And "Wonderrful Life"

I did my annual (I try to see it every year) viewing of "It's a Wonderful Life" last night.

I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this movie, which is probably a mark of it being a good movie. And yes, I know a lot of people haaaaate it, though sometimes I think either they misunderstand it, or maybe it clashes with their political/personal feelings.

One of the complaints is that George is "too good." And yeah, perhaps in some ways, he is - but he also goes off at Uncle Billy when he discovers the loss of the money, and he does yell at his kids, and he unloads on his youngest daughter's teacher over the phone....and in a way it is kind of scary, maybe even MORE scary, when someone who seems normally "good" and kind gets angry.

(Thought: maybe that's why my quiet anger made such an impression on the students the time I had a case of serious plagiarism and had to explain why I didn't have their papers graded to hand back on he day I had said I would. I didn't yell or rant; I was quiet and controlled. But yes, I was *angry* because that person had subverted the assignment - whose goal, even though it's a LOT of work for me, is to give them practice in something many of them will have to do on-the-job. I was also *scared* when I knew I had a case of plagiarism but couldn't absolutely *prove* it until I was able to find a record of the data the student re-used from an earlier paper. Scared, because I feared that if I couldn't prove it that way, I'd either have to directly confront the student or let it slide, and then in the future deal with more plagiarism)

And yes, it's kind of painful to think of how much he is the sacrificial lamb - he gives up on his big dreams to take care of those around him. He takes the Building and Loan after his father dies, he gives up his plans to go away to college in favor of his younger brother's chances,  he gives up his fancy honeymoon to save the Building and Loan during the bank run.

And I suppose those of a more cynical nature would say, "Maybe he gave up his big dreams because he secretly knew he wouldn't be that great of an architect" and I admit for myself, laboring in relative obscurity at a small, teaching-oriented school instead of having striven to go to an R1 and do Big Research, some days I wonder about myself: well, maybe you weren't that smart or talented after all; maybe the big R1 would have chewed you up and spat you out. Or: Well, you know, you're really kind of lazy, you wouldn't be able to hack the work an R1 expects and the level of sacrifice of any kind of personal life or anything outside of your career.

And I don't know. On bad days, when things are going badly, I say that to myself. But on better days, I go "I'm grateful I didn't wind up with a career at an R1, because I probably wouldn't be able to go home and knit some evenings, and I wouldn't be able to be as active in church as I am, and I'd probably deal with more cutthroat colleagues"

And yeah, maybe your life doesn't take the path you originally intended or that others thought you would take - but maybe sometimes you wind up on the path you're supposed to be on?

I think the more troubling "sacrificial lamb" aspect for George Bailey is that, until the very ending of the film, he's being set up - he's setting himself up, as the one with responsibility for the building and loan - to take the fall for the bad thing that happened - a bad thing that was fundamentally an accident. If you've seen the movie (and I guess I should have offered a spoiler alert, but then, who in the US isn't at least low-level familiar with the story), you know that Uncle Billy, who is sort of a half-wit, while gloating over Harry Bailey's success and good actions (he saved all the soldiers on a transport), winds up handing off the $8000 mistakenly to Mr. Potter.

And Potter, of course, because he's a twisted, unhappy, probably deeply-insecure man, finds the money when he gets back to his office....and he keeps it. Doesn't say anything to anyone.

And another childhood memory here: when I was quite small I remember going to the bank with my mother. This was a regular thing when we would go out grocery shopping; she'd cash a check and pay cash for the groceries. (In those days, children, credit cards were much less widespread, using them was more effort and time, and while my parents HAD one or two, they only used them for very large purchases or sometimes while traveling). Anyway, one day the teller made an error and gave my mother more money - I think it may have been as much as $100 - than the check was for. And I remember my mother stopping in the grocery store when she looked in the envelope the teller had handed her, and saying, "This money isn't ours. We have to go back." And we did, then and there, left the store and went back to the bank, and she found the teller and explained and handed the money back.

And here came the lesson for me, that has stuck with me all my life: The teller almost cried a little. She thanked my mother for coming back, for being honest, and said, "If you hadn't come back, I could have lost my job over that."

Everything you do - even everything you *don't* do - has consequences. And so, I learned that day, you should strive to be honest, because dishonesty could hurt another person, and you don't want to do that.

And so, I admit a little horror over the thought of Potter probably knowing *exactly* what his keeping the $8000 would lead to, and his secret gloating over that. And as I once opined before, literally any other resident of Bedford Falls, if they wound up with the money, would have realized what had happened, would have chased down Uncle Billy and returned it (or better, gone straight to the Building and Loan), and the whole dark-night-of-the-soul of George Bailey would have been prevented.

But it happens, and instead of throwing Uncle Billy under the bus, George decides he has to be the one to take the fall. It will mean disgrace, probably disgrace for his family, and prison time for him, likely - or at least, so he imagines - and he tries to do something to fix it, including going to Potter, who could have so easily handed the money over and told George to fire Uncle Billy. Instead, Potter cracks that George is "worth more dead than alive," an awful thing to say to someone, especially someone in George's state of mind. (Dear God, did Potter *hope* George would kill himself? Was he that depraved?)

But of course, the rest of the story is - Clarence shows up, shows George what a hole he would leave if he had never been born. The one uncomfortable bit that doesn't ring quite right is Mary Hatch as an old-maid librarian, the implication being that's the worst fate a woman can suffer - though maybe Violet Bick's is worse? - but maybe it's more that she's become invisible, as that writer notes - and yes, as she is crying and screaming and running down the street from George, whom she doesn't recognize in this alternate universe, no one stops, no one asks, "Hey, is this lout bothering you?" It's not until she bursts into a bar - a bar she's never been in before, I suspect - and collapses against the bar, practically in the arms of what I only assume is the B-girl who is working there - that people notice she's in danger. That without his love, she's drawn so inward on herself she might as well not exist...

And through it all, sort of a reverse "A Christmas Carol," George slowly realizes that he needs to exist, after all, and that taking himself out of the world ("throwing away the gift," as the language of the movie goes)  is not a desirable thing.

And he is overjoyed to find himself alive again - that his mouth is bleeding where the miserable teacher's husband punched him, that his car is crashed into the tree, and even, think of it: that he's going to have to go back into town and face a bank examiner over the loss of the $8000* and likely someone with a warrant for his arrest.

(*According to Mason Friedman's inflation calculator: $102,139.77 in 2017 dollars, so yes, a heck of a lot of money)

Think of that: you're facing absolute ruin and likely prison time. You don't want to blame your half-wit uncle for it. You don't know where the money went. But you're still happier to go to that than some uncertain fate where you didn't exist, or a clear one where you *stop* existing.

But anyway: Mary managed, apparently, to figure out a plan, she is quietly fixing things.

And of course, the denoument anyone who has seen the movie remembers: George returns home, he hugs his children, Mary comes back home and is filled with incredible relief to see he's there. And then stupid old Uncle Billy comes in carrying a laundry basket.

All of George's friends - all the people he helped through the years, from the man he talked down during the bank run to the African-American cook who worked for his family while he was growing up to the owner of the bar that he helped buy a house - show up. And they all throw money in the basket. And the unspoken thing is that it will total *at least* $8000, and of course, George's old romantic rival, Sam Wainwright, phones in an offer of $25,000 to help out....and the man with the warrant for George's arrest tears it up, with a smile, and walks out, Clarence gets his wings, and George is reminded that "No man is a failure who has friends."

And yes, it makes me cry. Every time. Because, to be honest, that's the world I want: where you are good to other people, you treat them with kindness and respect, and when you need it, that kindness and respect come back to you.

(Remember: Potter referred to the people George helped as "riff raff," and also used the term "garlic eaters," which I presume was a mild ethnic slur against the Italian Martinis. And George came back at him with essentially "And these are the people who keep this town running")

And yes, I admit, it's an idealized view, and maybe in the real world, some of those people George tried to help would be more riff-raffy and some of them in the real world might have gone, "Eh, he's one of the richer ones, let him help himself" and turned back to their own family dinner.

But like I said: the world of Bedford Falls is probably at least a little nicer than the real world, and it's a world I'd like our world to be more like, at least in the aspect of "Hey, that guy helped me when I needed it, the least I can do is help him a little now."

And I know another criticism of the movie is: how does it fix things? Isn't there still allegedly evidence of bank fraud, at least as the examiner might think it? But I imagine the next day, everything would be explained, and the examiner would shrug and go, "Well, the $8000 is here now" and go on his way. And another criticism is that Potter never sees punishment but really? I think of the comment my grad-school buddy Craig once made when I was suffering with a terrible boss who made me cry on a regular basis: "You only have to work with her; she has to live with herself." Sometimes people who are insecure enough to do terrible things live in a Hell of their own making, and I kind of think that's Potter's fate. And really, the movie isn't about him - he's alone on Christmas Eve, probably in an ugly, drafty, grand old house, instead of surrounded by warmth and cheer (and broken newel-posts) as Bailey is.

(And maybe that's a lesson, too: I learned early on that sometimes richer people are not necessarily happier than the rest of us)

I've also read criticism that the movie is somehow "anti-capitalist." I guess it was even flagged during the McCarthy era. But I'm not sure I agree: it may not be so much "anti-capitalist" (after all, what is George Bailey, with his Building and Loan? He's not handing out houses to people - they're investing, and over time they get their modest home). I might say it's more "anti-cronyism" or "anti-dehumanized-capitalism" - where to Potter, the only thing that matters is money, and he can make the people of the town feel less-than-human ("riff raff," and "garlic-eaters," and all that) and maybe he even does that to make himself feel better for the less-ethical things he does. Whereas George Bailey seems more interested in seeing the other people succeed, even if it means his monetary success is a bit less - and I am old enough (and maybe also still idealistic enough) to remember a time when small-town businesses were more like that, where the business owner wanted to serve the community as much as make money, and would do things that maybe put himself slightly at risk (my grandmother had a running tab at the small local grocery she used; she periodically paid it off, but having a running tab does represent a risk to the business owner*)

(*And I suppose credit cards have largely supplanted this, where it's now the issuing bank shouldering the risk, and they manage that by charging sometimes rather-high interest. I do not remember that the Red Owl charged my grandmother interest on her tab)

And, I don't know. Maybe that business model is no longer sustainable? Or maybe it is, but only if the businesses are small and don't have a lot of shareholders to please? (And I admit the tension in this; I own stock, stock is going to be a big part of my retirement plan). But I don't know; sometimes it does seem like there's a really big gap between "the level of service provided the customer" and "what the owners of the corporation make" - think of the level of annoyance or even hatred customers of Wal-Mart feel for it, compared to the amount of money they make, and I don't know many people who have commented on getting good customer service there.

And I wonder if we could go back...back to a system where businesses were smaller, and business owners were more willing to cut people a break, and things were more localized. Maybe not. Probably not. And maybe it wouldn't even be better that way. But I do worry about a world that becomes increasingly held by a few giant corporations, and if they don't do things the way you want them done, or they do things like (as at our local wal-mart) stop carrying some thing you want to purchase, you don't have much of a choice.

But anyway. There is so much that is, yes, sentimental, in the movie. And so many moments that make me tear up - the end, of course, but also at the beginning, where all the people are praying for George (and think of it: most of the people who pray for him also help him in a tangible way at the end - Martini, and Ernie, and Bert, and Mr. Gower, and especially Mary, and there's probably a lesson there too). And at the bit where when Clarence asks Joseph if George is "sick," and Joseph responds, "No, worse. He's discouraged" and wow, I wonder how many of us have been there - even those of us who have never figuratively stood on a bridge and contemplated that we might be worth more dead than alive.

I've said before that this is one of my favorite movies - not just favorite Christmans movies, but favorite movies.