The film “Pleasantville” portrays the changes that have occurred in American society over the past 50 years. The movie describes changes in sexual relations, violence, and family matters and roles. Viewers are shown how the racial and sexual equality began. It shows there is no “perfect” way of life. The movie depicts the on-going changes in the lifestyles of the American people.
The film begins with David, a dorky teenager and his popular twin sister, Jennifer. David is obsessed with the 50’s television show “Pleasantville”, which describes the “perfect” family life that David dreams of. Meanwhile, Jennifer is busy with boys, smoking, and being rebellious. Despite these differences, they both are thrown into a very different, but seemingly perfect world. They become Bud and Mary Sue Parker, the children of Betty and George Parker, the family in the television show. While in “Pleasantville” they cause a major commotion for the citizens that leads to a change of view in them, as well as the people of Pleasantville. This change, brought about by David and Jennifer, is a result of the citizens opening up to new beliefs and emotions that had been hidden inside of them for so long. At first these changing views were not ac
The changes that are described in Pleasantville are; The first of these is the change in sexual relations. At first women were very limited and their basic role was to keep the home in order, by cooking, cleaning and taking care of the family, then at the climax of the movie things change. For example, at the start of the movie the wife, Betty, cooks and cleans and does everything, then one night the husband, George, comes home to a dark empty house and there is no dinner and wife waiting for him like usual. This confuses as well as angers him because it is defying everything that he is use to. Later he is told by Betty, that this is the way that it will be from now on, so he is forced to change his views on women and the roles that they should play in a family situation. Violence is also another issue, which is caused by other changes. The people of Pleasantville became violent after they noticed the changes around town such as colored people, books with words in them and colors of paint other than gray, black and white. They began harassing other citizens because they were colored and the non-colored people thought that somehow the colored people were bad or wrong. For example, when Bud is teased about his girlfriend being colored when they were just minding their own business. Also other acts of violence were the burning of all the books with words in them and the vandalization of Bill’s soda shop. None of these things went on in Pleasantville prior to David and Jennifer’