Piss Off, Land of the Dead and Never Born
Piss Off, Land of the Dead and Never Born
The Window to the Better Soul
December 18, 2020
The Eyes of Mary
Mary never wore glasses until George was dead. Or until George had never been born.
You remember that all throughout It’s a Wonderful Life, Mary never wore glasses. Not in high school, not at her wedding, not while working for the USO, not when George went crazy. Never.
Until she entered the netherworld where there was no George Bailey and Mary ended up a timid old maid working at the library. Would Pottersville have even had a library? And c’mon, Mary would never have been an old maid in any world. They should have made her a killer, a hooker, a gambler, but never alone.
Not Mary Hatch.
But without George Bailey she ended up wearing glasses. Alone, afraid and, because life really sucks, working on Christmas Eve.
Wearing glasses.
Until, that is, tonight, when she dropped her glasses on the frozen grass and a man and his dog found them and wondered what kind of books old maid Mary Hatch liked to read and how hard she struggled to keep people literate, civilized, and sane in the dystopian hell that was upstate New York Pottersville.
Here are your glasses, Mary. Don’t put them on. You can see fine without them. You can see that you never really needed that goofy old George, Mary. You know that. You could have married any guy in Bedford Falls. Or any girl.
Not that you need anyone. You are you, Mary.
You probably didn’t even need the glasses. And we guess you didn’t just read books, you wrote them. You grabbed your typewriter on Christmas Day and penned a spectral tale of love, greed, loneliness, war, loss, and redemption. But Hollywood, as it does, Mary, made George the star, not you. Not you the strong, beautiful, smart girl.
The remake will get it right. It will be all about you. And George will only think of killing himself when he imagines a life without you. --TK
Friday, December 18, 2020