Friday, November 28, 2008

A Dream Analysis of "It's a Wonderful Life"

I was watching "It's A Wonderful Life" yesterday, one of my favorite holiday movies. My mom called while I was watching it and teased me for my undying loyalty to the film. She said it's a good movie the first several times you see it, but she couldn't understand why I would watch it every single year. Annoyed for being called out on my sentimentality, I got off the phone and returned to watching my Jimmy.

With a sharper eye, I observed the movie with my mom's question in mind, "Why do I keep watching this movie?" After a few minutes I understood that this film is, in my estimation, a kind of dream of America. Viewed from the psychoanalytic perspective, the movie is fecund with symbols that emerge from the greatest depths of our cultural collective unconscious and, when analyzed, bring a great deal of clarity to the questions of what it means to be an American, or perhaps more accurately, what we hope it means.

In fact, I saw so much powerful symbolism in the movie I was inspired to write about it and realized in considering the topic I would need a few entries to do the subject any justice. And so this will be the introduction to three, maybe four, entries for the holiday season investigating "It's A Wonderful Life" using my skills as a therapist to understand the film as a kind of manufactured, unconscious expression of some of the hopes, dreams and social mores that work to create the American Dream.

The first entry will focus on the symbolism used to communicate normative statements about economics and the highest expression of our free market system. The second entry will look at the division of labor and relationships between the sexes. The final entry will be about the American version of the hero myth as personified by the main character, George Bailey.

The current economic situation we find ourselves addressing this year and perhaps, for years to come, makes this movie and its deep symbolism particularly pertinent. I hope you enjoy the upcoming blogs and respond if you feel like it. I updated my blog so that bloggers can give anonymous input (as long as everyone is well behaved about it). I hope everyone reading this is finding themselves if not abundant this year, then safe and healthy.

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