The lost message of "It's A Wonderful Life"

It's A Wonderful Life by Frank Capra, considered by most to be a wholesome, family friendly staple of the American Christmastime movie canon, was once under investigation by the FBI for potentially being ‘Communist Propaganda'. Here is an excerpt from the report:

“In addition, [redacted] stated that, in his opinion, this picture deliberately maligned the upper class, attempting to show the people who had money were mean and despicable characters. [Redacted] related that if he had made this picture portraying the banker, he would have shown this individual to have been following the rules as laid down by the State Bank Examiners in connection with making loans.”

This was part of the famous House Unamerican Activities Committee, a post-WWII attempt by Senator Joseph McCarthy to uproot anything seemingly Communist in American life, including films that even slightly presented what could be considered anti-capitalist ideas. The irony was that Frank Capra, the film's director, and James Stewart, who acted in the film shortly after returning from combat in World War 2, were both registered Republicans.

I know what you're thinking: I came to read one of Mike Doaga's overly personal movie reviews not one of his eyeroll inducing pro-Communist rants. Rest assured, the “housekeeping” is over. I don't believe it's a Communist movie at all. Rather, I am struck by the basic values of human kindness and community this film espouses, and how the people who found these values a ‘national security threat’ have largely won the following eighty years in the West.

I was in born 1991 in Romania. My family is largely descended from serfs and the agricultural working class. When the Soviets entered our country (pushing back the Nazis), my family's fortunes changed dramatically for the positive… temporarily.

My parents saw an increasing corrupt dictatorship run their lives and keep them in constant fear. Most importantly for them, perhaps: they were not allowed to leave the country. This has made my them avid world travellers since our immigration to Canada. I spent much of my childhood dragged by the wrist through Europe and Central America, trying to make sense of the overstimulating sights my parents were in awe of. We are all products of our environments and the dreams they engender. Here I landed, a child of misguided dictatorship, whose father did phenomenally well under “The American Dream” (albeit in Canada) after arriving with very little money.

I too, develop ambitions of being someone “great” (I’m going to refer to greatness a lot here, and keep the concept as vague as our culture does). I was far too timid to communicate my budding “greatness” openly, but I certainly had the put-upon energy of the silicon valley nerds that are currently trying sap the world of all of its remaining humanity. “You'll all see one day.” I thought as many angry young men do.

I hadn't yet realized that considering yourself special is the most basic human truth. We all perceive life only through one consciousness, and it is involved in every experience we have. We cannot separate it from the reality we are embedded in. The best we can do is sleep or die. Feeling “special” wasn't a marker of intelligence for me, or the autism that would go undiagnosed for two more decades after almost being caught by a special needs teacher in Kindergarten who insisted I get more personalized attention. It was the natural, self preserving egotism of childhood elongated in a late bloomer whose mother sought to insolate him from the traumas she had seen in her previous life outside Canada.

It’s a headspace you have to remove yourself from to get to any real impact on those around you. Most cultures have rites of passages to mark a clear line in people‘s lives where the natural narcissism of youth will no longer be tolerated. Young boys take psychedelic plants and wander the wilderness alone coming back completely changed by the experience. My version of that was shrooms on New Years Eve, followed by a panic attack at the now defunct Sasquatch Music Festival. Things I hid from my family for fear of further shame.

America and its allies failed to develop meaningful rites of passage for young people. Perhaps high school graduation is an attempt, but when you live in a world where the ability to afford a decent life even with an advanced education is beyond you, that threshold is increasingly meaningless.

I can't remember when I first saw It's A Wonderful Life, all I know is that it always makes me cry at the end. Knowing it has stayed relevant, and rewatched by so many over eight decades. It makes me feel less alone in the world.

The film tells the story of George Bailey, an ordinary, good hearted young man who aspires to travel the world and be a great man. Unlike the actor who plays him: George avoided fighting in the war because of an ear infection from childhood. He is adrift in his desire for meaning. George's father runs a small, ethical housing loan business, and every time George tries to go out and see the world, something happens that requires him to put his plans on hold to take care of the company. For George, this isn’t meaning: it’s failure. This ambition blinds him to the love that surrounds him: most notably that of Mary: a young woman who has always seen George for who he is and loved him for exactly that. Luckily, Mary’s will surpasses George’s and they get married and have children.

Eventually, George gets ruined economically through the malice of greedy individuals and historic events out of his control. He looks at himself, and he sees a man who never achieved his childhood ambitions of greatness, and has more value to society dead through his life insurance policy. He very rationally contemplates suicide. What follows is all of what most people associate with the movie: the angels, the seeing what the world would be like if he never existed. All great, but they're topics for another essay.

After George is convinced not to kill himself comes the part where we all cry: the entire town comes and gives money to George, remembering all the things he did for them over the years that he felt were unimportant or unremarkable. They were the works of a good, steady family man doing his job and doing right by his community. They were the works of all the anonymous, good natured people that really keep the world afloat, not the “Great” ones. The small g greatness is the most meaningful one a human being can attain.

I cry, because when I made an independent film, that happened for me. I know it's real, how people want to help each other achieve their dreams. I have felt it. We all want to be part of something, even as lonely as life can often feel. I also know what it's like to feel, even with love in your life, worthless and wanting to end it all. I cry because I still live in a daily feeling that nothing I do is never good enough for the “greatness” I wanted when I was a kid, and how I'll always feel somewhat alone, as is the nature of consciousness. “It's A Wonderful Life” is telling you that the wonderful life to speak of isn't “out there” somewhere, it's beneath our feet. It's in the ordinary moments of our lives. True greatness and kindness are synonyms.

This sentiment threatened the government of its own time, and now the film is considered an indispensable classic. But I rarely if ever hear anyone talk about what it's really saying: happiness comes from picking your neighbour up, not stepping over them in the pursuit of “greatness”