Document Type
Citizenship and Service Essay
Publication Date
2001
Excerpt
Films play an active role in the way people develop their ideas about life. For example, some movies teach us how to be a good citizen or how to serve others. While this is usually not the main purpose of the movie, we are often presented with examples of both good and poor citizenship. Two movies that present such examples are Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's A Wonderful Life, which star Jimmy Stewart, one of the most popular actors of the 1940s. In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Stewart plays an idealistic senator named Jefferson Smith, and in It's A Wonderful Life, he plays a altruistic dreamer named George Bailey. Both movies have cliff erent oμtlooks on the way a citizen goes about the betterment of his community; Smith affects change in the government, while Bailey affects change in his town.
Recommended Citation
Gamage, Becky, "Jimmy Stewart and the Good Citizen (2001)" (2001). The Valpo Core Reader. 85.
http://scholar.valpo.edu/core_reader/85