Well, tis the season for me to talk about something that I have no business being so passionate about. And that something is Mary Hatch Bailey from the movie ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’.
Disclaimer: If you haven’t seen the movie this blog post will not make any sense. Also shame on you, it’s such a classic! You really ought to consider watching it! Just keep in mind that George really isn’t the hero, okay. I’m going to tell you right now that the real hero is Mary. Mary carries the movie, dude. She is the one who saves everybody in every situation and does everything. And I feel that for decades, audiences have unappreciated her as much as George Bailey unappreciated her throughout the movie.
Remember when Black Friday hits and everybody’s running on the bank and they’re about to all go under? Do you know who saved the day? It was Mary. Mary was the one who gave up her honeymoon and all their money. It was Mary’s idea. And did she cry about her own wedding day being ruined? No, she did not. She went out, got them a house, improvised her own honeymoon. Made a full rotisserie chicken over the fireplace, like who is this woman???
So that’s number one. Number two is a spoiler alert because I got to talk about the end of the movie, but Mary is the one who saves George’s a$$. She’s the one who finds out what’s going on, makes a plan, runs around the town asking people for help. That was all Mary! You know what? She was even the one who was like, “Yeah kids, you ought to pray for your dad.” So I’m even going to go as far as to say that the angel actually came from Mary. Mary Bailey, the real angel of the story who could have bust her own large feathery wings when the bell jingles on the Christmas tree in the end.
She saves everybody. She singlehandedly reconstructs an entire abandoned Victorian mansion while having four kids and helping the war effort.
I once knew somebody that disliked Mary. And maybe the reason I became passionate about the subject was because of this one conversation that I had 15 years ago. But this person said that she was a weak character because and I quote, “all she wanted to do was get married”. Okay, excuse me, then how come if George Bailey is never born she decides not to get married at all? Riddle me that piece of information, sir. I just completely disagree with you fifteen plus years later. She gets a college degree. She is a talented cartoonist. You really can’t tell me anything bad about her.
And in fact, I would just like to say that the part where she “became an old maid” makes me laugh every year. I just know those writers were like, “Now how would Mary be worse off without George?” AND THEY COULDN’T THINK OF ANYTHING. The WORST thing that these men writers could think of was, “Okay what if she was a hot single librarian at 35? That would be so tragic.” Like, okay sure. It still makes her a strong as hell character in my opinion, because she had the opportunity to marry hee haw millionaire Sam Wainwright and said no against her mother’s obvious wishes.
DOES THAT SOUND LIKE A CHARACTER WHO “ONLY WANTS TO GET MARRIED”???
So, this is my official petition to rename the movie to, “It’s a Wonderful Wife” because I don’t even know what the story would be without Mary.
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