Frank Capra’s cinema masterpiece It’s a Wonderful Life has entertained film lovers for generations but a Canadian college professor sees the Christmas classic as full of “racism” and something to be condemned.
James Deaville, who teaches music at Carleton University in Canada, insists the fictional town of Bedford Falls is just too white – a racist construct emblematic in the musical score.
“Listen and pay attention to the sounds of the movie and that’s where the racism lies, in the music,” the leftist academic whined to the New York Post.
Deaville, an author who lectures about music and sound in movies, insist the melodies that underwrite the beloved Yuletide epic are all wrong.
It’s A Wonderful Life poster featuring Larry Simms, Jimmy Hawkins, James Stewart, Donna Reed, Karolyn Grimes, 1946. (LMPC via Getty Images)
“The music in Pottersville is boogie woogie and jazz, a black type of sound, but when the town is called Bedford Falls, the song George and his wife Mary sing to each other is ‘Buffalo Gals,’ a white traditional standard,” he declaimed.
He also griped Bedford Falls is populated by mostly whites “apart from a black housekeeper,” and slammed Frank Capra, the film’s producer and director, as a racist.
Deaville’s woke words found little support among the film’s admirers.
“When I learned that some unhinged leftist professor claimed this classic contains ‘secret racial and bigoted’ ideas … I was beyond furious,” wrote conservative commentator Matt Margolis.
It’s a Wonderful Life is an American Christmas fantasy drama film released in 1946, directed and produced by Frank Capra.
It is based on the short story and booklet The Greatest Gift, self-published by Philip Van Doren Stern in 1943, which itself is loosely based on the 1843 Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol.
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