The dystopian Pottersville in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ is starting to feel less like fiction

Nora Gilbert, University of North Texas Along with millions of others, I’ll soon be taking 2 hours and 10 minutes out of my busy holiday schedule to sit down and watch a movie I’ve seen countless times before: Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” which tells the story of a man’s existential crisis one Christmas Eve in the fictional town of Bedford Falls. There are lots of reasons why this eight-decade-old film still resonates, from its nostalgic pleasures to its cultural critiques. But when I watch it this year, the sequence where Bedford Falls transforms into the dark and dystopian “Pottersville” will resonate the most. In the film, protagonist George Bailey, who’s played by Jimmy Stewart, is on the brink of suicide. He seems to have achieved the hallmarks of the American dream: He’s taken over his father’s loan business, married the love of his life and fathered four excessively adorable children. But George feels stifled and beaten down. His Uncle Billy has misplaced US$8,000 of the company’s money, and the town’s resident tyrant, Mr. Potter, is using the mishap to try to ruin George, who’s his last remaining business competitor. An angel named Clarence is tasked with pulling George back from the brink. To stop him from attempting suicide, Clarence decides to show George what life would have been like if he’d never been born. In this alternate reality, Bedford Falls is called Pottersville, a place Mr. Potter runs as a ruthless banker and slumlord.

Having previously written about “It’s a Wonderful Life” in my book on literary and film censorship, I can’t help but see parallels between Pottersville and the U.S. today. Think about it: In Pottersville, one man hoards all the financial profits and political power. In Pottersville, greed, corruption and cynicism reign supreme. In Pottersville, hard-working immigrants like Giuseppe Martini who were able to build a life and run a business in Bedford Falls have vanished. In Pottersville, homeless addicts like Mr. Gower and nonconformist “pixies” like Clarence are scorned and ostracized, then booted out of the local watering hole. In Pottersville, cops arrest people like Violet Bick while they’re at work and haul them away, kicking and screaming.

But what horrifies George the most about Pottersville is how desensitized the people living in it seem to be to its harshness and cruelty – how they treat him like he’s the crazy, deranged one for wanting and expecting things to be different and better. This is what the current political moment feels like to me. There are days when the latest headlines feel so jarringly unprecedented that I find myself thinking, “Can this be happening? Can this be real?” If you think these comparisons are a bit of a stretch, consider when “It’s a Wonderful Life” was made, and the frame of mind Capra was in when he made it.

Frank Capra, anti-fascist

In 1946, Capra was just returning to Hollywood filmmaking after serving for four years in the U.S. Army, where the Office of War Information had tasked him with producing a series of documentary films about World War II and the lead-up to it. Even though Capra hadn’t been on the front lines, he’d been immersed in the sounds and images of war for years on end, and he had become acutely familiar with Germany, Italy and Japan’s respective rises to fascism.

When deciding on his first postwar film, Capra recalled in his autobiography that he specifically “knew one thing – it would not be about war.” Instead, he chose to adapt a short story by Philip Van Doren Stern, “The Greatest Gift,” that Stern had originally sent to friends and family as a Christmas card in 1943. Stern’s story is certainly not about war. But it’s not exactly about Christmas, either. As Stern writes in his opening lines:

“The little town straggling up the hill was bright with colored Christmas lights. But George Pratt did not see them. He was leaning over the railing of the iron bridge, staring down moodily at the black water.”

The protagonist contemplates suicide because he’s “sick of everything” in the small-town “mudhole” he’s stuck in – until, that is, a “strange little man” gives him the chance to see what life would be like if he’d never been born. It was Capra and his team of screenwriters who added the sinister Henry F. Potter to Stern’s short, simple tale. The Potter subplot encapsulates the film’s most trenchant, still-resonant themes: the unfairness of socioeconomic injustices; the pervasiveness of corporate and political corruption; the threat of monopolized power; the need for affordable housing. These themes had, of course, run through many of Capra’s prewar films as well: “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” “You Can’t Take It with You,” “Meet John Doe” and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” the last of which also starred Jimmy Stewart. But they take on a different kind of weight in “It’s a Wonderful Life” – a weight that’s especially visible on the weathered face of Stewart, who himself had just returned from a harrowing four-year tour of duty as a bomber pilot in Europe. The idealistic vigor with which Stewart had fought crooked politicians and oligarchs as Mr. Smith is replaced by the bitterness, exhaustion, frustration and desperation with which he battles against Mr. Potter as George Bailey.

Life after Pottersville

By the time George has begged and pleaded his way out of Pottersville, the lost $8,000 is no longer top of mind. He’s mainly just relieved to find Bedford Falls as he had left it, warts and all. And yet, the Bedford Falls that George returns to isn’t quite the same as the one he left behind. In this Bedford Falls, the community rallies together to figure out a way to recoup George’s missing money. Their pre-digital version of a GoFundMe page saves George from what he’d feared most: bankruptcy, scandal and prison. And even though his wife, Mary, tries to attribute this sudden wave of collectivist, activist energy to some sort of divine intervention – “George, it’s a miracle; it’s a miracle!” – Uncle Billy points out that it really came about through more earthly organizing means: “Mary did it, George; Mary did it! She told some people you were in trouble, and they scattered all over town collecting money!”

But the question of whether George actually wins his battle against Potter is a murky one. While the typical Capra protagonist triumphs by defeating vice and exposing subterfuge, George never even realizes that Potter is the one who got hold of his money and tried to ruin his life. Potter is never held accountable for his crimes. On the other hand, George is able to learn, from his time in Pottersville, what a crucial role he plays in his community. George’s victory over Potter, then, lies not in some grand final act of retribution, but in the incremental ways he has stood up to Potter throughout his life: not capitulating to Potter’s bullying or intimidation tactics; speaking truth to power; and running a community-centered business rather than one guided by greed and exploitation. In recent months, there have been similar acts of protest, large and small, in the form of rallies, boycotts, immigrant aid efforts, subscription cancellations, food bank donations and more. That doesn’t mean the U.S. has made it out of Pottersville, however. Each day, more head-spinning headlines appear, whether they’re about masked agents terrorizing immigrant communities, the dismantling of anti-corruption oversights, the consolidation of executive power or the naked display of political grift. Zuzu’s petals are still missing. Clarence still hasn’t gotten his wings. But this holiday season, I’m hoping it will feel helpfully cathartic to go with George Bailey, for the umpteenth time, through the dark abyss of his dystopian nightmare – and come out with him, stronger and wiser, on the other side. Nora Gilbert, Professor of Literary and Film Studies, University of North Texas This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Soohyun Cho, Michigan State University There never seems to be a shortage of good crime shows on TV, and network television is teeming with detectives who think – and act – differently. This fall, new seasons of “Elsbeth,” “High Potential,” “Patience” and “Watson” have aired, and they all feature leads who share similar characteristics: They’re outsiders, they’re socially awkward, they can be emotionally distant, and their minds operate in unconventional ways. In fact, they all possess traits that align with what many people now associate with neurodivergence – what scholar Nick Walker defines as “a mind that functions in ways that diverge significantly from the dominant societal standards of ‘normal.’” As a scholar of popular culture, I’ve long been fascinated by this recurring character type – detectives who might, today, be diagnosed as having autism spectrum disorder. While researching my forthcoming book, “The Autistic Detective,” I’ve come to realize that most detectives in popular culture – yes, even Sherlock Holmes – exhibited neurodivergent characteristics, long before the term existed.

The thin line between genius and madness

In the late 19th century, when Sherlock Holmes was created, there was widespread scientific interest in the workings of the mind, particularly the thin line between genius and madness. British psychologist James Sully described “men of genius” as exhibiting “intellectual or moral peculiarities which are distinctly symptomatic of mental disease,” naming Edgar Allan Poe as an example of the “tragic fatefulness of geniuses.” Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso, meanwhile, proposed that madness, genius and criminality were all closely intertwined. Such a fascination with exceptional minds – and the idea that madness and genius are two sides of the same coin – fed into the heart of detective fiction. And although later scholars have criticized the linking of neurodivergence to pathology, violence or genius, the trope remains common in popular culture, where it’s often used to signal the exceptional mind of a detective figure. Now, however, many fans are able to connect these characteristics to specific diagnostic labels. According to CDC data from April 2025, autism diagnoses in U.S. children have risen sharply over the past two decades – from about 1 in 150 in 1998 to roughly 1 in 31 today. This reflects not only a broadened definition of the autism spectrum but also signals greater public awareness and acceptance of neurodivergence. That growing understanding has led to renewed interest in Holmes. From online fan forums to The New York Times, people have debated whether Holmes might be autistic, wondered whether another label would be more appropriate, or highlighted the futility of trying to diagnose a fictional character.

Super intelligence and social dysfunction

That said, it’s hard not to see some neurodivergent traits in Sherlock Holmes and other fictional detectives. Tunnel vision, pattern recognition and attention to detail are all traits that could be exhibited by autistic people. Holmes was fixated on minute details: One story highlighted how he authored a study on the ashes of 140 different varieties of pipe, cigar and cigarette tobacco. He had an unmatched talent for noticing overlooked details and piecing together disparate clues. And he was obsessed with forensic science. He could also come off as cold. As Holmes declared in “The Sign of the Four,” “Emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning.” In Edgar Allan Poe’s 1841 short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” which is widely considered the first detective fiction story, the protagonist, C. Auguste Dupin, also hyperfocuses on small details, reasons through “pure logic” and is socially reclusive – all qualities displayed by Holmes. Even Dr. Watson, Holmes’ sidekick, noticed the resemblance. “You remind me of Edgar Allen Poe’s Dupin,” he tells Holmes in “A Study in Scarlet.” “I had no idea that such individuals did exist outside of stories.” When Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle famously killed off the detective at Reichenbach Falls in his 1893 story “The Final Problem,” there was so much public outrage that the author was eventually forced to bring him back from the dead. These 19th-century Sherlock enthusiasts were predecessors to today’s media fandoms. Their level of devotion, unlike anything previously seen for a fictional character, was a testament to the power of Doyle’s formula: an extraordinary investigator with savantlike cognitive abilities who upholds logic over emotion, thrives in solitude and yet still depends on his companion – in Holmes’ case, Dr. Watson, who serves as an emotional counterbalance. In the 21st century, that formula has been revived in wildly popular TV shows such as “Bones,” “Criminal Minds” and “Sherlock.” In 2016, “Sherlock” co-creator Steven Moffat told the BBC, “Doyle began the idea that super-intelligence comes at the price of some kind of social dysfunction, something that we’ve grasped as a narrative possibility ever since.” In other words, the more eccentric – or socially dysfunctional – a detective is, the more ingenious the hero seems.

A new era for the detective

Detective fiction might have started as a way to explore the deviant, non-normative minds of detectives and the criminals they pursued. But it has since become a space for neurodivergent self-representation. Today, scholars, fans, reviewers and scientists openly discuss diagnostic labels for fictional characters. This surge in interest coincides with a rise in research on portrayals of autism in the media and a growing number of autistic voices examining how those portrayals shape public understanding. Disability scholars have long warned of disabled characters being used as mere plot devices and have criticized the lack of diversity in representations of detectives who appear to be autistic on screen. Yet many of the new shows push back against some of the stereotypes of autistic people as cold, lonely and incapable of affection. Instead, they have friends. They have romantic partners. They’re empathetic. The series “Elsbeth” and “High Potential” center on quirky, intelligent female investigative leads who appear to be on the autism spectrum. In HBO’s 2020 miniseries “The Outsider,” detective Holly Gibney appears as one of the first Black, autistic female detectives on television. While most of these characters aren’t explicitly identified as autistic in their shows, “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” features a female attorney whose diagnosis is openly discussed by the show’s characters.

The British-Belgian series “Patience,” meanwhile, is the first detective show to feature an explicitly autistic character played by a neurodivergent actress, Ella Maisy Purvis. “It was really important to me that she wasn’t this kind of robotic, asexual drone,” Purvis told the Big Issue in 2025. “Patience is highly empathetic. She cares so much about her job and the people around her. It’s just expressed in a different way.” These varied portrayals coincide with the rise of online fan communities where neurodivergent fans share what these stories mean to them. If the archetypal detective once tried to “make sense” of neurodivergent minds, today’s neurodivergent fans and creators are now having a hand in shaping them. Perhaps most importantly, they no longer have to wonder whether they’re being represented on screen. Soohyun Cho, Assistant Professor at the Center for Integrative Studies in the Arts & Humanities, Michigan State University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.