Fun_People Archive
9 Feb
Another view of Hell

Date: Thu,  9 Feb 95 12:21:14 PST
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: Another view of Hell

Forwarded-by: bostic@CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca (Quote of the day)

"...it also occurred to me that my version of a happy life was Frank
 Capra's vision of a tragic hell.  When he wrote It's a Wonderful Life
 and was inventing the worst possible fate for the Donna Reed character
 in the event that the Jimmy Stewart character had never been born, he
 showed her looking well-groomed and fit, in a smart little two-piece
 suit, headed home after a long day of work.  The first time I saw this,
 I thought to myself, "Hmm.  Interesting.  Apparently Mary did okay all
 by herself."  That was before I realized that Frank Capra was forcing
 her to wear a slightly dorky-looking hat in order to warn us that he
 felt something was terribly wrong with this picture.  And seconds later,
 a horror music sting accompanying the narrative clearly indicates how
 Frank Capra regarded the destiny he assigned her.

"`What became of Mary?' Jimmy Stewart asks the angel.

"`She never married,' replies the angel, his voice quaking with emotion
 as though he were about to reveal that she'd been beaten to death with a
 rake.  `There she is now.  She's closing up the library!!'  Frank
 Capra's vision of a woman with no reason to live: all dressed up in a
 suit, on her way home to an empty house, and, worst of all, condemned to
 make very bad hat choices.  Wow.  Talk about a waking nightmare.  Here I
 thought my life was okay and whoops, silly me...turns out I'm actually a
 resident of hell."

		--Merrill Markoe,  How to Be Hap-Hap-Happy Like Me 

© 1995 Peter Langston