Abstract of article and why it matters
Art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Our assumptions and axioms color our experience of art – and of life.
Judging is an essential skill of life. We judge things all the time. Is something correct? Is something good? Is something moral? Our judgment relies heavily on our assumptions and axioms. Hence being aware of them is essential to life.
Introduction
A couple of years ago, a friend of mine began to criticize the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. I later went on to analyze that movie in detail here. His take was that, through Jimmy Stewart, the movie preaches that one should give up everything that matters to oneself and be happy that others benefitted from one’s miserable life. I had seen the movie a long time ago. And while I was not wise enough back then to see anything beyond the obvious, his take seemed very strange. Had I missed something? Therefore, I decided to watch the movie again.
A common opinion
First, I embarked on reading Amazon reviews, especially the one-star and two-star ones. Apparently, my friend’s opinion is shared by many others. Here are a few gems from those bashing the movie that made me laugh.
- Not only are the protagonists (sic) complete idiots, but they are also utterly static characters, steadfast in their stupidity, who then get rewarded for their idiocy by sheer luck! That’s right, Deus ex machina is what saves Bailey.
- From police shooting at a guy because he doesn’t know his name, to the main bad guy stealing $8K and getting away with it; this movie just makes zero sense across the board. I wish this movie had never been born.
- A Christmas classic about an angry verbally abusive white man that gave up on his dreams and settles for a life that he doesn’t really want. And surprisingly the message is to accept and appreciate the life you don’t want, rather than following your dreams and being happy.
Now I became very intrigued and watched the movie. I saw why my friend and these other people think that the movie is telling you to live in misery for the sake of others. After all, Jimmy Stewart’s character, George Bailey, rants at several points about how he wants to travel the world and build things. They conclude that when he does something different from what he said, he was necessarily being an irrational idiot, sacrificing his life and happiness for that of others.
Our judgment relies heavily on our assumptions and axioms.
An alternate assumption
When I watched the movie, I decided to assume that George is not an irrational idiot sacrificing his life and happiness for that of others. I decided that he must have some other proper motivation to keep doing what he kept doing. My quest was to figure out if there was another interpretation to his actions that might appear foolishly sacrificial on the surface.
Viewed from that perspective, George came across as a man in a conflict driven by fear. Though he wants to leave town, there is nothing specific he wants to do when he does. Instead, he wants to run away from the fear that he will end up with a life exactly like his father’s if he doesn’t get away. But the conflict arises because he is exactly like his father and wishes he wasn’t. He values the same things as his father but wishes he didn’t. Why does he wish otherwise? All because of a fear that his father’s life is not a happy life.
Supporting the assumption
What supports my assumption?
- George says he wants to build things and travel. He says different variations of this but never anything realistic. At different times he wants to build – new buildings, modern cities, airfields, skyscrapers, bridges. That list does not add up to a real profession. A civil engineer doesn’t build bridges one day and airfields the next. And an architect doesn’t design buildings one day and cities the next. The only common theme though is doing something big, not in their town. That is as close one can get to a textbook definition of fear, not a definition of value.
- In the dinner scene with his father, first he criticizes his father’s choices. Then he stammers in half-sentences without making any coherent argument for wanting to leave town except a fear that he would “go bust” if he stayed. He ends the conversation by telling his father, “I think you are a great guy.”
- He gives an impassioned speech to Potter about what his father believed – and by implication he believes too.
- The telephone kiss scene, he is fighting against himself yelling about how he wouldn’t ever marry and then marries Mary anyway. It’s not a coincidence that he went to talk to Mary on the suggestion of his mother. Right before that scene, he mentions his mother over and over in the conversation with Mary; because Mary is a woman very much like his mother and marrying her would be following in his father’s footsteps.
I don’t want to keep listing more of these. But I assure you that if you use this understanding of his character, the movie will look very different to you.
Now, based on the assumption that he is not irrational, we must also assume that all his actions are rational. Then what explains his actions?
George
I concluded that while George explicitly expounds traveling and building, he must be implicitly aware of his fear and that he values having a life like his father’s. And therefore, anytime a situation arises where he must take a purposeful action to run away from things that would make him more like his father, he refuses to give in to that fear. Because after all, it would be irrational to act against what you truly value. He acts rationally – he upholds his values. But because of his actions over time that never allow him to act on his fear, the idea of a life away from the town ends up as a mirage that plagues him.
And his transformation of attitude at the end comes about not from thinking that “Oh aren’t these people better off because of my crappy life!” but from realizing that the mirage he was chasing all his life was not something he really wanted in the first place. He has achieved the values that he had always wanted – his work and his family – the values that he had hitherto not truly accepted as his own. In short, there is no more fear because he is exactly like his father, and he is happy anyway.
Conclusion
It is important to think about how one’s assumptions color one’s experience with art.
For instance, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand often gets slammed for having what is called the “rape scene”. If you assume that it is truly a rape scene, you will not like the book – and you better not like the book! But it is not a rape scene. There is something else that the author is trying to say through the scene. To understand that, refer to this great article that explains it all.
Another instance is the character of Johnny in the movie Dirty Dancing. Johnny’s age is never specified in the movie, but one can glean from some dialogs that he is supposed to be no older than twenty. Patrick Swayze did a tremendous job in the movie, but the man was thirty-five years old, and unfortunately his age showed in his face. And if you assume he is as old as he looks, you would be appalled at him romancing a sixteen/seventeen-year-old. Enjoy Family Guy making fun of the movie here in a hilarious (but cringeworthy) way when they use that assumption.
I leave you with this food for thought. Something as simple as a single assumption can totally change one’s perception and understanding of art. But we operate in life with a very large set of axioms and assumptions. Therefore, it is important to take the time to check that those axioms and assumptions are not wrong. If you don’t, you might find yourself wishing something that you don’t want to come true.
It is important to take the time to check that one’s axioms and assumptions are not wrong. If you don’t, you might find yourself wishing something that you don’t want to come true.
References
- Detailed analysis of the movie
- Amazon reviews for the movie
- Explanation of the “rape scene” from the Fountainhead
- Family Guy’s parody of Dirty Dancing
For comments or questions on this article, please email nayana@tobeandwhattobe.com
Article image courtesy: ROTFLOLEB – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27603178
