What Is Pleasantville Like In The 1950's

Pleasantville is a motion picture that was released in 1998 which is a fictional drama on

The 1998 film, Pleasantville, written, produced, and directed by Gary Ross is a “swell” example of the three perspectives of sociology. Two 1990 teenagers get trapped in the blue-sky world of a 1950’s sitcom. While spending time with the people in the small town of Pleasantville, the teens begin to drastically change the the bland ways of the townspeople and alter their world completely. Throughout these events, viewers can find examples of the functionalist perspective, interactionist perspective, and conflict perspective.

In the novel ‘The Giver’ written by Lois Lowry, and the film, ‘Pleasantville’ by Gary Ross, there are many similarities and differences in the themes and ideas explored. These are represented in the novel and movie’s main themes, such as freedom and choice, colour and the description of utopian and dystopian societies.

In the movie Pleasantville, it starts by showing us David and Jennifer, who are twins. David is supposedly the nerd, who is shown talking to a pretty, popular girl, except he isn’t really talking to her. Jenniffer on the other hand is a good-looking girl, who fools around with guys quite frequently. One night, while their mom went out of town, David and Jennifer to argue on who gets the TV remote. Since they were both tugging on the remote, it caused the remote to slip out of their hands and lands on the floor crushed in pieces. A second goes by and suddenly there’s a older man at the door saying “Broken TV remote” indicating that he can fix there’s. When David is handed the remote, the man tells him to test it out. When pushing the button on the remote, David and Jennifer are then transported to Pleasantville.

The main character David, in Pleasantville, watches reruns of a fictional 1950s black and white sitcom called ‘Pleasantville’ (figure 1). The fictional sitcom is a reference to a popular US sitcom Father Knows Best . The Necular family was a common ideology of American life in the 1950s and is the main focus of the sitcom ‘Pleasantville’. Black and white is often associated

The novel ‘The Giver’, authored by Lois Lowry, and the film ‘Pleasantville’, directed by Gary Ross, share numerous similarities. Many of the themes and messages conveyed throughout both the novel and film are very alike. Some of the various similarities between the themes explored include the concept of colour, denial of true emotions as well as the main character being a harbinger for change.

The story Pleasantville is an allegory set in a stereo typical 1950’s White America. Main Street loops back to Elm street, every couple sleeps in separate beds. The idea is that the “want to” maintain a 1950’s lifestyle holds back the progression into the liberation of 1960. Without an understanding of the progression of time children can not develop into capable adults. Pleasantville uses the mother, father, and mayor to represent that the 1950’s euphoria that people fondly pursue is not only dangerous, but oppressive.

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

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.

The film Pleasantville directed by Gary Ross is about two modern teenagers, David and his sister Jennifer, somehow being transported into the television, ending up in Pleasantville, a 1950s black and white sitcom. The two are trapped as Bud and Mary Sue in a radically different dimension and make some huge changes to the bland lives of the citizens of Pleasantville, with the use of the director’s cinematic techniques. Ross cleverly uses cinematic techniques such as colour, mise-en-scene, camera shots, costumes, music and dialogue to effectively tell the story.

Life can differ from every city of the world and even the minimum differences such as weather, streets or population may guarantee people a new adventure. Through the years, humans have settle down their own lifestyle making it match with their hometown. Lifestyle is an important factor that defines the culture in every town, city or population. When people move from one city to another, they start discovering a new culture that changes their lifestyle. Morelia, a city in south of México, highly differs from Clarksville, Arkansas in culture and human activity.

Everyone has fears, whether they are as small as going swimming or as big as heights, everyone has them. In the movie Pleasantville, fear of change plays a big role in the citizens of Pleasantville. The citizens are so accustomed to the same thing over and over again that when Jennifer/Mary Sue decides to do something different the whole town is disturbed by this change. For David it’s the same thing, at first he is scared to do anything different and to alter anything but after everyone he loves starts to change and they start getting assimilated, he realizes he can’t be scared and has to be brave to alter Pleasantville for the better.

Things are not always perfect in real life. Our sports teams can lose a game. Sometimes you can come home to no food on the table. People who would watch the television show Pleasantville knows that the perfect lives shown in it does not exist in

Adversity is what breaks up the pleasant. It is the obstacles we encounter, the ones that mold us and twist us and pull us, little bits at a time. In the movie Pleasantville, adversity is a force noticed only after the town began its cultural expansion. The dramatic colour change from neutral tones to bright, vibrant hues was joined by a shift in personal identities. Directed by Gary Ross, the film maintains that when confronted with adversity, a person’s identity will evolve with the purpose of coping with it. This is achieved through Betty’s challenges, such as unchanging gender roles and her colour change, and the impact these had on her individual identity.

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.