Why It’s A Wonderful Life Is Actually A Christmas Movie

It’s more likely than you think

What does an angel coming to save a banker by showing him what the world would be like without him have to do with Christmas? But if you analyze the themes of the film, the themes of Christmas are there, planted by the creators like little Easter (or Christmas) eggs. When George Bailey pulls on the lighter thing at Mr. Gower’s shop and says, “I wish I had a million dollars,” this is analogous to the relationship between God and man before Christ. People asked things of their deity and hoped for the best. What George experiences in the rest of the film is not the straightforward fulfillment of need by a higher power, but a transformational rebirth representative of Christianity. 

George is haunted by a narrative he constructed in which he is a complete failure. Uncle Billy’s careless misplacement of their money only exacerbates what is already taking place in George’s mind. When Mr. Potter tells him that his life insurance is worth more money than he has alive, this further aids the pre-existing negative narrative George has constructed. He relies only on himself and “fails” continuously to live up to the ideal self he imagines, feeling the distance between this ideal self and the failure he perceives himself to actually be. George can only be saved if this negative narrative in his mind is disrupted. By putting himself in a position of need in relation to George, Clarence allows George’s subconscious to take over and disrupt George’s beliefs: that he is a failure, worth more dead than alive, stuck in a shabby old town, never accomplishing his dreams, living in the shadow of his brother, etc. All of these are temporarily disposed of in the face of Clarence’s imminent mortal danger. George can instinctively tap into his real self, divorced from all of the beliefs he has constructed, jump into the freezing water, and save Clarence.

This may have been enough to save George, and if it was so in the movie, it would have still been charming, but it continues. Clarence asks God to give George, as we know, a vision of the world had he never been born. Because George is an exceptionally powerful and sociable member of this community, it is completely destroyed without him. There is chaos in the street, his friends are isolated and miserable, and his wife, Donna Reed, is an unmarried “old maid” who works at the library. 

By witnessing all the needs he fulfills just by living his own life, George can reconstruct his self-image. What has changed by the end of the film? George’s self-image and nothing else. Everything true at the end is true at the beginning, but George’s perspective has changed. 

This is what we call the true meaning of Christmas. It is the same truth that was so difficult for Nicodemus to understand, the truth of the second birth. The human person is reborn when the fictional ideas they have allowed to dictate their lives are disrupted and exposed. 

So even though the famous performance of Auld Lang Syne by the entire cast might make you call this one a New Year's movie, there are actually some nods to Christmas as well.

By: Lily Morris