One of my favorite holiday movies that can be viewed all year round, is It’s A Wonderful Life. The 1946 classic tells the tragic and redemptive tale of George Bailey, an ‘every man’ who lives in small-town Bedford Falls with his parents, his brother Harry, Uncle Billy, Bert, the police officer, and Ernie, the cab driver (I imagine that’s where the names of the Sesame Street characters originated.), the nefarious Mr. Potter and his beloved Mary. As the story opens, legions of family and friends lift their voices in prayer, beseeching the heavens to save George, ultimately from his own demise.
Their petitions are heard and the response is to send Clarence Odbody, Angel Second Class to rescue George. First, he had to get to know the man who was his assignment. It would be a win-win if Clarence was successful in his mission since it would also earn him his wings. After 200 and some years, this Dickensian character was ready to meet that lofty goal. A bit simple and childlike, he had innocence, wisdom, and persistence on his side. He was George’s tour guide through a world that would have unfolded if he had not existed.
A series of events is portrayed that included George rescuing his brother Harry from drowning at age 9 which cost him the hearing in his left ear, a sharp-eyed observation that prevented his boss, pharmacist Mr. Gower from killing a child by accidentally putting a poison substance in capsules to treat him, reluctantly taking on adult responsibility for his father’s business, the Bailey Building and Loan when the elder Bailey dies following a stroke. This thwarted George’s lifelong passion for travel and adventure, which only ultimately happened in his imagination.
He marries his sweetheart, years after a flirtatious scene following a dance at his High School from which Mary and Harry just graduated. A jealous would-be suitor of Mary opens the floor of the gym to reveal the pool. Busy doing the Charleston, George and Mary tumble backward into the water, continuing to dance enthusiastically. Wearing borrowed clothes, they stroll down the street singing Buffalo Gals, crooning “and dance by the light of the moon,” almost kissing. George offers to lasso the moon for Mary so its beams could shoot out her fingers and her hair. What a romantic gesture.
On the way to their honeymoon, there is a run on the bank, with the villainous Potter offering the shareholders of the Building and Loan .50 cents on the dollar to jump ship. Mary waves a wad of cash which was to be spent on their well-earned travels, adding up to $2,000, which was a fortune in those days. With $2.00 to spare, they cover their customers’ needs for the week which the bank closed.
A few years and four children later, life has taken a turn for George. His brother Harry is hailed as a wartime hero when he shoots down enemy planes, one of which was headed for a troop transport, saving hundreds of men. He is to be given a medal by the President and his photo and headline is flashed across the local paper. Proud as punch, Uncle Billy carries it into the bank, along with $8,000 to deposit. He encounters Potter and brags about his nephew’s feat, inadvertently folding the envelope containing the cash into the newspaper. Potter scoops it up and when he discovers the money, he keeps it. Simultaneously, a bank examiner is in the Building and Loan office, to go over their end-of-the-year activity. Poor timing puts George in danger of bankruptcy and imprisonment.
He goes home where he discovers his family engaged in holiday merriment and preparation for Harry’s welcome home party. Papa Bailey’s rope is frayed and he lashes out at them. Unaware of what has occurred, Mary shows George the door. He heads to a bar to drown his sorrows and there he encounters the husband of his daughter Zuzu’s (she of the famous petals) teacher who he has scolded nastily for letting the little girl go home with her coat opened so as not to crush the flower she had gotten at school, contributing to her cold. The man let him know he was none too pleased for the way he treated his teacher-wife, that he walloped George, knocking him to the floor and leaving him with a bloody lip. This, after George had prayed for an answer to his dilemma. Lurching out into the snow, he visits Potter and asks him to buy out his insurance policy, only to discover that he was “worth more dead than alive.” That leads him to the river where he was about to cast himself in. Clarence beats him to it, by plunging into the icy swirls. Of course, George does a swan dive and pulls Clarence out and into the warmth of the guard station. Clarence tells him his purpose for the visit and gives him the opportunity to see what the lives of those in his town would have been like, had he not been born. Not a pretty picture for anyone.
Because Harry drowned, the men on the ship died. Because Mr. Gower accidentally poisoned the child, he went to jail. Because his family lost the Building and Loan, Potter took over the town which was a dystopic morass of larceny and lascivious living. Because he and Mary never met, she lived a lonely existence and their children were never born. Because of losing her husband and the family business, George’s mother became embittered. Because Uncle Billy misplaced the money, he was devasted and relegated to an ‘insane asylum’. One life affects so many.
My observations as a therapist of the life and lessons of George Bailey…
As kindhearted as George was, what lie beneath was co-dependence and a desire to always ‘do the right thing,’ no matter what it cost him. That led to him putting his dreams on hold while simultaneously holding up others, from his brother Harry to whom he gave his college money, to the family business, to the entire town by loaning them money during the bank crisis, to bending the rules with repayment of loans over the years (not sure that was legally permissible, but, heck, it’s a movie). He practiced what I called ‘savior behavior,’ coming to the rescue at a moment’s notice.
His father, Peter, was a ‘mensch,’ Yiddish for a good person with exemplary values, whose sacrificial example fueled George’s and may have caused his deadly stroke. Losing his father at an early age, caused him to shoulder the responsibility that he wouldn’t have otherwise. I sense that he never had the time to grieve his father’s death, having to put it on the shelf so he could keep on keepin’ on.
He is also an assault and trauma survivor. In the scene where Mr. Gower, devastated by the telegram that his son had died of influenza, and he accidentally put cyanide in the capsule, he slaps pre-teen George multiple times, causing his already damaged ear to bleed. Two secrets were kept that day. The first was the almost accidental poisoning and the other was Gower’s violent behavior.
Throughout the film, it was notable that there was sarcasm and anger seething beneath the surface. In the scene where he came to call on Mary, his aloof interactions which belied his love for her, led to him shaking her before kissing her. He married a woman who bailed him out at every turn; with money for the bank run and to replace the money that Uncle Billy lost and Potter absconded with.
Although it was a hallmark of the times, George smoked a great deal throughout the movie. I cringed when I imagined Mary kissing him or his children cuddling him while inhaling second and third-hand smoke.
Rather than talking out his feelings, he kept them repressed until they exploded in the scene in his would-be festive living room, where he crashed into pieces the bridge that he or his son might have built, bullied his children, and if cursing was acceptable in movies in those days, he likely would have tossed the f-word around freely.
At the bar, he drowned his sorrows and crashed his car into a tree. Blessedly, no one was harmed.
His suicidal ideation led to plan and intent and had Clarence not been at the ready, he would have succeeded.
For the first time in so many viewings, I took note of the intense wide-eyed stare he flashed when in the midst of mounting drama and stress. Clearly a fight-flight-freeze trauma reaction.
I wonder if George wanted to feel indispensable and couldn’t say no as a result. A practice of boundary setting and negotiation would have been beneficial. He enabled Uncle Billy’s ineptitude that could have cost him his freedom.
A sense of helplessness pervades his life. He feels obligated to be all things to all people and is ‘all gived out’.
On the flip side, George has a big heart and good intentions, with a nature that has people appreciate his sacrifices, as evidenced by the final scene where his family and friends come through big time, rescuing the Building and Loan. He comes to recognize that his wealth is in the lives of the people he has touched.
If I was his therapist, I would recommend exploring the factors that led him to the point where he was ready to end his life. I would encourage boundary setting, assertiveness, and good self-care, as well as allowing people to do kind things for him. I would ask about the secondary gain that comes from self-sacrifice and question whether he thought people could be empowered to do for themselves what he has done for them. I would invite him to tap into the spiritual beliefs he might have had that enabled him to pray in the first place and stretch his comfort zones by seeking celestial support. I would encourage anger management and doing 12 step work around co-dependency. I would support the idea of couples counseling, so he and Mary would be on equal footing in terms of giving and receiving and a place for Mary to vent the frustration that she might be harboring under a serene façade. I would encourage him to fulfill his bucket list and not ‘wait for the right time’ to live fully.
Since penning this piece, I read a Washington Post article that hails Mary as the true hero of the film. I agree with the author, Monica Hess as she outlines the many reasons why this is so.
***
You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
 White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism |
 Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box |
 The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer |
 |
Item ID: 1102835003
