Beware False Serenity
One of the many aspects of the TV show Firefly that made it lighthearted than it could have been otherwise is that the primary plot is not only driven by Mal Reynolds, but intentionally so. Mal didn’t find himself stuck with the firefly-class ship Serenity. He bought it with a plan in mind, and he executed it effectively: hire a crew, do jobs to pay the bills, and stay free.
There was no moment of crisis for Mal because he never suddenly realized something was amiss. He wasn’t making decisions that he didn’t want to but felt compelled to do so. Losing the war of independence also took any decision-making on his part out of the equation.
Imagine instead if Mal had bought Serenity and flown it around for reasons that had more to do with pleasing someone or an unwillingness to put his interests first?
Since this is Christmas season, let’s explore that situation in a perennial favorite – It’s a Wonderful Life.
The typical understanding of the film is that it’s an uplifting tale of a man who thinks he has accomplished nothing with his life and contemplates suicide, only for a guardian angel to show him an alternative world revealing how much he has positively affected his family, friends, and the entire town. He then returns to his home with a newly-found sense of gratitude while celebrating Christmas among neighborhoods who have rallied to his financial aid.
All of that is true, but it misses a much darker reality.
I’m not the first one to observe this, so don’t credit this as original thinking, but It’s A Wonderful Life is a story of a man finding false Serenity.
Finding Serenity is a matter of:
· Letting go of a future that will never be
· Accepting there’s no going back
· Letting go of certain things
· Not expecting strangers to figure out your problems
· Realizing that you have to care about something
· Acknowledging that you’re on your own
But lastly, there are those for whom there is no finding Serenity.
George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life does neither; he finds false Serenity, which creates a false narrative about the past to resolve his dissatisfaction with the present and, consequently, the future.
In the film George aspires to build things. He wants to travel the world, go to college, then design and build. He’s ambitious and has lofty dreams.
But none of them happen. Of course, Mal Reynolds desired independence yet never got it. But he wasn’t confused as to why.
And that is the primary distinction between George Bailey and Mal Reynolds. At critical junctions, George Bailey chooses to abandon perfectly legitimate self-interests and never comes to term with it.
The first instance is most understandable. George misses his trip around the world because his dad dies of a heart attack and he postponed his trip to settle affairs. But then as he is headed for college he decides not to go in order to keep his father’s building and loan business running. Without him, the board of directors plan to dissolve it.
The problem is George makes it clear he hated the building and loan. He’s worked there since he was a kid to pay for his trip around the world and then go to college. His last conversation with his father is about how little he likes the business.
He doesn’t stay out of inspiration, but guilt that without him something his father built will go under. It’s also partly ressentiment; he dislikes Mr. Potter, the richest man in town who wants to destroy the building and loan so he can maintain a monopoly on the local housing market. It also didn’t help that Mr. Potter trashes the father’s legacy to his son’s face and gets chewed out by it. If Mr. Potter had just kept his mouth shut George Bailey would have left without a word, the board would have voted to dissolve, and that would have been the end of it.
Instead, George stays and gives his college money to his younger brother, who promises to come back and take over the business. So George waits four years, and at that point accepting he won’t go to college. But when his brother finally returns he arrives with not only a wife but a job offer from her father.
Here’s the important part. George’s brother reneges and says he plans to keep to their bargain. Instead of accept that, George feels guilty for robbing him of an opportunity and says he should take his father-in-law’s offer. So his brother goes on to make good money, while George toils to keep the building and loan intact while subsisting on a meager salary.
And then of course there’s the part where George Bailey uses his $2,000 ($20,000+ then) in cash for his honeymoon to bail out the building and loan - at the same time, that was his wife’s suggestion and it’s, incidentally, probably the least regrettable and least consequential act of altruism.
The viewer’s perspective as the audience makes it difficult to remember we see and know what George doesn’t. Unbeknownst to him, his low pay and focus on issuing affordable loans severely undercuts Mr. Potter’s residential portfolio, as people once forced to rent from him can buy cheap homes that quickly gain equity.
But George doesn’t know this when Mr. Potter offers him a hefty pay increase and a lavish lifestyle if he quits the building and loan and works for him. Once more, George sees the whole matter in personal terms and blows up the deal rather than negotiate from a position of strength.
George Bailey’s enormous personal breakdown at the latter part of the film is the result of 15-20 years of pent up, unexpressed frustration that finally comes to the surface. It’s critical to note what the true source of anger originates; he’s not unhappy because he’s married with kids and has the job he has.
It’s that it was the product of his own inability to assert himself.
Frankly, the film evades this frame by focusing on his suicidal urges and his belief that he would have been better off never being born – as opposed to wishing he had left his hometown, travelled the world, gone to college, become an architect, and designed engineering wonders.
If that were the case, the angel would have then had to show George Bailey what life would have been like for him if he had done what he wanted to do. What would it have looked like?
This wasn’t intentional on Frank Capra’s part, but the plot device of showing what his town would be like without him still evades the larger point: George Bailey is miserable because he’s living a life he didn’t really want, and people around him have benefited from his life choices more than he has. His newly-found sense of gratitude at the film’s ending is, in my opinion, false Serenity, because he never acknowledged that he gave up things he wanted and, in retrospect, he’s glad he did. He’s simply glad to have been born.
If he had found Serenity, the plot would have been about him accepting that he made choices, he can’t take them back, and the only way forward is to make the most out of what he has, which on paper isn’t bad.
But this highlights another point: hope and hopelessness are all a matter of expectations. Other men in George Bailey’s circumstances would be perfectly content, provided their expectations were that much.
Going back to Firefly, Mal Reynolds had modest expectations that are rarely unmet, but he also let go of any false hopes.
However, George Bailey had lofty expectations of what the future would be, and his actual life was nothing like it. The worst part of it is that he never deals with that regret, so he ends the film effectively deluded.
One of the first places I saw this interpretation of the film was over at the Art of Manliness , a quote from which I’ll leave you to ponder on.
In the end, of course, George realizes the good he’s done for his community, and that community steps in to save him from personal catastrophe. The scene in which his friends and family show up to his house to donate money and toast “the richest man in town” are as touching and life-affirming as anything in cinematic history. And yet, what will happen to George once the credits roll?
Human experience teaches us that the reverberations of such epiphanial experiences don’t last. The glow from a singular moment of affirmation fades as you re-engage in the day-to-day mundanities of life. For George, there will still be weeks, years, decades of “being cooped up in a shabby little office.” There will still be times when he feels an acute, aching desire to get out of “this measly, crummy old town.” There will still be times when building model bridges as a hobby will feel like a paltry insult to his deepest desires. There will still exist a durable strain of anger within him — farther below the surface maybe, but capable of exploding out once more.
One night of affirmation will not ultimately make up for the lingering grief of a life marked by significant compromises.
The solution, of course, would be for him to accept the consequences of his decisions and move on. But false Serenity is ultimately self-deceit, the worst form of dishonesty.