I am a huge fan of Frank Capra.   And whereas it pains me to do so, I must call a proper spade a spade.  In my (what I presume will be ‘lonely’) opinion…this single movie has done more to undermine  America than any other in memory. 

And yes, I realize I’m about to infuriate both the Left and the Right… Christians and Atheists… Socialists and the ACLU… Jimmy Stewart fans, movie buffs, my entire readership, and my mother…but I have to say it:  There is an insidious lie placed smack dab within the heart of this otherwise exquisite movie.  And the strange thing is – along with hundreds of millions of people worldwide — it is still one of my favorite movies of all time.  And therein lies the rub. 

The most dangerous and injurious of falsehoods is the one that is shuffled in with the Truth.

Let me back up.  I first saw this movie sometime around the early eighties, and since then one of my most anticipated traditions has become watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” on Christmas Eve.  I love the humor, the performances, the depth of character, the twists and turns, the entire story.  And mostly, (the part that really gets me in the gut) is the central theme of two of the greatest human attributes known to man:  humble gratitude and self-sacrifice.  The nobility of George Bailey forfeiting his plans and dreams for his father, his wife, his family, his neighbors…and his eventual ‘come-to-Jesus’ moment of epiphanic appreciation of how truly rich he is…leaves me choked up every time I watch this timeless classic.

“So why, Gary Graham, are you so hell-bent on disparaging this fine work?”

Because it attacks, denigrates, demonizes and attempts to dissemble one of the main ingredients to the American experiment – Capitalism.

Picture the Baileys.  A fine, upstanding family working to make the American dream a reality for themselves and their community.  But hold on, there’s a major obstacle in everyone’s way – the Rich Guy – Henry F. Potter.  Seems he owns pretty much the entire town.  And he seems to delight in squeezing his patrons.  Business is hard and brutal and has no place for ‘sentimental hogwash’ dontcha know.

Mr. Bailey puts it like this:  “This town’s no place for any man unless he’s willing to crawl to Potter.”  His son, George, fidgets from the specter of returning to work in his father’s savings and loan association, and of sacrificing his dream of college and creating ‘something big’ with his life.  And the father’s answer is, “You know George, in a small way I think we’re doing something important here…supplying a need …[for a man] to have his own roof, and walls and fireplace…”  But nonetheless his father urges him to escape from the ‘dreary’ town of Bedford Falls and go off and get an education.   George leans forward and says, “Pop, you want a shock?  I think you’re a great guy.”  (Side note to Capra’s ghost:  The line “I think you’re a great man” would have had tons more power.  But I digress…)

Ask yourselves this:  What was preventing Mr. Bailey, Sr. from being not just a great guy…but, in fact, a great man? 

Attitude, for one.

“This town’s no place for any man unless he’s willing to crawl to Potter.”  What a loser attitude!   I mean, come on…   What if instead of a building and loan, Mr. Bailey owned an NFL team.  And on that given Sunday you’re playing the reigning Superbowl champs.    What do you tell the team pregame in the locker room  – “Dudes…we don’t stand a chance.  Let’s just slip out back and get on the plane.”

Had Mr. Bailey, Sr. had more tenacity and drive, (and most importantly, belief in himself) he could have built his business into a standing success; and instead of scuttling about in desperation, helped hundreds, maybe thousands more to realize their dream of owning their own home.  (And without all those Fannie-May/Freddie-Mac shenanigans.)  Had he used more God-given ingenuity and creativity he could have taken on Potter in the arena of business competition and kicked butt, undercutting Potter’s prices and gaining market share.  As his clientele grew, he could expand, hire more people and build more houses cheaply (and finally put that alky moocher Uncle Billy in a home … ha — just kidding!).  

You take my point.   Capitalism is what advances not only the practitioners, but the entire community, radiating out with ancillary benefits as far as the mind can see.  Just because one rich guy buys up the town doesn’t keep someone else or a bunch of someone else’s to come in and throw up their shingle and compete for the business.  I mean…it’s not like Potter was the government. 

“It’s a Wonderful Life” depicts capitalism as a system in which only the jackals can excel…only the crooks prosper…and only evil can flourish.  The system is fatally flawed and the only hope we the people have…is to rely on the good nature and charity of our friends and family.

It’s a complete and total lie.

It burns me that so many fine artists…and politicians…don’t have a clue about what makes our system of Capitalism work…and how you build a business.  Sadly, these well-intentioned framers of public opinion – and policy – are the ones who insinuate themselves dead center in the middle of private business. 

FDR (and Woodrow Wilson before him) perpetrated the myth and passed it down to generations of ‘progressives’.  Self-gain is evil.  Self-interest is a sin.  If one person can’t get ahead, then no one should.   And tragically — government’s heavy-hand solution to this is to tear down those getting ahead in the misguided attempt to advance those who are not.  (Or at least convince you that that’s what they’re all about when, in fact, they are all about securing your vote and building their personal political power.  But…again …I digress.)

We still hear the echoes of that latest most popular catch-phrase, “creating jobs”.  But a job is not created by government fiat, wishful thinking, praying, or an angel named Clarence.  Jobs are created by a business owner looking to fulfill a business necessity. 

Self-interest drives an economy; not government bailouts, laws, restrictions, taxes or Congressional committees. 

I was always fond of exclaiming, while watching the TV show, “The West Wing” – “Amazing!  Liberalism works like a charm every time…in fiction.” 

But what about the main antagonist in Bedford Falls, what about this figurehead of evil, this personification of greed and selfishness?    The image of Mr. Potter and his sniveling, smirking cratchityness (Is that a word?  It is now!) is forever indelibly ingrained within our corporate memories as the ‘typical rich guy’.  Mr. Potter – the archetypal money-grubbing, tight-fisted, cruel, conniving, plotting, scheming, twisted old wretch of a geezer — such a stereotype as to have been crafted by either Beelzebub or Dr. Seuss.  The poster boy for Class-Envy…the paragon of non-virtue…everything to ensure that our kids grow up resenting, even hating, ‘the rich’. 

Ya see how they treat the little guy?  The man be keepin’ us down.

Rubbish.  Yeah, of course you get the occasional Howard Hughes…the ‘he-was-a-genius-‘til-he-became-a- nut-job’.  And then there’s the twisted saga of the Koch brothers.  But these specimens are the exception, not the rule.

In my experience, what we call ‘rich people’ are hard-working and creative individualists who rely on themselves and their wits and ingenuity to survive and build their enterprises up into organizations that make innovative products and provide invaluable services that enrich all mankind. 

And oh yes – along the way they create tens of millions of jobs.

This is America.  Accept no substitute.

I grew up hearing, and believing, all the old lies about rich people.  “The rich get rich and the poor get poorer.”   Can I have a show of hands – how many have ever been hired by a poor person?  “It takes money to make money.”  How many famous industrialists started as poor immigrants with less than $500 in their pockets?  I don’t know either, but I know there have been many. 

As I’ve grown and experienced, I’ve realized that a man having money is no sin.  It’s what he does with the money that defines his character.

Riches have corrupted those who are not up to the responsibility of their money.  And those who have cultivated misguided notions of what that fabric is of a full and rewarding life tend to chase excess, hedonism and desperate reflections of their own bloated significance.

I am a big fan of those beautiful commercials that run these days… ‘commercials’… that are selling nothing more than human goodness.  They’re done by The Foundation For a Better Life.   In one, a new student can’t find a seat in the cafeteria, is rebuffed by ‘the populars’ and sits lonely…until a brave student reaches out in friendship.  In another, a youngster has wandered up onto an empty concert stage and embarrasses his parents by playing ‘Chopsticks’ on the concert grand piano…until the maestro approaches…and joins him in an impromptu and beautiful rendering, to everyone’s delight.  In still others…people playing, smiling, families loving, living, and giving…the goodness of life.  At the end of these beautiful vignettes a single word appears… Character…Respect…  Encouragement… Generosity…and then …Pass it on.

 These little spots run for barely 27 seconds.  But in that brief time, they often move me to tears.   Some common note is struck, some universal chord resounds.   Some beautiful reminder about what it means to be truly alive.

The man responsible for these spots is a multi-billionaire named Philip Anschutz.  He seeks no publicity, hasn’t done an interview in 35 years, gives millions to many, many charities, goes about his business quietly and efficiently and values his family’s privacy. 

The next time you’re tempted to look upon all rich folk as Henry F. Potter… think twice.  You just may have been sold a bill of goods.

It is possible to build a wonderful business…in a wonderful America…and have a truly wonderful life.

Part of what I love about my father is how he is a vessel that carries the good things from the past into the future. His generation may have brought some bad things along with them too, but we don’t mourn or fear the passing of bad things. It’s the good things that I fear are leaving us, and our society no longer produces men like Lincoln, Johnny Cash or even my dad. That’s what a father is, a vessel that ushers greatness into the next generation. Dads bring great things from the old school to the new school.

The only DVD my dad owns is “The Magnificent Seven.” The only video tape he owned before that was… “The Magnificent Seven.” There will come a time when Dad’s voice will be silenced by mortality and I’ll watch “The Magnificent Seven” with even greater meaning.

So here goes: Dad, when I was a teen I thought you were the worst son of a bitch to walk the planet. You want a shock, Pop? Now I think you’re the greatest man I’ve ever known.

We all get into show business for the right reasons — because we love entertainment and want to have a hand in creating that special magic. I don’t think anyone begins down the road to Hollywood because they feel the urgent need to inject politics into their work in order to change the world. I certainly didn’t. And I bet George Clooney wasn’t thinking that way when he was on the set of “Facts of Life” for the first time at the start of his career. 

I started young, first as an actor, and now a writer. This is the only thing I have ever pursued and I have been at it since the day I left my small town in the summer of 1991. The Reagan/Bush era was coming to a close and I voted for Bill Clinton in 92 because as a reasonable person who watched the six o’clock news I could tell we needed something fresh. It was the first year I was old enough to vote and I was very excited to do it. However, in all those years that I was booking commercials or bit parts in movies and TV, no one ever made a peep about politics. To me politics was something separate and pretty boring compared to the dream I was after. If you asked me back then which political party my friends belonged to, I couldn’t tell you who was a Republican or who was a Democrat because it just wasn’t an issue.  

Divide and Conquer

Not anymore. Now I know just about everyone’s political views and they know mine. Is this really such a bad thing? No. In fact it’s a pretty amazing and healthy development for a democracy that has had less and less of its citizens participating in the voting process over the years. I have mostly liberal friends that absolutely hate my worldview and some of them have changed the way they treat me over the past few years, much to my disappointment. But at the end of the day I look at it like this — by standing up for what I believe I’m taling one for the team. The team being my country that I love.

It’s healthy that we’re at each others throats, fighting and battling for what we think is the best future for America. This seems to have been the only thing that has brought record numbers of people to the polls and in a short amount of time re-legitimized our Democracy as one that’s worth fighting for — even if we start by fighting each other. As I see it we’re more legit for having a family fight then we have been in years. Now we have to come together and start to get along. Please.

That’s why Big Hollywood is so vital to me — it understands what’s at stake and has the power to heal this divide in an industry that ultimately is the face of the nation and should better reflect its free citizens’ values — all of them. There really is a time and place for everything. We have so many outlets for content delivery that it shouldn’t be such a big deal to a small minority of citizens with one view that their values are not the dominate ones from coast to coast. It’s false domination through strong arming and it’s killing the product. So instead of movies as an escape you get movies as indoctrination tools. 

There’s a saying that politics is show business for ugly people. But recently show business has been politics for mean people. It has to stop. I never forget that when I disagree with someone they are simply one voter and do not have the power to single handedly change things. Some of the more enraged people in show business are too blind with hate to see this in someone like me. And to them I say — I still love you.

I can guarantee you that we will have a Republican president in office again. When one party loses it’s never the end for the other — it’s the new beginning. And this country elects only two types of leaders — hand shakers and butt kickers. So let’s get over our totalitarian dreams of winning this political battle forever because it’s not going to happen and it really would be the death of America to not have opposing points of view ultimately working in harmony.

Rounding Home

We don’t go to the movies to see how bad we are. We go to see how good we can be. To lift up the spirit and remind ourselves that the drama of our lives are shared by our neighbors. 

Until the climate in Hollywood has changed and all sides are free to express themselves, there ought to be a new sign added just underneath the Hollywood one that warns all dreamers; “George Bailey wasn’t born here”