I’ll be the one to defend “It’s a Wonderful Life” I guess.

Yes, it is not as twisted and dark as many on your list and it is brimming with sentimentality and the appearance of all American old fashioned values, but I do get much from it both as a Gay man and as merely a human.

One of the things I really love about it as a Gay man is the message that every life, every interaction with others counts and touches countless lives which inspires me to reach out to my fellow man and realize that I don’t have to be the most powerful or the richest person in the world to have a positive impact on the world. George Bailey’s parenthood is the least impactful and important of all the relationships he makes. His relationships to his neighbors and those he helps in the course of an average day are far more important to the films message and outcome – something I can appreciate as a Gay man who never plans to marry or have children but who still wants have impact on this world.

I also love the message that it is our friendships and our relationships with all sorts of people that we develop over our lives that give us a “wonderful life”, not our accumulation of material goods or overt power. It’s a very subversive message in a country dominated by commercialism and greed.

I also love the humanistic message of the film. George Bailey dismisses nobody in his community. He helps the people at the bottom: the town whore, the immigrant, the poor blue collar worker because he believes that everyone deserves help because they are human, not because they have a good credit rating or a professional degree or obvious social standing. While “God” and the concept of angels is used as a framing device for the film, there is nothing particularly religious or Christian about George’s journey.

And if you want darkness, well the whole film is predicated on a suicide attempt. Does it get much darker?

Clarence as mentioned is very “ting-a-ling”. He’s the gayest angel on film.

I admit it , I love this film, it isn’t Christmas without it, and I think it is one of the great films of the Hollywood Studio system. I need only see 30 seconds of any part of the final scene of the film to break down in tears. If that makes me a sap then I’m happily and joyfully a sap. You guys need to drop the wall of hardened cynicism that demands that every film give you blood to be worthy of praise and open your hearts!

Watching “Female Trouble” while I work on Holiday projects is an annual tradition as is watching “Auntie Mame” in which a pivotal Xmas plays a central part of the plot.

Two others I love at the Holidays which are dark and twisted are”Bad Santa” the filthiest Xmas movie ever, and “The Ref” wherein a family is taken hostage on Christmas eve. The anal sex jokes, and Santa fetishism alone in Bad Santa make it an instant holiday classic. And “The Ref” has one of my favorite holiday lines when Christine Baransky (gay icon) yells “Can’t we all just shut up and celebrate the birth of Christ” as everyone is screaming at each other at the dinner table. I try to use it at least once very holiday season.