The Portrayal of Conformity as the Enemy of Progress in the Films, "Pleasantville" and Michael Moore's "The Big One"

Pleasantville, (before David and Jennifer) is a “dream world” if you will, everyone is always happy and there are never any conflicts with anyone. Once the two of them arrive however, everything changes. In Pleasantville everything is black and white, but after Jennifer has sex

In the 1998 film, Pleasantville, the idea of defying a supreme leader and exploring new taboo ideas is demonstrated by the rebellious mural painted by Bud/David and Mr Johnson. This mural painted in vibrant colours explores ideas that are nothing short of unthinkable to the bland citizens of Pleasantville. The elements painted on the mural include representations of sex, knowledge and music, which is against the core values of this idealistic town. While Pleasantville seems to have the all-american dream with white picket fences and nuclear families, it is evident that they are lacking many of the vivacious elements present in a normal flawed life.

This film has some sociological problems that occur everyday in the United States.  One of the problems in our society is institutional discrimination.  Institutional discrimination refers to the unfair, indirect

The movie ‘‘Pleasantville’’, written, produced and directed by Gary Ross, approaches a period in America’s history which subsequent generations idealise as a better and more stable society. He portrays this time period of the 1950s as a time when people and life were less complicated; a time when everyone knew their place in society. However, as the film ironically shows, this was a time when people were more ignorant, racist and most certainly sexist. Ross demolishes this illusion of the great 1950s American society by showing how its defects are gradually changed from black and white to colour. Ross shows that ‘change is inevitable’ once a catalyst for change is added to the ordered life of “Pleasantville”. Once David and Mary-Sue begin

The film Pleasantville shows the changes in American society over the past 50 years by placing two teenagers into the Pleasantville show, which was from the 50’s. The movie depicts how there is no longer the “American Dream” and no longer a perfect way of life and the changes the world has made. The world that the teenagers come from is filled with sex, drugs, money, and is very different from the way the world was in which the Pleasantville Show took place in. Morals and values have changed in the people and in society that the teenagers came from and shows it would be impossible to return back to the kind of life style the world had in the 50’s.

The film frequently demonstrates racism and prejudice within the small-town as gossip and rumours are spread based upon race or appearance. Jasper Jones is a young aboriginal boy who is accused of

‘Pleasantville’ is a satirical movie about two siblings who are high school seniors. They get transported into the 1950’s black and white television show ‘Pleasantville’. In the show, the sister, Jennifer, starts to become bored with how life was back then. She decides to take action. Introducing all her newly made friends to some of the pleasures of the 90’s may have been fun, but it came with a cost. Many people of the town started to become coloured instead of black and white. While Jennifer is enjoying her new and exciting life, her brother Daniel is worrying about how they are going to get home. What he doesn’t realize is that the changes to the townsfolk aren’t all Jennifer’s fault. He has also influenced Bill, the soda shop owner, by encouraging him to start work by himself, and stop relying on other people. These changes to the script caused many citizens to change colour, but those who remained colourless went on a rampage. In the scene I have chosen, the colourless have started a gargantuan bonfire of all the books. Hoping that if they

Throughout the 1900’s racial prejudice behaviours were adopted during the colonisation of white Europeans in counties deemed undiscovered. The play ‘No Sugar’ written by Jack Davis, published in 1986, encompasses the impacts of racial discrimination inflicted on the Indigenous Australians during the attempted assimilation into Western Society. Similarly Tate Taylor explored issues of racism in America in the film, ‘The Help’, released in 2011. Set in the 1960’s, ‘The Help’ showcases the racial discrimination in Jackson, Mississippi, focusing on the coloured women left with little choice other than to work as a maid in the homes of white families. Both texts present the same ideas being, minority groups, such as Aboriginals and African-Americans, are severely discriminated against in society simply due to their race; and marginalized groups begin a resistance movement within society towards equal rights. The two different texts present the same ideas through conventions such as dialogue, characterisation and colloquial language to highlight the two ideas.

I have never seen the movie Pleasantville, which is what we watched this past week. Since I have never watched it before it was hard for me to have any prejudices towards the film. I do like the actors that were cast in this movie but that didn’t make me prejudice towards anything regarding the movie. I really didn’t know what to expect with this movie. The black and white made me wonder if it was going to be good because I have not seen very many black and white films. Nonetheless, having no prejudices and not really knowing what to expect this movie was pleasing to watch.

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A mirror effect of racial discrimination is presented through a courthouse scene involving majority of Pleasantville as ‘colours’ that are fighting for rights, equality, acceptance.

Furthermore, the movie Pleasantville reflects some of the cultural conflicts of the 1950s. To begin, racial discrimination in the 1950s was extremely prominent in society. Whites discriminated against blacks because they were taught that anyone different than themselves was evil. Pleasantville portrays this when the citizens thereof begin changing color from black and white to color. These people represent an embrace of cultural change which goes against the normal, stable and secure status quo. The people of color are persecuted against by those of black and white color because they feel their existence is threatened by this symbol of change. For example, this persecution is seen in the scene when Betty Parker is persecuted by five black and white people while out in town. The five boys threaten her with verbal and physical attacks, as would blacks or “coloreds” would be by whites in the 1950s. Another cultural conflict exemplified by Pleasantville is changing teenage culture. Two ideas that challenged the cultural status quo in the ’50s were the idea that sex is ok, and Rock n Roll. Teenagers embraced these changes, and these changes are seen in Pleasantville. For example, a location called “lover’s lane” is where teens would go in this movie to participate in taboo, status quo-challenging sexual activity with the opposite sex. The idea of this in the 1950s was not even considered,

The Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education was one of the greatest victories against racism in history as the Supreme Court desegregated public schools. The two most important laws to help change and even out gender relations is the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 declared the Jim Crow void, ended public segregation, and made it illegal to discriminate against race or gender in the work force (Jim). The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed literacy tests, which ensured every American the right to vote. Since these great victories lots of great things have happened to close the race relations gap, such as, Thurgood Marshall becoming the first African American Supreme Court Justice in 1967 to Barrack Obama becoming the first African American President in 2008. The major differences between blacks and whites are becoming closer to equal like the wage gap, unemployment gap, and even the representation for other races in the U.S. government (Vega). In today’s time blacks, whites, and people off all races have more respect for each other than people ever have had before, but the problems exhibited in the movie are not entirely

Its almost difficult to too determining whether “Fruitvale Station” does in fact show images that are so called, “nice” but actually have a wider spread of racism or doesn’t show any sign of racism at all. It can be argued that this film shows no signs of racism because it is only a story of what a man had to go through but then we can argue that the film does have a wide spread of racism due to the fact that we might see images of what a “African American” stereotypically does in the city of Fruitvale. When Louise Spence and Robert Stam discuss the dangers of “positive images” its hard to put this upon “Fruitvale Station”, because it’s a story of a man who does all he can for his daughter, but he so happens to live in the a very rough neighborhood.

Racism, prejudice and stereotyping, as the main themes of the movie, control all the sub-stories that are somehow linked to each other. Moreover, as the stories go on and events develop, it becomes possible to see how characters start to have changes in their perspective and attitude towards each other, either in a good or a bad way. An incident which can demonstrate our thesis on racism and stereotyping and how it might change in just one moment which brings people closer could be shown as the conflict between the racist police officer and the African American woman who gets harassed by him, and whose life is saved by him on the next day. The first encounter of the woman and the officer resulted with the woman