Commenters at HotAir are outraged by a NYT piece by a guy who doesn’t like It’s A Wonderful Life. (Actually, that’s too simplistic a description; you have to read the whole thing, and I suspect a lot of those furious commenters didn’t, which makes their alleged moral superiority highly suspect.)
The NYT guy writes (and I agree):
‘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, of living among bitter, small-minded people.
It is a story of being trapped, of compromising, of watching others move ahead and away…
I comment over at HotAir:
Read More...Sorry guys: I’m a conservative libertarian type, but like the author, an ex-punk, and I agree with lots of what he has to say. But I’m female so you’ll have to revise your “castration” metaphors…
I grew up in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada (imagine a cross between Pittsburg and New Jersey). I hated it. It wasn’t a small town, but it felt like one. I felt trapped, thwarted, misunderstood (see “ex-punk”, above).
Whenever I watched It’s a Wonderful Life, I felt the same way George did about being stuck in a crappy place full of anti-intellectual slobs.
I moved to the big city first chance I got, but when I had to go back to care for my dying mother & grandmother, I felt some of George’s frustrations.
I always leaped to Sarah Palin’s defense when ignorant urbane sophisticates mocked her “small town values”. BUT: would I trade my anonymous, leave-me-alone big city for a place where — egads! — “everybody knows your name”, and business?
No way.
