Pleasantville: Below The Surface

What happens when an idyllic town is "invaded" by the unpleasant? Terrible bloodshed has happened in the name of preserving the good old days; in the 50s and 60s, the Civil Rights Movement in America showed us what certain Americans were willing to do to maintain the status quo. And in the 30s and 40s in Germany, a man came to power to restore Germany to its former glory. The price was the lives of 12 million innocent civilians (in addition to the extraordinarily high number of soldiers). In Pleasantville, when sex and rock'n'roll (drugs were conspicuously absent) started making their influence on the town, certain people were willing to do almost anything to keep things pleasant.

More kids than adults gained color in the main part of the film (up to the courtroom scene) because kids are more willing to experiment. It was the adults who started panicking and trying to keep things pleasant, and beyond that, it was the men in positions of power who helped perpetuate the beliefs that the colorization was a fad that would "just go away". Doctors gave lame diagnoses to reassure parents that their children would soon return to normal, and the mayor makes sure to point out the downsides of the changing nature of the town (because things are no longer perfect, the high school basketball team is no longer undefeated). At first, when the changes appear to be temporary or harmless, the town elite only talk about the need for vigilance against the plague. But as time goes on, talk evolves into action.

Soon, fire and rain become threats to Pleasantville, kids start reading (HORRORS!), and the soda shop becomes a forum for controversial art. In response, the town leaders begin to perpetuate the idea that "coloreds" are different and inferior to the "true citizens of Pleasantville". There are plenty of resulting parallels to both Nazism and American racism; when David begins dating a girl who gains color before him, the guy she was plotted to get with begins treating her like she was less than human (she becomes nothing but a thing to him, and he makes a crack about her being David's "colored girlfriend"), and eventually, the Mayor creates a Code of Conduct that requires the coloreds to suppress who they have become. Book burnings and acts of vandalism against businesses of coloreds are two very powerful visual references to acts of the Nazis.

The scariest thing is that most of the people at the top, the ones pulling the strings, carried out their horrific plans with a smile on their faces. The Mayor remained extremely pleasant throughout the film; he disapproved of the vandalism against the coloreds, but he wanted the problem gone more than anyone. Here was a man who would rather enforce kindness and contentedness on people who are trying to discover the full range of emotions and mental states than accept the fact that not everyone wants to be kind and content. As the film shows, he is a very angry person deep down, and everything was easier when things were black and white.

Of course, the movie shows that even the "bad" things in life have their benefits. The first rainstorm is a treat to the citizens who choose to embrace the change, and suddenly, a colorful umbrella becomes a treasured possession. The happy times in life become appreciated because they are not a monotonous constant presence, and they can be compared to the bad aspects. If WALL-E showed us that utopia can be dangerous, Pleasantville teaches us that utopia can be boring.

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Pleasantville: The Way We Were

I remember seeing this movie back in 1998, thinking that I was going to see a comedy about two modern kids who get sucked into the world of a 50s TV show. Unfortunately, I was way too young to appreciate what the film was really about (I wasn't even in high school at the time). Pleasantville does in fact follow twins David and Jennifer, two 90's era teenagers, as they are forced to live in a 50s sitcom, and there are definitely comedic elements, but this movie is so much more than that. By forcing the real (modernity is immaterial) onto our nostalgia, we are forced to see that things probably aren't as wholesome as we choose to remember them. But if they were, who would have been happy like that?

David and Jennifer don't have the "ideal" lives. Their high school teachers warn them of the dangers that await them in the real world, while their parents are divorced and can barely stand each other. Each twin deals with their situation differently; Jennifer acts like a slut by wearing the most provocative clothing available and submitting herself to anyone in return for "popularity". David, on the other hand, retreats into Pleasantville, a sitcom from the 50s where everything is perfect and pleasant. Everyone gets along, the high school basketball team is undefeated, no one is homeless, and everyone is happy. David sees this as the perfect life, and uses it as a substitute for his own.

One fateful night, when fighting over the TV remote (the film has some interesting things to say about television, in addition to nestalgia), the twins end up breaking the remote, rendering their TV unworkable. Soon, a weird TV repair man shows up and gives them a magic remote that sucks the pair right into the world of Pleasantville, where they, along with the entire world, are shaded in black and white. Both David and Jennifer are distraught by this turn of events, but for entirely different reasons. Jennifer is put off by the way of life; she is forced to eat fatty foods and wear poodle skirts. David, however, is afraid of ruining the perfect world that he adores so much. At first, he tries to preserve Pleasantville as best he can by coaching Jennifer on what the character she is inhabiting is "supposed" to do. But David cannot possibly contain Jennifer's desires to be herself.

Before going on, let me list a few things that are unheard of in Pleasantville: toilets, fire, women's rights, rain, cursing, minorities, life outside of the town, books (or at least books with writing inside them), change, and sex. It is this last item that Jennifer introduces to the unsuspecting ingenue of a basketball team captain. Yeah, in this world, men can be ingenues too (who says there is no gender equality there?! Oh wait, I do). This one act sets off a chain reaction that forces the entire town to reevaluate what they believe in. People start realizing that they want more than what they had, whether it be because they are bored with routine, or because they realize that there is a whole range of emotions that they could be feeling.

When I wrote about WALL-E, I commented on how thin the line between utopia and dystopia is, and that sentiment is very appropriate here. Everyone thinks they're happy in the town of Pleasantville, but that is because they don't know of any other way to think. Even David quickly becomes disenchanted with the world he once saw as perfect. People may be happy, but they lack free will. But when David and Jennifer begin introducing reality to the innocent town people, color begins seeping into the black and white world.

People acquire color when they accept change; most of the Pleasantville natives do so by accepting their sexuality, but other desires allow for the change as well. Mr. Johnson, the local soda shop owner, discovers an artistic creativity in himself that makes him want something more than the duty of cooking burgers every night, while Betty Parker, the mother of David and Jennifer's characters in the show (not to be confused with their actual real-world mother) learns that her life as a housewife is boring (ok, so she also has a sexual experience serve as the catalyst for her colorization, but there was more to it than just that). David and Jennifer, though, have to find other ways of getting color, because they are already aware of their sexuality. They have to make actual changes to their own lives and cease being kids and become adults (the scene that shows the morning after David and Margaret's night at Lover's Lane, where all the other black-and-white kids gained color while David sits looking at his reflection in the pond breaks my heart every time).

And of course, the town elders (I really don't want to refer to them as the rich white men of the town, but that is who the elders would be in a 50s sitcom) want to do everything in their power to prevent these changes. Director Gary Ross correctly noted that these are the people with the most to lose because they are waited upon hand and foot by their wives and they are respected by their children (rock and roll and counterculture also begins to establish itself when David and Jennifer show up). And the parallels between real world oppression and the attempts by the "true citizens of Pleasantville" is the subject of the next post.

Up next: Struggling to remain Pleasant...