"The Mary Problem"

 Carrying Christmas over a few days....though perhaps It's A Wonderful Life is not *purely* a Christmas movie, we think of it as such because the important denouement happens at Christmas, but.

Anyway, a criticism of the film that I always kind of sympathized with was "why do they show Mary as an old maid, and show that as a terrible fate for a woman?"

well, arguably, in those days, if you didn't marry and didn't come from money, you STRUGGLED. I mean, unless you were a brilliant inventor or good at business or an entertainer, and even then you might struggle. But ordinary women? They worked as nurses or schoolteachers or librarians, and were low-paid, and a lot of them lived in rooming houses and didn't really own anything of value and didn't have any good plans for retirement. 

But even except for that - a lot of people pointed out, Mary was beautiful and good and talented, she probably could have married ANY man and been comfortable - perhaps even married old "Hee-Haw" who was an airplane designer. 

But this author points out - in the alternative universe, Mary doesn't marry because George was the only man for her, and since he didn't exist.....well. The author argues that she telegraphs from early in the movie that George is the only man for her.

and yeah, maybe? Though I also admit I am unconvinced that (a) there is a "one person" for every person; that there are probably multiple people they could happily build a life with but also (b) there may be some of us who don't HAVE "a person" - we never meet someone suitable for whatever reasons. 

And yes, in a way I am kind of a Mary....what was her maiden name? I go to work, I labor in obscurity, I go home. If I lived in a town where there were lecherous dudes roaming around I'd probably react much like she did. And I admit these days, I do worry that maybe my life is emptier than it might have been but....well, them's the breaks I guess. 

Though another point in the article that I like is this one: "...like all the greatest Christmas literature, it has an undercurrent of darkness to it. Like A Christmas Carol or A Charlie Brown Christmas, it deals with the death of human hopes as much as their renewal."

 Maybe, maybe it's not so horrible to feel a bit wistful, or a bit as if there isn't as much bright hope as one might want there to be? And that new hopes have to somehow be built on the ashes of the old ones? And of course, there's the whole subplot in "It's a Wonderful Life" where George *never* gets to do what he states he wants - he never travels the world, he never sees all the exciting things. And yet, from the outside at least, his life looks pretty good - a pretty wife who loves him deeply and is a better "helpmeet" than he probably can possibly imagine, and children who adore him, and other family members around (even if one of them does, by his absent mindedness, causes a big problem). AND in the end? Everyone he helped in the past step up to help him, right when he needs it.

And yes, that's the real optimism of the movie: that if you do good for others, when you need it, they turn around and do good for you. I WANT to still believe that but that belief diminishes the more I see of people...