OK, Christmas is 2 months from today. People are starting to talk about all the Holiday festivities. I'm one of those people. I adore the Holidays. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve give me the warm fuzzies. So, needless to say, I like Holiday movies. We start pulling out our Christmas stash about...now. We've already watched "Home Alone" (1 and 2) and "Christmas Vacation" (a couple times). I know we'll be pulling out "It's a Wonderful Life" much closer to Christmas.
Here's the thing. People have been discussing Christmas movies around the Internet. I bumped into a discussion about "It's a Wonderful Life" a couple days ago. The discussion left me with a bad feeling. People, as in several more than one, were all bent out of shape. They were saying it wasn't such a wonderful life for George Bailey. He was just a martyr. Talking about how he gave up his life and his dreams to save his family and business and how they thought that was dumb and look at what it got him. A mediocre life in a small town.
OK. I guess you could go that way with it. But what is wrong with doing what needs to be done? Back in the day it was enough to work a mediocre job in a mediocre town and raise a family and just do what needed done in life. Maybe, when he was young, he wanted to go out and travel the world and do great things. I mean, who didn't? But to do that he would have had to walk away from his family and his family's business. And in the end he had a home, a wife, four kids, friends, and a nice respectable life.
Why isn't that wonderful? Why, in the eyes of people today is that not enough? What makes him "just a martyr?" Staying with his family? Doing the right thing? Not putting his own desires above everyone and everything else? So, maybe his life didn't turn out exactly as he planned it when he was 18 but it didn't seem so terrible to me. Who's life looks like they expected it to when they were young? Since when is working a job just to keep your family in food and shoes, raising some kids, establishing a home and being part of your community considered being a failure?
I just thought the people discussing how disgusted they were with the "message" that the movie sends were just out of touch. But maybe I'm the one out of touch. Maybe it's the way people are now. Put yourself first. Raising a family and living a simple life is "out of touch with reality." And the movie was just pandering to people to make them feel better about living such a "small life." I find it kind of sad, frankly, that the world would turn out that way.
I happen to think that George Bailey DID have a Wonderful Life. It was just a movie but I thought his life was nice. Nice family. Nice home. Nice town. I don't want much more than that. I don't have a problem with a "small life." With spaghetti nights and yearly vacations to exotic locations like, Myrtle Beach and Orlando Florida.
I can't wait until they start discussing "White Christmas." That should be interesting.
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ReplyDeleteWell, I have to say that those idiots are completely missing the point of the whole movie. He was dissatisfied with his life because he believed he didn't do the "big things" he wanted. The point of it is that he did do big things by his choice to stay in his small town. He impacted everyone. Their lives were better because of his choices. I think once George realized that his life did make an impact, he was satisfied with it. He wanted to make a difference and he did, it just wasn't in the way he expected when he was younger.
ReplyDeleteIt is sad to think people don't understand that FANTASTIC movie. I don't know if I would have been able to keep my cool on that discussion board! :)
I know! It made me very SAD to see that people completely missed the point. They were all up in arms about how they would never sacrifice THEIR dreams for ungrateful family etc. It seriously made me sad for the state of the world.
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