The Romantic Allure of Total Commitment in It’s a Wonderful Life
Marriage is the number one killer of romance. Don’t believe me? Take this simple quiz. Try to think of ten movies, made in the last ten years, that depict a married couple who have a sizzling love life – with each other. Stumped? Now try it again, only this time, name ten films that depict two single people having an intense romantic relationship. Not so hard, is it? Just open the paper to the movie listings and select freely.
People make sense of their lives through the stories of their culture. What we “know” about the world is often not acquired first-hand, but comes to us from secondary sources. In this, the most mediated generation of all time, those stories tend to come from film. It is little wonder, then, that so many young people are putting off marriage. Simply look at the stories that they are most consistently told. Movies tell them that all the events leading up to the wedding are electrifying, full of intense emotional longing, heart fluttering, loss, redemption, and professions of undying love. But “I do” is romantic death.
In last week’s column, I compared the romance message of the vampire teen angst film, Twilight, with the cynical, immature, and anti-marriage message of the appalling Four Christmases. Twilight, I argued, is demonstrably better as a romance film because, while it contains all of the trappings of normal teen courting, it also illustrates that patience, waiting, and sexual restraint before marriage can be a fulfilling source of romance. Additionally, nothing wins a woman over quite like the willingness of her man to face death for her. But there is a holiday film that easily ups the ante in romantic wagers: a man who would certainly be willing to die for his love, but who, instead, chooses to live for her. After all, martyrdom is easy – you only have to die once. Lifetime commitment is harder – you have to be willing to die every day.
In 2006, in the category The Most Powerful Film of All Time, the American Film Institute awarded the number one slot to Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life. This 1946 release is rightfully a holiday classic, though its only connection to Christmas appears in the last part of the film. Normally lauded as a movie that affirms the value of every human life, it is also a compelling case study of the kind of marriage for which most of us long: a marriage marked by a deep, sacrificial love.
