baudrillard. Baudrillard believes that there has been a ?theft of reality by virtual reality? (Poster, p. 135). If we assume that Waxing Biff, whom you will remember was originally only a virtual Biff, is still virtual, his presence at the end of the first film has stolen reality from Boss Biff. Waxing Biff is not actual ? he is an imposter. So who is the actual Biff Tannen according to Baudrillard? He most likely does not exist. Baudrillard believes that simulation has consumed our culture and that ?the simulacrum now hides, not the truth, but the fact that there is [no truth]? (Poster, p. 134). So, as soon as Boss Biff became virtual, there was no longer an actual Biff Tannen. All other Biffs will simply perpetuate the myth of a Biff Tannen.
Speaking of the virtualization of Boss Biff, how exactly did that happen? Levy says that virtualization is ?a change of identity, a displacement of the center of ontological gravity of the object considered? (p. 26). He goes on to say that when virtualization occurs, the object?s ?ontological accent? is placed onto a ?problematic? (p. 27). Did Boss Biff become virtual? Was his ontological accent displaced? I would say so ? the nature of his being shifted from jerkness to humility when he became Waxing Biff.
Let?s move back to the idea of incompossibility. The theory posits that there are a number of possible worlds but they are incompossible ? they cannot exist together. To paraphrase Deleuze, all these Biffs are possible, but they are part of incompossible worlds. Deleuze states ?possible worlds cannot pass into existence if they are incompossible with what God chooses? (p. 63). BTTF does not deal with God, but the compossibility of the worlds does depend on the choices of Marty. Marty chooses to purchase the Sports Almanac and then chooses to not treat it with the care it deserves. Through his choice, he dictates which world is ?best.? Unfortunately for him, the world he chooses is the 1985 that is dominated by Mogul Biff. Leibniz does not believe that God is nonmalevolent (p. 63), and apparently in Hill Valley, he?s not. It then becomes Marty?s job to change the world back to a more pleasant one, because as Deleuze argues, incompossibility does not necessarily mean predestiny.
To make the change, Mogul Biff must be returned to virtuality. To do so, Marty must re-alter the time-space continuum. Levy claims that we do not deal with a ?uniform chronology? (p. 30). He goes on to say that the first step of virtualization is the ?invention of new velocities? (p. 32). Perhaps the flux capacitor is the invention that allows for new velocities, which in turn create ?mutant space-time systems? (p. 33). Is 88 miles per hour the speed at which one becomes virtual?
So, in conclusion, if Mogul Biff and Boss Biff have been virtualized and Waxing Biff is an impostor, who is the actual Biff Tannen? I?m not sure, but I know he plays guitar.
