The classic film “It’s a Wonderful Life” features a central character George Bailey, whose plight/motif is worthy of deeper analysis in this era of the internet.
First of all, I think that in the year 2025, this story would be a rare exception.
But back in 1946, the message of this simple story was so self-evident and plausible that to this day, it is a Christmas classic. In a society that has drifted so very far from the values, societal structure and context set forth in the film, we still incorporate it into our collective consciousness and recognize its value.
George Bailey was not a man who needed a psychiatrist.
George Bailey was simply a man that had devoted his entire life to all the right things, and because he had a wife who went to bat for him when it was his turn to be in deep need and distress, he was swiftly rescued within the context of a very fixable situation, rather than having that situation go from bad to worse.
His wife Mary made just one phone call that ultimately mobilized much of their entire local community as well as reaching connections in Europe. Through a chain of events, people heard what the situation was, and more importantly, heard how it could be swiftly fixed. There was no delay, no red tape of any sort, no pondering of how others might fix the situation on their terms without consideration of what George Bailey actually needed. No one was saying, “George, why don’t you go take a 2nd job, if you’ve got some problem like this?”
No one in that community would suggest such a thing, for a number of reasons, including they knew George Bailey very personally and what made him tick.
The suggestion that on top of George Bailey’s already significant work week/work load, his community involvement and his family needs, would have been quite counter-intuitive and heaped further unmanageable burdens upon him.
But in 2025, we now live in a world where it is considered normal for elderly people retired from professional life, collecting social security, navigating a landscape where their grown kids and grandkids don’t even know what sex they are or have virtually censured or excommunicated them as “part of the patriarchy,” to be found working another 20-30 hours at “Lowe’s” for a little extra cash when they should be in a time of life they reap the fruits of their lifetime and works of their hands.
In this piece, I would like to explore “George Bailey” as a challenging motif for all that ails us these days.
I find him challenging in a number of ways, and perhaps you will also.
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First, if you found yourself in an immediate situation that was fixable, but not by you alone, what would you do? This situation could take many forms, and the details in your imagination may be less important than the question.
Would you discuss it with your spouse or significant other?
Would you reach out to your parents or your siblings, or other extended family?
Would you reach out to your church community or co-workers?
Would you reach out to your physically closest neighbors?
Would you share directly or indirectly on social media? And if so, how many details? Would you just lay it all out, or would you allude to it hoping that your “George Bailey circle” would know you well enough to immediately know how to help and respond?
That last musing is a tough one. But, I believe it stands at the crux of many things in the year 2025.
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Why did people help George Bailey in his time of need with basically “no questions asked”?
For one thing, at that time and context, people seemed to understand the power of community and crowdsourcing (a modern term for an age-old method of collectively helping an individual).
In 2025, we are pretty much all caught up to some extent in a faux community. Facebook uses language of “community” and “community standards” but is it really a true community or replacement for family?
That’s a complicated question.
Since I’ve joined Facebook in 2009 I have found it to have provided some of the most currently life-giving friendships and forms of real connection (phone calls and great conversations with people from some long ago context, hand-written notes and prayer cards put in the mail to me concerning heartbreaking situations, and people that I clearly know and sense are “100% for me” even if sometimes due to distance or false perceptions that social media so well facilitates, there may be some rough bumps).
At the same time, I have found it to have provided some of the most toxic, death-giving friendships and even material relationships resulting in extreme financial and personal losses. One relationship in particular–a result of seeing a name from high school of “someone I might know” and clicking “add friend”–has altered the course of my life, my family and every form of my material well-being permanently.
There will be no full “meaningful recovery” from that “friendship,” only a lifelong carrying of extreme burdens and losses of every kind. And the most difficult thing for me is that these losses are generally not well understood. Especially through the context of the platform from which they were birthed.
In the classic film about this George Bailey guy, there are a number of things we should take note of. And as we take note of things, perhaps we will start to better understand “The George Bailey Equation” from a variety of vantage points.
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George Bailey was not a perfect man with a perfect response to his troubles. In fact, the more we see the film, the more we should take note of his anger and temper.
We get an initial look at his intensity and struggles between doing that which is “good for George Bailey” and doing that which is (also) good for others and “expected of him.” I want to emphasize here that these two things are inextricably connected, rather than diametrically opposed, and this motif of George’s conflict between pleasing others and making his own decisions or handling things in sometimes hard-to-decipher ways, plays out in a number of ways throughout the film.
Early in the film, George Bailey is portrayed as a man with high and self-centered aspirations. He is a young man set to travel the world and pursue his dreams. While I don’t relate to this aspect of him in the sense that I ever wanted to travel the world (I am actually a homebody with very simple yet “sophisticated” dreams that undergird my life purposes). These dreams and life-callings are inextricably dependent on having a suitable home base and permanency. George Bailey was also a man that operated from a place of permanency and stability within his community, as well as advocated for others to build and value the same things and live out their dreams.
While I don’t identify with George Bailey’s seeming wanderlust which may have in fact, simply been a symptom of being young and free to explore, with the whole world open to him, I do identify with George’s sense of responsibility. Unlike youth today who seem self-centered and unable/unwilling/unprepared for real adult commitments, and older people who have become jaded to thinking big and learning new things, it didn’t take too much to ground George Bailey into the real world and stepping up to the plate when needed.
When his father suddenly dies, he is presented with a conflicting challenge of what he should do. Of course he is conflicted, but in the end, we can always count on George Bailey to be George Bailey. George Bailey’s “George-Baileyness” really wouldn’t have permitted him to do otherwise than to take over his father’s business, and prevent Bedford Falls from becoming Pottersville.
George Bailey recognized that he had something to offer his community and the world that literally no one else could, nor could do as well or with the same results. George Bailey was a man who answered his calling, knowing he was not going to get wealthy or be as financially secure as Potter. This just wasn’t part of “the basic George Bailey equation,” for while I’m sure he was not stupid in terms of math and business, he followed in the steps and heart of his father, with a view toward bigger goals and ideals.
This truth is confirmed when at one point, Potter attempts to persuade George to go to work for him, enticing him with thoughts of how secure he might become financially, and how much he might “enjoy” his life.
For me, the context and details concerning responsibility are very different. When my father died when I was sixteen, I was additionally thrust into immediately carrying (essentially alone) a variety of life burdens that no young girl should carry. While certainly long ago, neighbors, teachers, friends and some family did help me carry these loads in various ways, I still to this day feel a sense of carrying a number of things alone, and draw my strength from God and my own resourcefulness. Not to say that there are not circles of other people with whom I’m inter-dependent in various ways.
Until November of 2001, challenges that pulled me concerning how to respond to and “carry” many things relating to my mother, were never too far from center stage of my responsibilities. Since I was an only child and both of my parents significantly older when I was born, I was essentially sandwiched between “burying” my father at sixteen, and later navigating the physical and other care of my mother–nursing home and much more–while at the same time navigating a devolving first marriage, raising and homeschooling my sons, and running/slowly developing my home-based art career to help provide financially.
Life has formed me to be extremely responsible, yet also formed me to know and understand/operate within my own limits and capacities. George Bailey, too, certainly had his own limitations.
I will always remember at my mother’s funeral, right before it began, my Pastor came up to me in the front row amidst the quiet and somber atmosphere, bent downward and leaned in to me and spoke something very low, that only I could hear.
He said, “You have been a faithful daughter to the end.”
This was such an insightful act of pastoral care, during that time and situation. “Like” God, he was privy to a number of things that situation had involved, not just in the last months, but for my entire lifetime. And “like” the act of this Pastor, in scripture one of our hopes is that when we stand before God one day, we will hear the words, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” (Matthew 25:23)
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Let’s get back to George Bailey.
The first segment of the film sets the stage of our understanding of who George Bailey is.
Just one of the reasons that in 2025 social media cannot replicate the community and connections George Bailey had, is that for many if not most, it isn’t a good platform for communicating “who we really are” or what makes us tick. Central to The George Bailey Equation is the community he has given his life to in various ways clearly knows who he is, and what he has done.
George Bailey is too busy being George Bailey to have to describe what it means to be George Bailey. Again, in 1946 we didn’t have to also manage our online community, and George Bailey especially didn’t need to create 1000x videos of him counting cash at the bank counter to draw in/retain bank customers. That would have been weird, and exhausting.
But of course, these days even those in banking need to manage a second “cyber universe” through LinkedIn, X, Instagram, corporate commercial-making, and so much more. It’s not enough for the George Bailey’s of this world to do what they do and have it thrive, expand and sustain them through word of mouth, clear signage or advertisements, or real life situations.
George Bailey also wasn’t competing with AI, he simply had to always consider the “Potter” equation.
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Social media gives people a fragmented or sometimes highly-edited view of us. We do need to consider out audience and how to best share online.
Some people share very little, they are the watchers and the readers…
Others re-share memes or compositions crafted by others.
It’s funny, since I’m a writer of sorts, that when I scroll and see a Facebook friend that rarely shares or composes anything in length, I begin to read and like a teacher, I start to think things. I can almost tell by the first sentences (but not always…sometimes I don’t see the “gotcha” coming until I get toward the end and see the “LIKE COPY AND PASTE THIS” statement) whether something doesn’t quite sound like they wrote the expression.
I just kinda know. And not that re-sharing something is necessarily bad or wrong, it is just not my style.
It always fascinates me how some people can share just one picture or image and a short phrase that is really really effective in communication. I don’t have that gifted of succinct expression I suppose. And both the truncated sharing as well as the expanded can still give a distorted understanding to social media readers.
It is because of the faux engagement of our five senses–this lack of in- person interaction–that creates a huge space for a number of critiques, assessments and true/false/mixed understandings of the person behind the avatar. Last night, I listened to this excellent talk by a Lutheran minister about such pitfalls, and how social media allows such distortion of “love” and basic human relationships and traditional community so as to be potentially “unethical.”
The (potential) faux engagement we experience on social media lacks all of these five components/senses:
- We do not see the person face to face. (we superimpose our own mental image of that person, based on real life past/current experiences or from photos they share online…and many of our “friends” may be people we have never seen in real life for 50 years, or, people we have somehow met online in a distant state that we will never ever meet in person)
- We do not hear the person’s voice, tone and speech patterns. (we superimpose our own “hearing” of what we read, perhaps in part based on past/current experiences with that person’s actual “voice”)
- We do not touch the person physically. (we compensate for this by giving “virtual hugs” for example)
- We do not smell the person. (this may seem unimportant, but let’s remember that human beings are complex creatures and that we actually give off subtle scents that are factors in relating to someone in real life…think about the enhancement of experience with an elderly woman who wears a certain rose perfume, or the sweaty smell of the friend you play tennis with on a hot summer day, or your encounter with a person with severe psychiatric issues that hasn’t bathed in two weeks…scent is something quite powerful that runs in the background of our real life encounters and when we evaluate someone’s social media post, we do so in the context of our own scent surroundings whether it is our fresh cup of coffee and comfortable chair, or whether we are reading someone’s post from our hospital bed…)
- We do not taste the person. (this may be the oddest thing to contemplate in this context, but worth including…probably most applicable to how couples engage with one another through social media where they are not in immediate position to lean over and give their loved one a kiss in the midst of conversation…and unlike someone who might sit beside a dying parent wetting their hand with their tears and tasting it in some way…)
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But let’s get back to George Bailey.
The beginning of the film sets the stage for us understanding George Bailey, and this is something social media does not do a good job of. Social media is designed for sound bites of a person’s life and experience, and I wouldn’t be the least surprised that a percentage of my online “friends” snooze me for thirty days because I am “too much.”
One of the reasons I blog write and then share as an article link, is that it requires an extra step…a buffer that sorts out whom I allow to read my deeper thoughts. If you are reading this now, it is either because you care and otherwise truly like/enjoy me and my writings enough to make that second click and are “100% in my corner” or you are actually the opposite. Sadly, you may be reading this now because you are fascinated or otherwise a morbidly curious rubber-necker of the “—-show” that you believe George Bailey’s (um…I mean…”Eileen’s”) life to be.
Let’s get this clear: George Bailey had a wonderfully satisfying and enriched life! And I, too, have a wonderfully enriched life! George Bailey’s eventual problem was not his life, his pursuits or anything else but was his essential situation. How in the world was such a “successful” person in the community through what he had to offer that a single, lost deposit was sufficient in his mind to break him and cause him to lose the entire bank. I realize part of it had to do with his impending meeting with the bank examiner which left him seemingly little time to figure out what had happened or how to correct the situation.
Imagine George Bailey finding himself in the situation he did, and his community getting their popcorn and cup of tea, and watching it all go down from afar in their comfy chair, like some “—-show” or reality TV program. In many real ways, Facebook provides us a kind of “entertainment,” sometimes at the expense of real people, in very real situations. I know, because I’m guilty at times of watching some things and people from “afar” as well. That said, it can be hard to speculate just how many so-called friend connections might qualify as being in a category that is not “100% for George Bailey.”
If I were George Bailey in 2025, I might just come to a point of inviting these people to go away if I were in some situation where I needed a real community of people to go to bat for me. That’s quite a bold move, considering many people feel social media rejection based on a number of things.
George Bailey was a very intelligent man–very perceptive and forward thinking–as we see in the scene of the bank run. No doubt, George Bailey had some enemies in his community, with the number one person being Potter.
Mr. Potter was just waiting and watching for George Bailey to fail, and for a variety of reasons.
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In the beginning of the film, we learn the following:
George Bailey didn’t think twice about jumping into a dangerous hole in frigid pond water, to save his kid brother Harry. And he paid for that for the rest of his life, through some kind of injury that affected his hearing in one ear.
George Bailey found himself in a confusing and distressing situation, when he (a young boy working in the actual drug area of a pharmacy which tells us he was very mature for his age, intelligent and dependable) observed Mr. Gower accidentally filling a prescription with a poisonous substance. George was fortunate that he seemed to come from a very stable family situation, and he immediately believed that he could depend upon his father to help him know what to do.
George Bailey found himself having to make a tough life choice after his father suddenly died a few years later, and his (the father’s) life’s work for his family and community became threatened, as well as the outcome of a number of other people, depending on what George Bailey might do when presented with such a choice. There’s a great scene in the film where the visual narrative of George Bailey’s life gets “paused” so Clarence can take a good look at George Bailey’s face.
So that we don’t assume George Bailey was some “god” or perfect human being, we do get a glimpse of a side of him and his temperament when he finds himself cheek to cheek with Mary, speaking long distance to Sam Waitwright (“hee-haw, hee-haw”). He’s a man who is now engaged with a number of his five senses in the real-life presence of this “Mary” woman. He sees her, hears her, feels her, smells her…and it won’t be long until he passionately kisses her and “tastes” her.
But first, when he realizes what is happening–that he is losing control in his internal conflict (will George Bailey pursue George Bailey’s dreams or will George Bailey give in to Mary’s dreams?)–he actually is portrayed as doing something we might consider violent by today’s standards.
George Bailey turns and passionately-ragingly grabs hold of Mary, shaking her and propelling her into fear and tearfulness. He yells in her face that he will essentially NOT allow himself to be sucked into a relationship with her which would mean the end of his personal freedom and “dreams.” But spoiler alert, Mary was the best thing that ever happened to George Bailey!
Like any “chick flick,” there is always that structural plot-scene where the potential couple seems to be coming apart at the seams. And then, we see the predictable motif/resolution of this conflict: the couple gets together and of course, like any fairy tale, lives happily ever after.
In this iconic scene, George Bailey gets out all of his pent up anger and feelings and almost collapses, as does Mary, as they passionately kiss each other through tears and George Bailey’s continuation of passionately clinging to her.
Interesting.
As we know, the story continues on. He and Mary get married (and this happens less and less and less in our current culture of “throwaway” encounters of many sorts). They are actually set for their honeymoon when they observe something very unusual in the streets–large numbers of people are literally running into the Bailey Savings and Loan Building.
Again, George Bailey is not a stupid man–he’s actually very intelligent, perceptive, and understands “how things work.” When he and his bride are interrupted by their honeymoon chauffer who said, “This has all the earmarks of a ‘bank run,'” George seemed to immediately switch gears and recognize what that might mean.
This is a somewhat interesting statement if we consider it in historical context. George Bailey so quickly identify in real time the concept of what was happening, likely because he may have lived through as a child hearing his father talk about the Panic of 1907 or earlier situations. I had to look that one up, myself, but the conceptual question entered my mind.
George’s instincts of responsibility and maintaining a level head in crisis immediately leapt him into action.
He’s a proactive person.
He quickly runs into the bank, where he encounters his community in “mob form.”
Each person is demanding an immediate withdrawal of their funds during an economic crisis where it is suddenly every man for himself.
George Bailey is faced with the entire collective of people who have partaken (and some of them quite deeply) of “whatever it is/was that this ‘George Bailey’–or ‘Eileen Slifer’–was doing or had done with his/her life, pursuits, talents and responsibilities.“
As a working artist, I have found/discovered a very strange symbiotic relationship that seems to sometimes exist between artists and “normal people.” The production of their art which so many value requires a number of things from the artist. These things can sometimes seem in conflict with the expected norms of society. The artist might even sometimes feel a kind of devaluation or sense of not truly be understood or their related needs considered by others who have such a different paradigm.
Though not necessarily the fault of the non-artist or hobby artist looking at things from the outside, like George Bailey, he knew best what was needed within his own purview at different points in the film.
I would not begin to really know how to run/manage a bank. And like many people who love and admire creative people or the results, they may not have a good sense or imagination of even where to start in creating something that involves a number of component steps, for example. And depending on situations–especially the access to things that many take for granted that stabilize situations–it can also seem confusing to anyone watching someone struggling in any situation with a set of particulars.
For the most part, artists depend on their sustenance from people who are more in the category of societal norms, and that leaves a huge space–especially on social media–for a lot of disconnect about how things really work.
George Bailey was faced with a community of people who were desperate, and many of them if not most of them had no real idea of how things in banking, for example, actually worked. They were watching out for themselves, and considered that their actions/inactions were simply a separate, disconnected matter from anything else in the situation.
Sometimes I get advice that frustrates me, because the person has no real understanding of what that advice would actually “look like” if followed. What they speak or mean is far different from what I hear, because I know exactly that following that advice would accomplish or hasten the exact opposite of what the well-meaning person is attempting to help me in.
The principle sometimes applies, “You know not what you are asking or suggesting.”
I imagine how George Bailey’s thoughts were racing from the moment he unlocked the doors to the bank and wondered why Uncle Bill had closed it all up.
George’s thoughts were not racing or otherwise disordered because he had some mood disorder, thought disorder, or anything else particularly abnormal going on apart from the immediate abnormal situation. He had been thrust into a kind of battle, and in the midst of his call to boots-on-the-ground and chief commanding officer of the “situation,” he gets a call from a so-called friend (Mr. Potter) giving him advice.
What is interesting to me is that Mr. Potter’s advice was actually correct advice, but his intent was not out of true friendship. Mr. Potter was also in banking, but he was in a realm of power far above “whatever it was that little old ‘George Bailey'” was doing there at the art studio (um…I mean, the “Savings and Loan”).
Both George Bailey and Mr. Potter were intelligent people, who understood the nitty gritty’s of their banking operation, and could do “math” quite well. The difference was that Potter had no qualms about shrewdness in his affairs, and George Bailey didn’t seem to have a shrewd bone in his body when it came to his relationship with money.
George Bailey’s operation was more altruistic and idealized. His labors benefited many common people and I’m sure he accommodated a number of people in his community who truly could not afford the market value of what services (in the form of mortgage loans, etc) he offered them. He points that out in the scene with the crowd by highlighting that is one of the men present who fell upon difficulties the previous year and couldn’t pay his mortgage, he would have lost his property had his loan been with Potter rather than with the Bailey Savings and Loan.
The motif of the starving artist exists for a reason, and I’ve often said if I were not an artist, I would never afford my own services. (especially fine art portraits or original paintings). In fact, the caricature drawing splurged on at the beach in 1996, that led to my desire to learn to draw caricatures so I might earn more money for our family, is a good example of this. At the time, paying the $20 to have our sons drawn by a young artist on LBI meant that we might not buy as much salt water taffy, or go on a few less rides.
Potter, on the other hand, is depicted as a self-centered person who likely didn’t have such a wonderful life. He’s in a wheelchair and we don’t know why, so maybe there is a story there, too, of whatever formed him in life to be in the position he holds in that community. We do not get a sense that Potter has any immediate family (like Ebenezer Scrooge). Potter seems to be the typical trope of a miserly person whose existence rests upon wealth and the power that brings; whereas George is the exact opposite.
Somehow I want to think that if Mr. Potter wasn’t wheelchair bound or in banking, he would still be the antagonist in the story that sets himself in contrast to the protagonist, George Bailey.
Potter would be the one to NOT dive into icy water to save his younger brother.
Potter would be the one to NOT go the extra mile to deal with Mr. Gower’s mistake; he might have just done his duty and delivered the RX, and punched out his time clock in the year 2025.
Potter would be the one to have put his own career and interests above taking over a family business of any sort, that had little potential to build his wealth and personal security.
Potter would probably do many things differently than George Bailey, because Potter did not possess the George Bailey-ness that George Bailey possessed.
So, during the bank run, Mr. Potter gives George Bailey a so-called courtesy call as a fellow banker, explaining to George that if he closed his doors before 6pm, he would never open them again. At the same time, George is fending off his friends at the bank counter who are demanding to withdraw every bit of their money they have deposited into the Bailey Savings and Loan.
George Bailey is sure in a pickle, since Uncle Billy has informed him that earlier that day, the bank’s loan had been called and every dime went out and it was still insufficient. George was facing a situation of extreme insufficiency, and not one he had anticipated would unfold in the exact way that it did.
For people who have no idea how things really work in a bank–who simply benefit from the labors, investments and ingenuity of banker folks like George Bailey–their customer requests might seem normal and reasonable.
Sometimes I receive unsolicited personal and business advice from people who don’t seem to know who I am, and especially, have an insufficient understanding (or possibly a negative opinion) of what it is that I actually do, what I need to do what I do, my life’s purposes, nor what my personal and business life requires nor how it (or myself, personally) functions.
Sometimes I receive such advice–whether spoken or not–as some form of what feels like personal critique/value judgement. We all tend to measure others by ourselves and our imagination of “what we would do” if we were in their position.
No one likes or wants to be misunderstood. Most people want to be known, appreciated, and valued as who they are and in the life choices they have felt inclined to make. While there is truth in the idea that we must be careful in not supporting what we perceive of a wrongs or irresponsible life choices, there are also a lot of other truths to be gleaned from The George Bailey Equation. (like, we didn’t George fire Uncle Billy, who presented as somewhat scatter-brained, a risk, and possibly prone to drinking on the job…if George had been more shrewd in that thing, he would have never found himself in the pickle that was the central situation of the film).
Although not being fully understood, feeling devalued or unsupported, or being given harsh advice that would make things so much worse for me personally and literally end my art career, I do know that frustrating–even hurtful–responses of others sometimes truly come from a place of actually care and concern. They are just watching me struggle and want to help, and share what they think might fix my life and situation.
These are people who care even when they might not fully understand me or my situation and choices, and are (imperfectly, as I am also to others), “100% in my corner.”
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But let’s get back to George Bailey and what I consider one of the highlights of this classic film.
George understands that something very unusual is happening, and he (and all who depend upon him in any way) are all caught up in it together, somehow. Potter’s solution to the same crisis comes from a place more of normal society expectations which are often conjoined to having more power and options. He is offering George’s customers fifty cents on the dollar if they will shift their business (and their loyalties) to him.
Some of the people standing in front of George are very short-sighted people. They are understandably worried about their own situation, but may fail to realize if they don’t work with George, they will be in a worse situation if he goes under and they must turn to Potter.
As I daily watch the devolvement and devaluation and depreciation in every aspect of traditional life as represented in this 1946 film, I also feel the impact to the arts and artists.
While people may view art as a luxury and it technically is, at the same time it is hard to imagine a world where art, poetry and music does not contribute to man’s basic survival during tough times. The George Bailey of 2025 has the face of a number of trades and businesses that are slowly becoming extinct and replaced by faux forms of creativity, coming more and more from AI.
Why pay for a hand-painted, intricately designed mural or painting when you can Google and download any similar image and settle for something less than, due to shifting cultural trends and priorities. We now live in a world where tiny houses and minimalism is being normalized, and not many of us are asking/recognizing the implication of such trends.
I betcha anything that George Bailey’s big old Victorian house had plenty of eclectic family heirlooms and various framed art. In fact, in the scene where George comes home from his bad day, we see wall hanging of butterfly collections, knick-knacks on the piano and bookcase, lace coverings adding a busy but interesting and “warm” look to things, and they are decorating the family Christmas tree. The word IKEA had fortunately not been coined nor had the idea of following the advice of Marie Kondo or limiting any visual appearance of “clutter” including real art.
The idea of impermanence and easy discard of old things and old ways had not yet become in vogue. Even in Potter’s office and George’s bank, we ornate furniture and a framed picture of George’s father on the wall that served no utilitarian purpose.
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Just like some of the people that give me what might sound like “reasonable” advice without understanding the full implications (and short-sightedness) of following that advice, and especially, what it would actually look like, George Bailey also had to wade through a number of options. He could have just taken the path of least resistance on that day of The Great Crash of 1929, and resign himself to losing everything and finding some new line of work, that was not too George Bailey-like.
He wasn’t going to go down without a fight, at least.
Some of the people standing in front of George hear what Potter is offering and are almost like lemmings heading off some cliff. They are tempted to run to Potter for refuge–like a little bird into the fowler’s snare–not thinking any further into the future than the immediate situation. They just want their money. They are not thinking about the implications ten years down the road of what shifting into Potter’s paradigm will mean for them, personally, nor for anyone else.
Again, back to George Bailey.
I do believe in this scene, a few of his customers do (at least attempt to) run out the door into the arms of Potter. In re-watching the scene, George actually runs quickly and blocks their way to the door! He gives more pleas, trying to explain to them how they can all pull through together.
It’s kind of weird to imagine a bank owner in 2025 doing that same maneuver!
He would surely have lawsuits against him and accusations that he was holding people hostage in his bank until they did what he wanted.
But George is more concerned with getting people “100% in the corner” of keeping the old Bailey Savings and Loan in the game during that time. Sure, it was his own livelihood, too, and he had employees and family depending upon what was probably a meager source of compensation, given all things.
George wasn’t stupid, he knew Potter was right: if he closed his doors early that day (or followed any advice to leave the building and go perform some afternoon day labor job to earn a dollar or two in order to save the situation), and didn’t navigate the situation and retaining as much of the investments involved as possible (take note, George built upon his father’s lifelong efforts, too…there was something very huge at stake in this situation), that it truly would be the complete demise of the Savings and Loan, in one fell swoop.
But why couldn’t George Bailey just go take a temporary job in order to save the Savings and Loan. If you need more money, go work harder. If you are working sixty hours, consider eighty. If you are working eighty, consider working a hundred.
Come on George Bailey, don’t be a slacker! Suck it up, buttercup!
Sometimes I think about the frustration that comes from armchair pilots wanting to grab the steering wheel of your car and telling the quarterback which directly to throw the ball when he’s seeing the linebacker to his left and makes a quick decision during that particular play.
How’s that for a mixing of metaphors?
George Bailey had to think quickly and assess the situation before him, and how to fix things, and he did so successfully because he was not only intelligent, but he seemed to be able to communicate what he needed, on his end, of this situation.
George gives them a little tutorial lesson in how things really work when it comes to banking–or the kind of banking that George Bailey (not Mr. Potter) engages in. He tells them that he doesn’t literally have “their money” in the bank. He explains that a variety of monetary investments by a number of people, collectively, constituted the cash flow that enabled the Savings and Loan to service, collectively, to the community.
Like an astute teacher, George gives them an object lesson. He explains to them that “so and so’s money” is actually in “John Doe’s” house, and that John Doe’s payment of interest actually funds “Mary Smith’s” loan. It is a bigger system, not just component parts and services that have no connection to one another.
The people before them were not treating it as such.
It would be like in my art business if specific customers considered that I should be available for them, art wise, and they should only pay for the exact costs of their project. That if given a quotation for an art project that takes me four hours and uses portions of paint or matte board I already have around, or utilizes skills developed over thirty-five years of experience, that it would be unreasonable to be told a cost/hourly rate that would provide me additional payment/cash flow for all the undergirding stocking of supplies, maintaining of my bank facility art studio space, or my time in clerical work or promotions regardless of whether or not they generate sales or commissions.
In fact, some of these bank customers might be tempted to tell George Bailey to go get a real job. And then he could do his “Savings and Loan Thingy” in his spare time, or as a hobby. If he was encountering a time where the bills weren’t being paid–for some reason–that he should put it all on hold and return to it later.
Later would be, after Potter takes it over and further erases George’s chances at success?
The customers who are in panic that day, feel they are just individuals just walking through the door of a public building, coming up to a counter where public services are advertised or utilized, and simply wanting their limited transaction. If George Bailey’s Savings and Loan doesn’t have enough bigger transactions happening so that they can come in and make their very specific ATM withdrawal, that’s not their problem. That’s George Bailey’s problem.
So, we see various people stepping up to the counter, asking to withdraw amounts of just “their” money. It’s a win for George and a lightbulb moment when one little lady (played by Ellen Corby who later played Grandma Walton) comes forward and doesn’t ask to withdraw everything–only what she immediately needs.
I believe George expresses joy and gratitude–maybe even kissing the little lady. I remember the line George says to her, “NOW we’re talking!”
This is a motif/foreshadowing of later actions by others in the film. Getting the little lady played by Ellen Corby on board and understanding what George Bailey needed in that moment, set the stage and example for others to follow suit. The next people in line pause a moment, and consider how they might have their needs met while at the same time showing concern for George Bailey’s needs. It’s actually a brilliant scene in the history of film-making.
By the end of this scene we see the anxious mob has cleared out, and George and the employees present are counting down the clock to closing time, and then promptly lock the doors! We then see them joyfully celebrating and “toasting” to two single dollar bills left! George playfully hopes the two dollar bills will get together and multiply like rabbits!
And as a business person who often has run on such thin margins–daily bread, so-to-speak–I can certainly relate to his hopes. Potter was not really a true entrepreneur, he was simply business minded. If I wanted to be a “Mr. Potter” artist, I would immediately axe every single art service and product I’m capable of and provide a deep sense of purpose and joy not only to me, but to others, and simply become a caricature artist.
Why would George Bailey pour any of his energies and time into working for Potter? I mean, wouldn’t it be logical for him to go work for Potter so he could save the Savings and Loan? That would make a lot of sense, wouldn’t it.
I need to pause here and insert that earlier in this scene, not long after George observes and leaps out of the “Just Married” vehicle into the Savings and Loan, we observe that Mary isn’t stupid either. While at first, she naturally doesn’t want their honeymoon ruined, it isn’t long before she’s in the bank, to, as “Mrs. George Bailey.”
Mary is both supportive and intelligent, and there is another motif in this film, in that George and Mary were just perfect for one another. George in not a man who later finds himself twice divorced, with all the family, personal and financial issues relating to that. We see his bride, Mary, spring into her first supportive action of her husband–she walks into the Savings and Loan and fairly quickly displays/hands George the entire wad of $2000 cash they would have used on their honeymoon.
George is a very fortunate man, to have Mary, and she is super fortunate to have a man like George Bailey.
But again, this whole story is set in another time. Men, women, marriage and family seemed so different in those times.
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But, back to George Bailey and this most intricate story…
George Bailey’s quick action, along with his wife Mary (who was also quite resourceful in fixing up that old house for their honeymoon hotel and essentially to make it into the stable home/location needed to host a healthy family life), get them through that crisis.
George’s work continues forward, and many in the community are blessed by whatever it is that good old “George Bailey” does. All seems well and wonderful, until some years later, Uncle Billy does something that seems to threaten the entirety of George Bailey’s life’s work, family, and his position/function within his community.
This time, George Bailey is akin to the scene in Saving Private Ryan where the sharpshooter sees a tank and gun slowly turning his way, aiming right up to the window from which he is looking out upon the war scene. In an instant, he knows what is likely coming.
Now when it comes to saving George Bailey, rather than saving Harry, Mr. Gower’s customer, his father’s business, or the Savings and Loan on the day of The Great Crash, George doesn’t seem to be too quick-thinking. He succumbs to a sense of panic, despair and impending personal failure and humiliation.
It is here we see again, George’s capacity for anger and frustration coming out.
Normally portrayed as an easy-going, mild-mannered man, we see him seem to snap.
He yells at his children, yells at Mary, yells on the phone at Zuzu’s teacher (blaming her for his daughter’s cold). He pretty much curses the old house that is the haven for his life, his family and the basis from which he serves his community, using his God-given skills and living with purpose. We see him responding in anger to a broken banister knob, and venting to his family “why are we even living here?” or things along those lines. While George has a long fuse even when so angry and upset and at first he is showing a lot of restraint even as he’s pretty upset, eventually he begins breaking things and knocking things over. (In the scene, they appear to have a drafting table or possibly a makeshift darkroom…not sure, but there are multiple photos on the wall above the table…who is the creative one, George or Mary? Their home also is well-lived in, and it appears there is a model of a bridge set up, probably a child’s project.)
Mary, and the children, respond emotionally to George. One of the children at the piano, bursts out in tears after George scolds and belittles her, and Mary stands up to George, with a protective stance of her children. “Why must you torture the kids,” she sternly says. Mary almost says something unkind back to George, but stops herself short. She says, “Why don’t you…..”
What did she stop herself from saying?
“Why don’t you just leave us?” or “Why don’t you just go jump off a bridge?”
You can see George’s sense of despair and fear over what he just did, and the situation, as he grabs his hat and walks out the door.
(I note here, maybe out of sequence, that in the “what if” butterfly effect that Clarence comes up with to reach George in his time of needless desperation, George finally begs to know “what about Mary?”)
Clarence is hesitant to tell George the outcome of “Mary,” had George never been born.
We are shown that Mary is still Mary. But her life and potential so unfulfilled. She’s still intelligent. She’s a faithful woman, apparently with some high standards. Since she didn’t marry “George”–since George got his wish (unlike “Job” in the bible) that he was never born–Mary was intelligent and service-oriented enough to become a librarian.
Surely in this alternate universe, Mary was still a supportive, hard-working woman that cared about people and children. For whatever reason, no one in that alternate universe valued or noticed Mary enough to marry her, and to faithfully love her.
But, getting back to George Bailey.
George Bailey then runs off to a bar. Where he continues to not behave normally. And not some highfalutin bar where one might find Mr. Potter. George seems to head toward a bar where the community’s working class people and even immigrants hang out on Christmas Eve.
Soon the man that is the husband of his daughter’s teacher, whom he “gave a piece of his angry mind to” by phone just an hour or so earlier, overhears from the bartender that he is in the presence of George Bailey. He promptly goes over and punches him in the face.
We might be tempted to read between the lines, and wonder if George Bailey had another side/aspect to him. Apparently, he was not a perfect stranger in this bar.
I remember once our next door neighbor in Harmony Hills told me, when I was in my mid 20’s, that he fully expected to find my dad in a bar some day and “rip roaring drunk” as an understandable response to the home situation with my mother! Mr. Cane then added, “But I never did!” He said that my father just faithfully held things together, day-by-day working and night-by-night coming home to chaos and a number of very difficult things, making dinner, doing housework and especially, making sure “Eileen’s needs” were taken care of to the best of his ability.
My father once told me when I was about middle school age, “And to think I survived World War II to come home to THIS.”
My father, Rodney Slifer, was a lot like George Bailey. I noticed with interest the coincidence that this film was actually released on my father’s thirty-third birthday (December 20, 1946). My father was still in Europe during that time, as part of the peace-keeping troops that stayed in Germany after V-Day.
But, I don’t want to keep expanding the topic here. I have often felt that I am “my dad” but on steroids, so-to-speak. I have my mother’s intelligence and other forms of creativity, ingenuity, energy and stamina, resourcefulness, and her education, but my heart and pursuits over which I’ve built my life’s work are nearer in spirit to the heart of my father, in so many indirect ways. I have my mother’s face in many ways, but, I have my father’s eyes.
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But back to George Bailey.
George Bailey gets thrown out of the bar and is running through the snow, with his mouth bleeding. George seems to be losing it, but George Bailey isn’t crazy, nor having a nervous breakdown, or really even suicidal.
George Bailey has a wonderful life but suddenly he is a desperate man. Oh how the tide of life might turn on a dime in any of ours lives, thrusting us into some situation that represents immediate extreme loss of everything we most deeply live for, value and cherish.
Two nights ago, the lives of over 60 people were suddenly thrust into unbearable pain and distress after a passenger plane collided with a Blackhawk. In the past month, thousands of people lost their homes and entire communities through fires in California. All of us remain one step away from some phone call telling us of a tragic, immediate, irrecoverable loss, or a medical diagnosis that will change our life forever.
I did allude to Job, a few paragraphs above.
This bible story depicts a man who came under such specific satanic assault, that pretty much in one fell swoop of wave after wave of immense losses, he found himself not much unlike George Bailey, wishing he had “never been born.” Only Job is quite poetic–unlike George Bailey on the bridge.
Job actually not only wishes he was never born, Job sort of asks that God might rearrange the enter universe in order to block out his birth date from its existence. That’s a lot to think about and read into this passage, given that our entire calendar and method of keeping track of time, days, years was set into motion by our Creator in His ordaining of the universe with its sun, moon, stars and planets.
Job is asking quite a lot, from his place of distress. And in cursing the day he had been born, he was also cursing the birthdate of other human beings born that same day.
On the other hand, George Bailey makes his statement/request more simple. We also see George making a feeble attempt to pray for God’s help and rescue. Unlike Job, George fumbles and indicates he’s “not a praying man, but…”
Job Wishes He Had Never Been Born (Job Chapter 3)
3 After a while, Job opened his mouth to speak. He cursed the day he had been born. 2 He said,
3 “May the day I was born be wiped out.
May the night be wiped away when people said, ‘A boy is born!’
4 May that day turn into darkness.
May God in heaven not care about it.
May no light shine on it.
5 May gloom and total darkness take it back.
May a cloud settle over it.
May blackness cover it up.
6 May deep darkness take over the night I was born.
May it not be included among the days of the year.
May it never appear in any of the months.
7 May no children ever have been born on that night.
May no shout of joy be heard in it.
8 May people say evil things about that day.
May people ready to wake the sea monster Leviathan say evil things about that day.
9 May its morning stars become dark.
May it lose all hope of ever seeing daylight.
May it not see the first light of the morning sun.
10 It didn’t keep my mother from letting me be born.
It didn’t keep my eyes from seeing trouble.
11 “Why didn’t I die when I was born?
Why didn’t I die as I came out of my mother’s body?
12 Why was I placed on her knees?
Why did her breasts give me milk?
13 If all of that hadn’t happened,
I would be lying down in peace.
I’d be asleep and at rest in the grave.
14 I’d be with the earth’s kings and rulers.
They had built for themselves places that are now destroyed.
15 I’d be with princes who used to have gold.
They had filled their houses with silver.
16 Why wasn’t I buried like a baby who was born dead?
Why wasn’t I buried like a child who never saw the light of day?
17 In the grave, sinful people don’t cause trouble anymore.
And there tired people find rest.
So at this point in the film, just like in the book of Job, there is a shift to a kind of consideration of God and His ability to control both the universe as well as things pertaining to humans. The film departs from biblical orthodoxy in the technical sense (but it makes a wonderful and very “human” story!) when we are introduce to the angel named Clarence.
Contrary to the beliefs of some, angels are not deceased humans.
Nor do deceased humans need to earn their “wings” in the heavenly realm because, deceased humans are not angels with “wings.”
But let’s just take it all for what it is: a wonderful story about a wonderful life, community, and the value of a human being.
Most reading this know the story.
Clarence finds himself “assigned” to this George Bailey guy, and having already been given a quick tutorial on “who George Bailey is” at his core, shows some quick-thinking himself. This angel in human form, as he sees and hears what is going through George’s mind, decides to be the one who jumps off the bridge into the frigid waters! He beats George to the draw, so-to-speak.
Now, what do you think George Bailey would do? Being George Bailey.
You got it. George forgot his own troubles and (possible) plan to have jumped into the water, and sprung into action. I know many people–myself included–that during our own intense difficulties we are the kind of person who will drop whatever we are doing to take a phone call from a friend, or otherwise squeeze in some favor for someone that really is not in our own best interest.
For a moment, I’m going to backtrack to Mr. Potter and the stock market crash. We must note historically that on that day, many people so absorbed in the world of money for money’s sake literally jumped off buildings after losing their life savings in one fell swoop. Potter–had the tide not gone well for him in that little town–was probably the profile of the kind of person who would do such a thing.
Sadly, I’ve known at least three people in my lifetime who committed suicide. The point of this blog piece has nothing to do with suicide, but because I believe it is a “soft-core” motif in the story of George Bailey, but I do want to make mention of this. In the one case, there was clearly longstanding mental illness involved. The other two cases were tragic in a different way. In the one case, an older woman had been deceived and lost everything through an online romantic scam. This was at the very early time of the internet…1992 to be exact. Maybe the scam was not even through the internet. This sister in Christ had overcome a lot of trauma, but she could not overcome that. The other person’s story is quite complex and also very tragic.
But, back to George Bailey.
After the soft-core possible passing thought of George Bailey on the bridge we see the old George Bailey back, to a degree. (George Bailey wasn’t mentally ill, nor did he want to die. George Bailey was simply an incredibly responsible, hard-working, contributing person in his community and family man who found himself in a situation he couldn’t fix. He could often help fix the problems of others, but apparently had difficulty going to bat for himself).
We need to analyze this situation more deeply. George Bailey was not on top of the Golden Gate bridge. George Bailey is standing on some moderately small bridge, likely over some minor river he had swum in since his childhood. But, he was quite upset, and there seemed to be a heavy snowstorm and frigid waters.
Now there must have been some basis for concern over George, otherwise God (or was it another “angel?!”) would not have assigned Clarence to him. Nor would Mary immediately have called Uncle Billy or mobilized others in the situation.
Apparently and clearly, George Bailey was quite a good swimmer, and from a young age. He saved Harry, and when there was the dance-off with Mary and the pool started opening up, he wasn’t afraid of drowning as they continued to dance away into the water.
And apparently, Clarence had lived his entire pre-angelic life never learning to swim!
George Bailey is deeply discouraged on that bridge, and his mind was probably reeling with how he might fix his mounting problems. One thing had led to another. At first, George’s problem was simply to figure out where Uncle Billy might have misplaced/lost the large deposit. And we know that Potter–who was NOT “100% in the court of George Bailey”–could have quickly helped and even prevented the whole crisis, had he been a different sort of person.
What was a massive amount of financial loss to George Bailey ($8000 in 1946 is equivalent to about $129,478.97 today), was likely peanuts to Mr. Potter. Interestingly at the end of the film, even old Potter breaks down and enters the scene….
George Bailey whom moments before is soft-core contemplating wishing he’d not been born and recalling Potter’s devaluation of him, saying he was worth more “dead than alive,” quickly shifts gears and dives in without much of a second thought to save the water-illiterate “angel” sent to help him. Yes, George Bailey is the kind of person who actually helps someone who is sent to help him.
Let’s keep looking at George Bailey.
Let’s imagine George Bailey inhabits the year 2025, rather than 1946. Instead of spinning his wheels within the context of a real and present community who could be rapidly mobilized and “crowdsourced” to help him past the pickle he was in, instead, he’s alone in his business world.
He’s not married Mary, but someone he had to divorce. In fact, George married yet another person, and in some respects it was even more difficult than with “Mary.” In fact, George was now quite impacted, and cut off from family and a number of other things/issues at play in a world pretty much upside-down from the world of 1946.
George doesn’t have Mary or other friends/family so closely by his side, they might simply set off a chain of advocacy in motion with a single phone call. It is interesting that the real work and rescue of George Bailey was not directly by Clarence, nor an independent “act of God.”
The real rescue of George Bailey and his life, family, and life’s work, came through the collective action of those who knew him and especially, remembered the kindnesses and extra mile George had gone for them, in some way. They made “quick work” of the pickle George was in–no questions asked. The childhood friend Sam Wainwright in Europe sent an incoming telegram–since he was clearly in the position to make quick work of the situation since it only involved “money”–that he was advancing George up to $25,000, immediately by “wire” transfer.
Imagine how very weird it would have been in that story, if George Bailey being George Bailey (an imperfect person, a small man who lived out fairly simple dreams and gave his all to anything he set his hand to) had needed to resort to setting up a GoFundMe for himself.
Imagine how very weird it would have been in that story, if George had access to Facebook rather than a local bar and small bridge over a winter-raging stream water!
Instead of Mary picking up the telephone when George stormed out, and telling one of the children to pray and “pray hard,” George keeps writing what his problem is and what he needs on Facebook. And his collection of folks he assumes are “100% in his corner” actually include people who may be “double agents” of sorts (Facebook friends with conflicting loyalties to George, or to either of George Bailey’s “ex wives” , or simply people like Potter or friends of Potter.)
Maybe George Bailey’s communications are read by others just like him–men and women who have been through divorce, or some other kind of loss, and have handled it all quite differently.
Maybe George Bailey is trying to explain his banking business on Facebook, and “why this” and “why that.” George Bailey is exhausted, trying to convey to people who understand very little about art, creating banking, selling art, or making a living at banking.
This modern day George Bailey is quite an unfortunate character, hoping that during his pickle, his online community and lifetime of clients will be “100% for him and in his corner,” so-to-speak. And this takes many forms of personal support. Being George Bailey, he will (hopefully) pray, think and work his way out of the pickle.
When one finds themself in a war of attrition and endurance, one must rethink things at times.
Maybe George Bailey needs to invite social media friends who aren’t “100% in his corner” to step back from him. When battles continue to increase, one may need to tighten up to “troops” so to speak.
If I were not now in such dire and other heart-breaking, heart-wrenching situations, I wouldn’t think of my Facebook community as “troops.” The fact that I now feel this is where I am, is quite mind-boggling to me, at times.
So George Bailey probably isn’t the type of person who might be guided by an unusual story in the book of Judges Chapter 6-7. George Bailey might not be the kind of person who would think there needs to be some type of “disruption” in the status quo, in order for him to survive his current battle and achieve victory.
The story found in Judges 6-7 is one where God directs that battle troops be actually narrowed down.
And all of us might ponder whether in our particular life situation, whether having “less Facebook friends” is actually “more than.” I don’t know. But I do know I have a number of “keepers” and then some others in various categories.
At the end of the film, there is a motif of a bell ringing and George interprets this as Clarence got his angel wings. And Clarence leaves a book inscription that says, “Remember, George: no man is a failure who has friends.”
I’m at a very difficult juncture here, and I need friends who will rally around me in a number of ways and not allow me to fail, nor the very worst thing to yet happen in my situation.
In the film’s ending, they all live “happily after after” joining together in song, at holiday and INSIDE George’s home (not just his house or his “property” but his home), in joyful festivity. And then, we are filled with emotion as Harry walks in wearing his uniform…little brother Harry whose life was rescued by George as a child, who in turn saved others in World War II.
It is a quintessential image–not of a perfect world, perfect people, time or utopia–but a quite compelling and haunting image from a real community and family, long before social media.
It is an image and motif of how the world is supposed to work and how people and families and friends are interdependent. It is an image of so many in this world who have their own form of “George Bailey-ness” and for that reason, don’t just fall through the cracks of society and difficult personal situations of many sorts.
It really just take two things for situations to be fixed through The George Bailey Equation, but, I will leave that to the reader’s imagination…
It is a definitely a scene from another time.
Thank You For Reading
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