FBI documents from 1947 show that government officials once believed the Christmas movie classic “It’s a Wonderful Life” was Communist propaganda. About the FBI memo titled “COMMUNIST INFILTRATION OF THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY,” Blogger Will Chen writes…
(Source: BoingBoing)

Read the full article, linked above for some yuletide giggles. Finished? Good.

What I find surprising is that the tone of it is surprised, as in ‘Look how loony the FBI was back then! As if Capra was a Red!”

The point for me is that ‘IAWL’ is, of course, Commie propaganda. Or, to be more accurate, it’s socialist propaganda since I don’t remember much in it about the liquidation of the Kulaks.

But if you take the tirade aimed at Mr. Potter, the importance of community and communal values and practically everything but the enormous dollop of Christian mythology, you’ve got a film that Marx and Engels would probably have shed a tear at.

‘IAWL’ is a film that would never come out of America now. Post-HUAC, the USA was denuded of the creative lefties that powered Hollywood before. Stalin purged the old Bolsheviks, Hitler purged the Jews, gays, disabled and anyone who didn’t like Wagner, America blacklisted and purged many of its most creative, most passionate humanist writers. A few of them ended up in Britain, writing for our films and telly, much as the US ended up with a lot of Jewish scientists during Hitler’s reign of stupid. I always find it hilarious that lefties in America are called ‘liberals’ whereas that’s our term for middle-of-the-road thinkers. They painted their lefties out of even their linguistic history.

If you’ve never seen ‘It’s A Wonderful Life,’ now is the perfect time to nip out to a video shop and get a copy. It really is the best Christmas film ever made. I’ve sat and cried through the end of it countless times.

Zuzu’s petals…. 😀