A Brimming Bowl of Christmassy Vitriol

I'm a fairly friendly and easygoing person by nature, but—and this may shock you—I do have a slightly snarky side. That said, it should be stipulated that Wendell Jamieson, an editor at The New York Times, is probably in no way a bad person and has, I am sure, worked hard to achieve the position he holds.

But.

I spent a few years long ago in the newspaper business myself, and besides meeting a lot of dedicated, talented, and eminently reasonable people, I met quite a few others that I then characterized as "breathtakingly pompous mediocrities." These folks were fairly bright, had gone to good schools, then went to a daily newspaper in some town like Roanoke, Virginia or Knoxville, Tennessee, and in this early phase had learned to produce a newspaper story relatively free of the chronic stylistic crudenesses that mark the lower tiers of journalism. This is not a murderously difficult thing to do, by the way, if you have half an ear for writing style.

In an economic boom, these people might eventually get hired by a big paper, a metro daily like the Times or the Philadelphia Inquirer. This had a very bad effect on the ego of some of these folks. They came to regard themselves as oracles, as geniuses, as blazing talents who deeply benefited humanity every single time they sat down at their work stations and began to type. They were Caesars, conquerers of the keyboard, but unfortunately the newspaper had neglected to provide them with a slave to stand behind their office chairs and whisper to them, "Remember, thou art mortal." So they got in the habit of thinking that everyone was a big dope except them, and they had the responsibility of explaining the world to the rest of us.

Which brings me to Mr. Jamieson. I'm glancing over the home page of the Times this morning, and I see this feature headline: "It's a Miserable Life: 'It's a Wonderful Life' is a Terrifying Story." No way, I say to myself; no freaking way. But I click through, and it's true. Mr. Jamieson has an insight for us:

Lots of people love this movie of course. But I’m convinced it’s for the wrong reasons. Because to me “It’s a Wonderful Life” is anything but a cheery holiday tale.

Really? Tell us more!

“It’s a Wonderful Life” is a terrifying, asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams, of seeing your father driven to the grave before his time. ... It is a story of being trapped, of compromising, of watching others move ahead and away, of becoming so filled with rage that you verbally abuse your children, their teacher and your oppressively perfect wife.

Like I said, it's a little breathtaking to realize that Mr. Jamieson honestly believes that "lots of people" somehow missed the relentless and explicit examples of George Bailey's sacrifices, disappointments, and frustrations. Frank Capra is too subtle and cryptic a filmmaker, you see, and it takes a NYT editor to explicate matters. We all missed the part—it somehow went over our heads—where Bailey, now faced with going to prison, shrieks imprecations at his whole family and rushes out to commit suicide by jumping in an icy river, and then is subjected to a vision of himself as a nonexistent cipher, running desperately through the cruel dystopic hell that his home town has become, rejected by the callous, sad, or bitter people he once knew as friends, wife, mother. No kindness, no love, no hope. Hell is other people, and the universe a nightmarish moral vacuum.

We missed that part. Even though it takes up most of the movie, and drives the story—there wouldn't be a story without that part. But we missed it—missed it every time we watched the movie, which for "lots of people" is a few dozen times by now—missed it because we had gotten up at the about the midpoint to get another cup of eggnog, stopped to tie a bow on the cocker spaniel's collar, and only came back to the television for the last three minutes. Or because we're too damn dumb.

I'm willing to excuse Mr. Jamieson to some extent—people, lots of people, can be incredible dopes—but I really think we have to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. There's a dark element to most stories, because you can't really have a story without conflict, and it's human nature to imagine dark things. "It's a Wonderful Life" is, in fact, a dark story. So is the Harry Potter series, and "The Wizard of Oz," and "Little Red Riding Hood." Lots of people like those stories, and the darkness, set as a foil against the eventual triumph, is most of the reason why.

But hey, it's Christmastime. Mr. Jamieson is open enough to say that he liked the movie the first time he saw it, as a teenager, and he still gets choked up today. Like I say, I think he's probably not a bad guy. He may just have gotten into the habit of thinking people need him to explain things to them, that the reputation "It's a Wonderful Life" has for being sentimental means people only see a cheery holiday tale, whatever that is. (Does one even exist?) It's an occupational hazard, this tendency to pontificate. So let us all resolve, during this magical holiday season, to realize not only that most people are pretty decent if allowed to be, but that most people are capable of seeing the bleedin' obvious if you hit them over the head with it about eleventy-dozen times, which is pretty much the case in "It's a Wonderful Life." And seriously—God bless us, everyone.