Ferocity Mill

I watched It’s a Wonderful Life Saturday night, and for the first time, I wasn’t entirely sympathetic toward the people of Bedford Falls. I’m not saying that George was right to go apeshit and freak everyone out the way he did – I’m just saying I understand. Since it was four a.m., I decided to break it down.

Uncle Billy should not be entrusted with a newspaper, let alone a giant wad of cash. He is clearly insane.

There is a reason why, in Non-George-Bailey Universe, Uncle Billy goes to the insane asylum after losing his business: He is a lunatic. His brother, then nephew, are basically paying him hard-working people’s money as a salary for being alive – and perhaps for cleaning up after his creepy, twenty-year-old raven. He is inarguably the most irresponsible person in Bedford Falls, but for some reason it is he who is chosen to make the deposit to the bank – a deposit totaling more than seventy thousand of today’s dollars. Whomever authorized Uncle Billy to carry that much cash anywhere, it certainly doesn’t seem to have been George, who is obviously much smarter than that.

Drafty houses should not have to be tolerated.

George didn’t want to live in that house. He thought it was an old dump. His wife wanted it, and she coerced him into moving in – he had no other choice. What was he supposed to say, as he danced with his bride, Hawaiian tunes lilting on the Victrola: “Um, thanks honey, but I’m more of a condo man”? He was screwed from that point on. No wonder the kid catching a cold was the last straw. Jesus.

Why didn’t Zuzu’s teacher make sure her coat was buttoned?

The woman is a teacher in an idyllic little town where it just so happens to be snowing continuously, yet she fails to send a five-year-old child outside in a coat that is securely buttoned. She fails. George’s tax dollars are indeed paying her salary, and she is indirectly responsible for his child’s illness. He has a valid point in yelling at her – although the “stupid old cow” remark may have been a bit much.

It is truly annoying to hear a child play Hark the Herald Angels Sing over and over and over again on a piano. Seriously.

Even if it’s your child, you don’t want to hear it. Especially if it’s your child, because then you have to accept responsibility for it. George isn’t a huge fan of Christmas carols, and he later mentions he’s “not a praying man,” on top of which he’s having a nervous breakdown already, yet somehow he’s supposed to good-naturedly put up with clang clang CLANG CLANG clang clang CLANG CLANG on Repeat? Come on, that’s worse than water-boarding.

Mary really doesn’t understand his problems.

Why does she prattle on and on about parades and decorations when it is blindingly obvious that there is something, shall we say, violently amiss, with her husband? The man’s hair is falling rakishly across his eyes, lady, get a clue – this can only be a sign that something troubling has happened. Take a break from stringing tinsel and ask George why he looks like he just escaped from prison. There appears to be a disconnect here.

When your life’s goal was to travel the world, it is reasonable to hate your office job that your family guilted you into taking and keeping for your entire adult life.

Poor George, all he ever wanted was to pursue his own dreams, like everyone else he knew. Even Ernie, who was happy to drive his little cab around tiny Bedford Falls till he keeled over, was free to change careers if it ever crossed his mind. George was his family’s last hope because, let’s face it, he was a bit of a sucker. He didn’t have to stay back from school to run the business or give his brother all his college money; the kid was about to get a football scholarship and a job after graduation. It’s completely natural that George would regret a decision or two – he’d never wanted to do anything in his Bedford Falls more than he wanted to leave it.

Angry George Bailey is tired of conforming to his community’s idea of what and who he should be. He’s had it with cleaning up other people’s messes and saving everyone’s day. He wants to go exploring, and then he wants to build things, didn’t we hear him the first time? Unfortunately, every single person in his life insists that he stay put and take care of them. Amazingly, they’re shocked and horrified when he finally loses his shit.

I request an alternate ending, o gods of movie sequels. I want to see George Bailey shake Clarence the crazy angel’s hand when he grants George’s wish never to have been born. I want to see George Bailey fix his hat on his head, straighten his back and whistle “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” right on down the road, through the snow, in any direction, and keep on walking. As the snow covers his tracks, fade out.