Wait. What? That’s not the way it happened…
It was Christmas night, and Dave and I were watching TV. We were not watching the news, neither a Fox re-write of the 2020 election results nor an MSNBC grind on some GOP folly. We were watching It’s a Wonderful Life on Amazon Prime, and a critical segment of the movie had been cut.
It had been a lovely day of opening gifts in front of a cozy fire with daughter Casey, 6-year-old Eleanor, son-in-law PJ, and their dear old dog, Tallulah. We’d exchanged cheery texts with friends, sisters, and nephews, and enjoyed a Zoom call with my son and his family. For dinner, we savored Dave’s homemade lasagna, baccala, and stuffed calamari. How lovely to settle in after all the hubbub and excitement with some black and white serenity and the familiar holiday message of It’s a Wonderful Life.
For those who don’t know the story – and there can’t be many of you – good guy George Bailey had repeatedly given up his dreams of travel to bolster the Bedford Falls Savings and Loan Company. This small bank enabled the town’s hard-working people to buy homes rather than rent from the wealthy, scheming Mr. Potter. Potter finally gets his chance to sink the Savings and Loan when George’s addled uncle misplaces an $8,000 deposit. Potter refuses George’s plea for help and tells him that, because George has a $10,000 life insurance policy, he’s worth more dead than alive. As his misfortunes mount, George decides the world would indeed be better if he had never lived. He heads to the river intending to jump.
Enter Clarence, a wing-less angel, Heaven-sent, to help George understand his value.
CUT!
What? Yes! Cut! The trip back in time to a George-less world. Cut! The scene where George’s little brother dies because George isn’t there to save him. Cut! The embittered citizens living in Potter’s Field squalor without a kindly Savings and Loan to support them. Cut! Worst of all – ghastly really - George’s wife consigned to life as an Old Maid of a Librarian. Cut! Every scene showing George how important he had been in the lives of so many. Instead, we next see George gleefully sprinting through the snowy streets of Bedford Falls, inexplicably restored to good spirits.
Since its release in 1946, It's a Wonderful Life has become a Christmas classic, a reminder of the ripples every one of us generates in all we do, whether we are given to know the impacts or not. Why would the geniuses behind Amazon Prime mess with a movie we all treasure and know so well?
Reportedly, they felt the deleted scenes were too dark.
Too dark? Please. Amazon Prime offers Silence of the Lambs and Psycho. Graphic violence is available to all ages at all times, yet A Wonderful Life required censorship? Was this a sample of some soulless AI editing or the work of an ignorant corporate pup who understood neither the message nor the importance of tradition?
In fairness, I confess I am not one to go to the mountain for the First Amendment. I’ve always taken issue with First Amendment sanctions cited to allow hate speech, Klan marches in Black neighborhoods, or Neo-Nazi marches through those that are Jewish. I feel the First has loftier goals, protection of the right to speak out against unjust laws or government, not license to preach and practice harm. My son and I have had some conversations about this: who would dictate what should be censored and where it should stop? I get his point, but still…
Perhaps I’m over-reacting to Amazon's edits to It's a Wonderful Life, but with politicians and social media obscuring truth, the free press under assault, and Texan textbooks “softening” history to avoid causing discomfort, I’m concerned to see how readily the powerful can change a storyline.
Lately, reality and fiction seem blurred with a convicted felon in line for the presidency, an anti-vaxxer nominated to head Health and Human Services, an accused sexual predator for Department of Defense, and a Vengeance advocate for the FBI. If we didn’t already feel something was amiss, here in Easton, the very heavens shuddered on the Eve of 2025. Thunder blasted celestial anger, lightning flashed, and torrents pelted the beleaguered Earth. Surely Shakespeare would have written it just so.
