The Mating Game (1959)
This is the kind of movie my parents used to take me to see when I was 8 years old. All the Doris Day/Rock Hudson comedies — Pillow Talk, Lover Come Back, Send Me No Flowers blend together. This similar one has Debbie Reynolds and Tony Randall. We used to see these movies at the drive-In. For most people today, drive-in’s are a kind of legend, but when I was a kid they were a fantasy come true. We would pile into the car, my sister and I. I remember we used to go in our pajamas and bring pillows to snuggle into. And we would always go to the refreshment stand to get treats when they played the wacky intermission music — with the cartoon characters on the screen parading around munching snacks (did we go to the popcorn stand in our pyjamas? I remember there was always an intermission…) And there were these heavy, metal speakers that you would attach to the window and— and I don’t remember much about the movies, except that they all gave you a good feeling. And that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with having a good feeling. The Mating Game is the best example of that certain formula type American movie with a Frank Capra sensibility. The common folk are good, the government is bad. The country people are wise, the city folk are deluded. And it’s easy enough for one hayseed with a little common sense to challenge the bureaucratic bullshit that clogs up government at the top. In The Mating Game there’s the added appeal of a kind of Annie Get Your Gun attitude to sex. Do you remember the song ‘Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly? It definitely applies here. It was very scandalous for it’s time (1946)— “Sister Lou ain't got a sou / Although she goes out shoppin’ / She gets all her stockings free / Doin' what comes natur’lly!” When their young and vivacious daughter Debbie Reynolds is rolling around in the hay with three young beaus, her parents Ma and Pop Larkin nod, and say — “She’s ripe and ready.” Pop is always trying to get into Ma’s pants and slapping her on the ass, and Ma seems okay with that. They have five children and enjoy watching pigs do it. When Tony Randall comes to collect back taxes on their farm, he just can’t foreclose because, he falls for Debbie Reynolds, and who wouldn’t? Whenever Randall’s boss from the Internal Revenue Service comes to the farm, the animals try to kill him. “I don’t know why Mr Kelsey — but you just don’t seem to hit it off with the animal kingdom,” muses Ma Larkin.Well, the reason my parents used to take us to the movies (and they also had a lot of parties for this reason) is because they would do anything to stop from fighting. And drive-ins were also a way to sell us on the idea everything was alright, and we were just one big happy family. When my mother left my father we didn’t know it was happening. My sister and I were figure skating at the time (don’t ask, I was a terrible figure skater, my ‘pro’ Gordon Menzies once told my mother that I jumped like a ton of bricks). Well one summer my mother took my sister and I to Toronto from Buffalo — ostensibly to skate at the Cricket Club. We rented an old red brick house on Moore Avenue in East York with dark porches and dark woodwork inside. Well one night I caught my mother kissing a man on the stairs. It was very upsetting. I asked my mother about it and she said “Oh, your father knows.” I’ll never forget the day she told us they were getting a divorce. All I remember was crying endlessly — no no no, it couldn’t be true, our life was over etc. That —and the fact that I’m a raging effeminate homosexual — were the only two things in my life which didn’t fit. My therapist tells me I have ‘abandonment issues.’ I never thought the divorce was a big issue for me but my therapist says it’s more than that. I always expect everything to end. And everything will end (it’s called death). But you’re not supposed to be worry about that all the time, apparently. But I can’t abandon myself to The Mating Game —- not just because of my abandonment issues — but because the picture it paints of the world — then and now — is just not true. I love to see Mr. Smith go to Washington and watch his integrity smash all the hypocritical government crooks. But today I got on the GO train and it was SO humiliating. The car was high up off the ground and I used the disabled level to get in there.The guy who opened the door was very cute but — don’t be fooled — he hated me on sight (was I that evidently gay? Keep in mind I have pink earphones, I’m sorry, I just do). He asked me if I needed the ramp and I said no, “I just need to be high up on the disabled platform so that I can get directly on the car” — and he looked at me with such contempt and said — “Why don’t you need the ramp?” — like I was ‘fake disabled’ or something. So I said, “Okay get the ramp” and he went to get it, and I struggled to get in the car. And then I went to sit upstairs because I could be away from people (which is what you’re supposed to do right?) And he said “I get you the ramp and now you just march upstairs?” So the issue was, if I needed the ramp to get in the car, then I shouldn’t be able to get up the stairs. “Do you want me to tell you the kind of arthritis I have?” He just looked at me. Then I lost it. “Why should I have to describe my disability to you in detail?” And he was furious mad at me, glaring at me and making notes in his little notepad. I called GO which I knew was hopeless. I explained that I felt threatened by this guy, and did he have a right to ask me what my disability was, and challenge whether or not I could use the disability car? And I got the COVID-19 speech “You know the times we are living in, we don’t want the cars to be crowded.” I said. “You don’t have to tell me about the times we are living in — but this car is completely empty.” I was shaking afterwards —which I know is stupid. But I’ll tell you why. It’s because we have absolutely no power. “Would you like to leave a complaint with the Courtesy Department?” he asked. No, frankly I won’t bother. Justin Trudeau is telling us he is going to apply the War Measures Act and there is NOTHING WE CAN DO ABOUT IT. And yes this mega world has been getting more and more mega every year. And how are we supposed to deal with feeling so helpless? Or is that the way life is now — everyone is helpless in the face of ‘it’, now? And what is ‘it’ exactly? And do I want to know?
