When America Was Good
(The Christmas movies in the aftermath of World War Two and what they signified)
When America Was Good
(The Christmas movies in the aftermath of World War Two and what they signified)
by
David Gottfried
I am a hard-bitten, cantankerous man, but I just finished watching a movie, that I hadn’t seen in many years, and I gushed like a toddler.
The movie was “It’s A Wonderful Life.” It was released shortly after the end of World War Two. That movie, and other movies at that time, such as “The Best Years of Our Lives,” “Gentlemen’s Agreement” and “Miracle on Thirty Fourth Street,” evince a generosity of spirit, a tenderness and a fervent idealism that wasn’t afraid to get mushy. The critic Camile Paglia once said that she was beginning to tire of art in which everything is ironic and ideas and passions are muffled and muted with a veneer of aloof, pseudo-scholarly detachment. I feel the same way. I yearn for art with a whiff of redemptive possibility.
I think that the warmth of these movies was consistent with the unjaundiced, hopeful temper of America at the end of World War Two. We had endured and defeated the depression, and this taught us that unbridled, febrile capitalism was grotesque and ungodly. We had endured Nazi Germany and Japan, and then we pummeled them straight to hell. This taught us that persecuting people who are different from us is wrong, and this planted the liberating seed which flowered in the Civil Rights movement. Because we had defeated the depression and the fascists, we proved that the good guys could win.
In “It’s A Wonderful Life” and “The Best Years of Our lives,” greedy, grubby capitalism is severely disparaged. In “It’s a Wonderful Life,” capitalism is personified in the miserly, malicious character Potter. In “The Best Years of Our lives,” we see Dana Andrews’ character, a sensitive, brave and bright airman, come home from the war to face unemployment. These movies breathed the New Deal gospel and are antithetical to so much of the thieving, pro capitalist garbage that saturates the airwaves today. For example, I vaguely recall a show entitled “Life Styles of the Rich and Famous” which extolled the glory of the rich and enjoyed demoralizing millions of Americans of modest means. Ditto the series “Dallas.” Ditto a live show that Bette Midler did, in the beginning of the age of Reagan, in which she boasted about her investment in South African Krugerands. Ditto “The Apprentice,” which the inimitably stupid people of America considered a reason to make Trump president. (Actually, I never viewed these programs, and my assessments are based on what other people told me.) Ditto New York’s Mayor Ed Koch who said that if you can’t afford to live in New York you should just get lost. And under Ed Koch’s reign, rental prices rose like helium and the number of AIDS cases pierced the stratosphere.
Of course, this bitchy rich girl spirit of ostentatious consumption and gleeful contempt for one’s brothers and sisters is not unique to today. Arguably, it has always been with us. Indeed, the noted psychologist, William James, saw right through us when he said America worships at the altar of the “Bitch goddess success.”
However, in the aforementioned movies, and in the political discourse at that time, something very different was afoot. I don’t think most Americans realize just how left-wing Roosevelt and his allies were. Consider a few historical tid bits which exemplify the quasi-socialist nature of the Democrats of those days: A) During World War Two some members of Roosevelt’s administration wanted to tax all income, in excess of 10 grand, at the rate of 100 percent; B) In October 1936, Roosevelt said, in a speech in Madison Square Garden, that the rich hated him and that he “welcomed their hatred.” C) In 1948, Harry Truman belted out rousing, Marxian speeches in which he called the rich “Bloodsuckers” and “Gluttons of privilege.” FDR and Harry Truman make Joe Biden look like a dyed in the wool, chamber of commerce Republican.
However, the difference between the late 40’s and the present extends to more than economic issues. The movies of the late 40’s, and perhaps the spirit of that era, were more receptive to hopefulness and a striving not only toward greatness but also to goodness.
For example, although there are plenty of left of center noises in America today, they rarely have any measure of wholesome goodness. Much of the left is characterized by a chic, bitchy sarcasm. This is evident in the antithetical ways in which two movies portray the phrase “Snap Out of It.”
“SNAP OUT OF IT,” then and now.
In “The Best Years of our lives,” Dana Andrews, the aforementioned bright, tender and brave airman whose life was mired in poverty, has flashback-nightmares about combat in which his buddy is killed. His coarse and materialist wife barks at him, “Snap out of it.” The viewer is invited to deem her remark insensitive and crude.
By contrast, in “Moonstruck” a man tells Cher, if I recall correctly (my memory may be faulty as I could not concentrate on the movie as it was such a blasted bore), that he loves her. Cher shouts, “Snap Out of It.” Reviewers have characterized Cher’s statement as bold, brassy, bitchy and funny.
Cher is, I suppose, probably a progressive. In the aforementioned movie, she certainly exuded “liberal” vibes as she was a sarcastic, sardonic, sneering liberated woman (which is what she always is, and is in real life, which suggests that she really wasn’t acting and didn’t deserve her pay). However, in contrast to the left wing mood of the movies of the forties, Cher is a liberal who cackles with disparagement and ridicule.
The good will and friendship, evinced in “The Best Years of Our Lives” and “It’s A Wonderful Life,” also glows in “Gentlemen’s Agreement.” a fierce salvo against anti-Semitism. When a young boy in the movie is heartbroken because his friends reject him for being Jewish, the movie was not afraid to get shmaltzy and to pull on your heart strings. Similarly, “Miracle on 34th Street” is a little bit like John Lennon’s “Imagine,” which beckons us to breath life into dreams and to make them real. (However, likening Miracle on Thirty Forth Street to John Lennon might be a bit of a reach)
Copyright, David Gottfried, 2020