you're missing all the fun

I

The thing is, maybe the time loop isn't even about Phil Connors at all. A case could be made... or rather I would now like to make the case that the time loop might... oh, I'll just say it. The time loop is about the people of Punxsutawney and it begins when they boo Punxsutawney Phil's prediction that there will be six more weeks of winter and ends when they are listen quietly but alertly to Phil Connors eloquently proclaiming more winter to be something good. Maybe Phil has to change to get to that point, but it could all come down to the people. They don't appreciate winter. And, that seems very wrong to me, considering they live where they do. You'd think they were new to cold winters. Unfortunately, the film Groundhog Day chronicles not the learning experience of the locals but only of Phil, the one stranger who knows what is going on. I imagine the god of winter is a fickle bastard, punishing the whole town and not even letting them know about it.

II

In all my Christ-Figure talk on this blog--

twelve years of catholic school talking
gosh, i should have known
here's the report

--I have neglected to mention the whole "prima donna" thing. See, Larry appropriately calls Phil a prima donna. That's Italian for first lady and comes from the term for self-centered Opera stars. Quite similar, though, is madonna, my lady, a representation of Mary. There are very few children in Groundhog Day. Aside from the boy I call Zacchaeus, there are a handful of kids at the Banquet, and those few involved in the snowball fight. Phil tells us (or tells her, rather) that Rita is kind to children, but we never see this demonstrated. So, this madonna is clearly without child (in paintings, it's a madonna with or without the baby Jesus). On the one hand, the link to the madonna suggests a variation on the "holy exclamation" aspect of the Christ-Figure (Kozlovic, 2004).

III

On the other hand--and this totally needed to be its own thing in this collection of disparate thoughts that hadn't become their own entries in this blog--the suggestion that Phil is somehow a "pre-madonna" implies a link that is quite crazy even for me. The time loop is God's way of getting the virginal Rita to accept Phil so that they can conceive a new savior. Under the watchful eye of at least two angels, remember: the one in the Cherry Street Inn's front yard, and the one Phil himself creates out of ice. The madonna, then, may be Phil, or may be Rita--she is there every time Larry uses the label. Groundhog Day is a modern-day retelling of how God got Mary pregnant. Joseph was stuck in a time loop, obviously, until Mary learned to appreciate him.

How blasphemous was that?

IV

Though I could just end with that craziness, I have to include new things when I notice them. I noticed Miss Punxsutawney before--I labeled her in a screencap from the Banquet, but she's also on stage at Gobbler's Knob. Tonight, I noticed that the guy next to her on stage also has a red... thing. His isn't the over-the-shoulder sash that hers is, but it's just as red. And before the blu-ray it was probably all a red blur. Tonight I noticed that his "sash" proclaims him "King." That's a weird mismatch, having a Miss and a King, but at least the town isn't being entirely sexist.

I'm sure the god of winter appreciates that.

Today's reason to repeat a day forever: to blog every random thought and idea I have, only to have them lost in the aether when resumption comes.