Rich Twin Poor Twin's View of the Movie

Rating: 7/10 (29 December 2005)

This is an article from www.richtwinpoortwin (dot) com I hope all of you had a Merry Christmas. It's A Wonderful Life is a good classic movie. It will always bring back fond memories. For many years since we can remember, my twin and I saw the classic movie: It's A Wonderful Life air at our old home. We switched the channel every year when the movie just started because the movie is in black and white. We just dismissed the movie and thought it would be a bore. A few years later when we were in college, freshman year. one of our best professors we had in our academic years had this movie as part of the curriculum - where we watched the movie and did the usual analysis on the movie. I didn't know it at the time, but he was a very good professor and person. He actually was searching for a purpose, more in life, the meaning of life, happiness in life, the reason for living, etc. He was actually trying to wake us up. But I digress; we will talk about this professor in upcoming entries. Now back to It's a wonderful life. The movie is quite enjoyable.
We recently went back to NYC this Christmas and watched It's a Wonderful life for the first time in our old home. I recall the analysis we did after watching the show in college. We all came up with the all too familiar analysis of how Potter was rich, greedy, and evil. And how George Bailey was the good person, the hero who was doing what was right - he was fighting the good fight so that everyone else can have a wonderful life in Bedford Falls.
There was a common theme painted throughout the movie: being good/doing good meant sacrificing yourself - physically, mentally, and financially- George risked his life to save his brother Harry (lost his hearing in his left ear), getting beaten up by his childhood boss after saving a client from being poisoned, taking a job that was below him in order to save the Bank and the community from Potter, getting married to Mary because just to make his mother happy, turning down Sam Wayne Wright's offer, giving away 2 thousand dollars of his own hard earned money he saved for his honeymoon to others during the bank run on black Friday, and turning down Potter's offer that would have freed him.
It's A Wonderful Life enforces the idea that having money meant you are greedy, evil, selfish, lazy, cruel, racist, lonely, bitter, uncaring, and that you will lose your money as fast as you made it throughout the movie. Potter was the living symbol of this commonly accepted false idea. Potter is a "warped, frustrated, old man." He was crippled and pushed around in a wheelchair. He has no family, was uncaring - he called for a board meeting to resolve the bank after Bailey Senior's death, was a racist - he refers to his tenants as "garlic eaters", has a skull on his desk, cruel - he withholds foolish Uncle Ben's $8000 cash deposit just to get back at the Baileys, and he levied harsh rent from his poor tenants, and on the last scene where we see what would happen if he controlled Bedford falls - it would be called Potter's field where Bedford falls is just a grave yard, there would be less of the "neighborly", lots of bars, clubs, and gambling.
But when we watched the movie at home, we see that the movie: It's a Wonderful Life is nothing more than propaganda. Its message is worse than its character Potter, himself. The movie tells its audience to just Settle. That is perhaps the worst and most dangerous message of all - be a noob, don't even try to become a pwner. The movie's message tells you to just try to find the good things that you have and not to try harder, not to help yourself, not to pursue your dreams, and just help others because you are seen as greedy if you try to pursue your dreams before helping others. In short - mind others businesses, help as many as you can with what little you have and look for "the good things" that you have and you shall be happy and you will have a wonderful life. The last message of the movie was " A man is never poor as long as he has friends," which is true to some degree but the movie's bigger message and idea is troubling.
What if Clarence showed George Bailey actually achieving what he wanted?? As in showing George what he, his wife, and the rest of Bedford Falls would be if George would have achieved what he wanted to do - go to college, travel the world, build bridges, build skyscrapers, and become what he wanted to BE since he was a small boy - in short living his childhood dream. But instead Clarence CHEATED him and US by just showing how unhappy the community would be if he was not born. And it is very fascinating how Sam Wayne Wright becomes what George Bailey always wanted to be - rich, traveling the world, having a company, wives, power, fame, fancy cars and FREE from having to put his nose to the grind stone.
And that is all I have to say about that. Or what Sam would say, "Hee-Haw!"