Pleasantville Case

Pleasantville

In many ways, life is constantly changing. Whether it is the individuals around us, our thoughts and feelings, or even our surroundings, we all have to simply adjust to these changes in one way or another. Throughout the film "Pleasantville," every single thing was in constant change. Many concepts about life in Pleasantville were changing, and there are many ways to look at each aspect through either the sociological perspective, or one of the three main theoretical perspectives.

The film Pleasantville is about two teenagers who magically get drawn into the 1950's fictional, black-and-white television sitcom titled "Pleasantville." The show portrays a very stereotypical image of a 1950's family, and is very symbolic. It is a movie that could be interpreted a number of different ways. Most will agree, however, that the basic point of the movie concerns the subject of change.

We can look at this change in Pleasantville in many ways. The first way to look at this is through the sociological perspective. A sociological perspective stresses the social contexts in which people live. It examines how these contexts influence people's lives. At the center of the sociological perspective is the question of how groups influence people, especially how people are influenced by their society (4). Many sociologists look at how education, gender, jobs, race, income, and age affect people's ideas and behavior. During the course of "Pleasantville," every single thing in the town of Pleasantville can be measured through a sociological perspectives eye. Every adult in Pleasantville has a job and income, whether that means staying at home to cook and clean, or driving around the corner to work. Everyone has a gender, race, and age. Also, every teenager goes to school and gets good grades.

Before the main characters David and Jennifer become Bud and Mary Sue, everything in Pleasantville is apparently perfect. Everyone lives their day-to-day lives without any problems and Pleasantville seems to be a place of perfect bliss. Everyone in the little town lives a life of safety and happiness. Outside of Pleasantville, there is disorder and unhappiness. At the beginning of the movie, David is the typical "loser" at school; he is unhappy with his life. On the other hand, his twin sister, Jennifer, is a promiscuous teen who is on her way to becoming popular.

In the show Pleasantville, everything appears in black and white, and all the people are apparently content with their lives. For example, nothing there can catch fire, and the firefighters only have to rescue cats out of trees. Also, the basketball team always wins and players on the team make every single shot. After David and Jennifer are introduced to the peaceful, harmonious town of Pleasantville, the flawless, isolated, community is turned upside down and ruined.

Another way to look at change in Pleasantville is through symbolic interactionism. Symbolic interactionism is a theoretical perspective in which society is viewed as made up of symbols that people use to establish meaning, develop their views of the world, and communicate with one another (13). Developed by Charles Horton Cooley and George Herbert Mead, symbolic interactionism puts a meaning to love and parenthood. We expect true love to deliver constant feelings of intimacy accompanied by emotional highs. This expectation sets people up for crushed hopes, as disappointments in marriage are unavoidable. Spouses tend to blame one another for failing to deliver the expected satisfaction (15). In Pleasantville, it is clear that there is true love everywhere, but once change hits their town, that love seems to fade out. The meaning of parenthood is the providing of children with food, clothing, shelter, and moral guidance. Typically, in a normal world, the greater responsibilities that we assign to parenthood place heavy burdens on today's couples. In Pleasantville, the children are provided with food, clothes, shelter, and moral guidance, but it does not seem like that puts a burden on the parents because of the "perfect world" they live in.

A second theoretical perspective we must look at is functional analysis. This is where society is viewed as composed of various parts, each with a function. These functions contribute to society's equilibrium (15). Functional analysists look at how parts of a society fit together