Anylize the Movie Pleasentville - Essay Example

14 October Pleasantville Pleasantville is a movie set in the 1950s where two teenage siblings, played by Reese Witherspoon and Tobey Mcguire, after receiving a mysterious new remote from a TV repairman are transported into their TV into the blank and white world of Pleasantville, whether they like it or not. The first social norm of the movie, is before the teens windup in Pleasantville, is right at the beginning of the movie where the father, played by William H. Macey, works all day to bring in the money and comes home to a home cooked meal by his wife, played by Joan Allen, whom stays home to cook, clean, and tend to the kids amongst other domestic duties.

The children do show respect for their parents without any complaint. This seems too good to be true. It is more like a TV series than what they are watching on TV when their father arrives home. And while the teenage siblings are watching TV, with the new remote, without warning they are transported into the black and white world of Pleasantville. They quickly realize that they are inside the TV world itself. All the norms for them have been thrown out the window. The curiosity of the brother and sister duo set them off to find out what the town of Pleasantville is like and why everything is in black and white.

They soon realize that the apathetic attitude of Pleasantville is why the town is entirely in black and white. This cold, callous attitude has caused the somber coloration of the world in which Pleasantville sets. Thus, the teen siblings set out to bring about some change to this world where life would be alive and more colorful. The siblings do this with the help of a simple minded soda jockey, played by Jeff Daniels, who at first did not want to get involved. The soda jockey stated that he liked the way things were.

That is until the teen duo begin describing things that the soda jockey had never experienced. He was, then, convinced to help the teens bring some color to the town of Pleasantville. The soda jockey and the teens bring about an array of emotions from the townsfolk which starts bringing about a transformation in the town of Pleasantville from a town in black and white to a full colored palette. The buildings, the environment, the people, the culture, and the attitudes of everything become more colorful and varied.

The older townsfolk were not happy with the idea of upsetting the status quo. But the youngsters in the town went along with the ideals of the teenage siblings and the soda jockey. Thus, color started popping up in the town. The first bit of color came in the form of a red rose, then a green blade of grass, and so on. The most shocking things to come about were the flesh colored tones on their very own skins. The cultural norms of good heightened Christian values in the quiet little town of Pleasantville were radically changed with the introduction of things such as sex, art, rain, and ideas.

These were initially were foreign to the small town of Pleasantville. Furthermore, the people of Pleasantville began to stop hiding behind a facade of an emotionless stonewall that was put up as the status quo for the quiet town. The color added to the town of Pleasantville allowed everyone in the town old and young alike to see the variety that everyone can enjoy. Life is not just black and white, emotionless and cold. But, variety is what makes life unique, and enjoyable. The allowance of the people to differ from the status quo means that not everyone has to enjoy the same things everyday of the week.

People can change the way they do things from day to day. Furthermore, people can differentiate from one another, not just having to be copies of one another to be cogs in a machine to make it work, especially since a machine is usually comprised of a variety of different parts. Just, like the machine, a town or city is comprised of a variety of different parts, people and cultures around us. In conclusion, Pleasantville shows us that even in the mild mannered 1950s; people can have a variety of ways of enjoying a full and rich life.

People do not have to live a bland, black and white existence. Instead, people should enjoy life and have a full, well rounded, colorful life and strive to have more than one set of norms which govern their actions in everyday life. Works Cited Pleasantville. Dir. Gary Ross. Perf. Witherspoon, Reese, Tobey Mcguire, Jeff Daniels, William H. Macey, and Joan Allen. Sony Pictures, 1998. Film.