Great message for girls who watch this film
No matter how attractive, intelligent and outgoing a woman is, without a husband, she will end up as a lonely, withdrawn recluse.
share
share
MovieChat Forums > It's a Wonderful Life (1947) Discussion > Great message for girls who watch this f...
Not that there's anything wrong with that......
sharewelcome to the '40's
shareso whats your point? that people shouldn't watch this movie? That any movie that might says something that some one could interpret as negative should be banned?
i told you not to stop the boat. Now lets go. Apocaylpse Now
That's not the message...cause if not, explain violet...and the maid didn't have a hubby either and she was ok with it and wasnt portrayed in a negative.
The point with Mary was that she was attractive and all that, but she really just wanted George. All the other guys just didn't do it for her...and with George not around she just didn't bother. But the other gals carried on fine.
Yup that was the point she lost her soulmate. Like the other guy said she could have had Sam or any number of dudes. In the alternate time line she kept searching I'm sure before giving up. Wasn't sexist or anything.
shareBut in the movie, she had a crush on George from the time she was a child and had vowed to love him until the day she died. If George had never been born, she wouldn't have had known him ito begin with. So she would have remained single because she couldn't find a guy whom she never knew in the first place???
shareI agree, tim, that this film is stupid for promoting that stupid message.
But don't worry, no woman is stupid enough to believe that stupid message, so it won't have any effect on the real world.
but she really just wanted George
No she didn't. She spent a great deal of this film tramping around with another man in a pointless side plot that was randomly dropped out of the blue in the middle of the film. share
No she didn't. She spent a great deal of this film tramping around with another man in a pointless side plot that was randomly dropped out of the blue in the middle of the film.
That wasn't how I saw it. She was dating other guys (hardly "tramping around") but she wasn't really interested in them and instead of that other guy she was seeing being dropped out of nowhere, she just was able to get together with George and immediately ditched the other guy.
Only really wanting one guy doesn't mean she can't date other people when her real interest wasn't available. share
She was dating other guys (hardly "tramping around") but she wasn't really interested in them
How is that not tramping around?
What was she dating them for then? Was she gold digging them? Why was she wasting their time, money, and energy? Why was she misleading them?
No matter that justification you give, if as you say she was dating guys who she was not really interested in, then she was being unethical. share
Well no, that entirely depends on the situation. It's not "unethical" to simply go out with someone you're not seriously interested in. You're assuming that Mary was pretending that she was in love with these people and intended to marry them and that the guys, furthermore, were in love with her and planning on marrying her. That would be unethical if she did that but that doesn't seem like her character.
Even back then (and certainly now!) people could take other people out just because it was fun and know it wasn't serious and have no intention of getting married. If Mary had dated a different guy every week she probably would have gotten a reputation as being loose but it wouldn't be unethical of her. If she was going through people that quickly no one would be thinking she was going to marry them and no one would be led on.
If people asked Mary out and she agreed and marriage wasn't on the table (which it wouldn't have been that early into a relationship) there's nothing unethical about it. I'm sure she liked the guys she was going out with (because if she didn't like a guy why would she agree to go? She wouldn't have a good time) but she didn't love them and if people waited until they were in love to date pretty much no one would date. Dating is often see if you will fall in love and if you do you might get married. Mary simply took the opportunities that came her way and went out with nice men she liked but, in a world without George, she simply never managed to meet and go out with a man she felt strongly enough about to get married to.
And that seems quite ethical to me (perhaps overly so, I'm sure she could have found someone to marry who was okay with her not loving him), not marrying a man she didn't love just because she wanted companionship and security and children.
This whole idea that you couldn't go out with people that you weren't 100% gone on, even then, is really bizarre to me.
And what a great message Gone with the Wind has for guys who watch the film. You can be charming and rich, but you still have to spend your life chasing a woman who's preoccupied with another man. You can sarcastically point out something similar of characters in virtually every movie.
By the rules of the film, with George and Mary being soulmates, neither of them could have found happiness in the arms of another. In fact, Mary might have been the only woman on earth who George would settle down for. He tells her he doesn't want marriage, but in the end he can't resist her, specifically. Thus it makes sense that if you had an alternate reality where Mary had never been born instead, George wouldn't have been married and happy in it either.
___
I used to think I knew everything about the world. Now I just know that it's round.