Christmas Movie Marathon, Day 26 — It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

I don't know if you guys follow a long with (or accidentally read too much about) internet fandoms for TV shows, books, or movies, but THEY ARE REAL, and they are a big deal to those involved. When it comes to romances among characters, there is a specific language used to describe them. For example, if you think two characters should be in love or have feelings for each other and you want them to be in a relationship, you "ship" them. (get it? relationship?) Everyone who is involved in fandoms, be it one or multiple, or even overlapping fandoms where people pretend that the characters of different TV shows or books interact, you have an OTP. One True Pairing. The two characters that you ship above all your other ships, and whose love burns hotter than one thousand overheated laptops.

MY OTP IS GEORGE AND MARY BAILEY.

They are perfect and their love and friendship is the stuff of legends. Seriously, the scenes where they are courting and he wants to give her the moon. I mean, it's too much. I just tear up with joy and my heart swells whenever I see it.

I kind of find it weird that this is a traditional Christmas Eve movie for so many people, when it only centers on Christmas for the last 30 minutes of the movie. I know it technically starts on a grim Christmas Eve, and then his past is played out in front of him, but the only reason it would matter that it takes place on Christmas Eve is that it would be the end of the year for his business, which is notoriously a hard time for money and when people need money the most for their families, so the tension is higher. Otherwise, it's the story of a great man who sacrificed his big dreams to keep his town and family afloat, and who fell in love with a great lady who saw his sacrifice, appreciated it, and shared in his dream.

I didn't realize how much I adored this movie, Frank Capra, and not to mention Jimmy Stewart, who is just wonderful and charming (i.e. Shop Around the Corner, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and duh, the Hitchcock movies) until I took a film class my second-to-last semester in college. We watched a few Jimmy movies in class, but this one was one we could watch outside of class as a bonus. It was the first time I actually sat down gave it my full attention, forgetting about the classic Christmas references to it, and that horrible child voice screaming, "Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings!" and I really just fell in love with it. And his voice! His voice. He's just dreamy.


Let's be honest, most of this movie marathon turned out to be about me fully watching movies instead of just seeing parts of them. This one is definitely worth every single minute of the watch.

Love, the only member of the It's a Wonderful Life (IAWL) fandom,
Stephanie