Posted on 12/22/2010 2:05:14 PM PST by Kaslin
“It’s a Wonderful Life” depresses the hell out of me, and in fact I find it quite anti-American in that it misreads the promise of America as few films do that are so lauded.
George gets guilted into giving up his future as an architect to run that Building and Loan, a job to which he is neither suited or inclined. In a free market, you don’t do anyone any favors when you try to succeed at a business you’re no good at. Building homes is like any other business. It isn’t and shouldn’t be a charitable enterprise — if you don’t like it and you can’t do it at a profit, get out of the way and let someone who can do it.
Director Capra loved to give anti-profit, we-should-do-it-for-love exemptions to lots of businesses — medicine, building homes, agriculture — but the truth is, you take the free market away — you compel people to do it or give their services away, or do it — heaven help us — to HELP PEOPLE — your idea of helping, of course — and you wind up with lousy doctors, badly built homes, and famine.
George’s brother Harry takes George’s college money on the condition that Harry will step in and run the business after he graduates. Well, guess what? Harry comes home from college with a wife. Oh, and guess what else? He’s got a terrific job offer, so he won’t be running the Building and Loan. Harry’s got the right idea about how to live your life; his mistake was not following through on his promise. The brothers should have liquidated that business then and there if Harry didn’t want to take it over.
Now George feels he’s stuck. But WHY is he stuck? Inappropriate guilt. Nobody likes a martyr, and I don’t like George after Harry makes such a sap out of him.
Bedford Falls would have gotten along just fine if George had just minded his own business and gone off to build bridges or whatever he wanted to do. He may have been the richest man in town, but he still had to get up the next day and go to a job he hated. That’s not a wonderful life in my book.
SNL - The Lost Ending
http://www.hulu.com/watch/4267/saturday-night-live-its-a-wonderful-life-lost-ending
(I know, I’m replying to my own post...)
And P.S., how come it was okay for Frank Capra to get the hell out of Sicily and be a big-shot film director in Hollywood, Cal-ee-forn-i-a? Then tell the rest of us to suck it up in our cubicles in Bedford Falls? BAH, HUMBUG, I say!
Let the flame throwing begin...
I’ve always loved your tagline.
The first time I ever saw this movie was my first year in law school, when I was lonely and depressed. It made me so happy, and yeah, I cried. But certainly not because George never traveled the world. :)
Like so many others, I watch it every year. :)
Merry Christmas! :)
“George Bailey’ could have jumped and it would have made no difference at all.”
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Wow, I hope everything is okay with you. Try to have some hope. :) It is Christmas, after all.
Take care.
“I’ve probably seen it 25 times over the course of my life, and it still makes me cry every time.”
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Yep... me too. :)
Thanks for the link.
It’s just not Christmas season with “It’s A Wonderful Life.”
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