Major Themes In Pleasantville

Section one: The film I chose, was Pleasantville, which was screened in class. This film was directed by Gary Ross in 1998; its production companies were New Line Cinema and Larger Than Life Productions. The film starts by introducing David, he is a lonely boy and does not seem very happy with his life. Then we are introduced to his sister, Jennifer, which seems to be more contempt with her rebel life. At the end of the school day they both have plans to use the Television at home. David wants to see a marathon of his favorite sitcom Pleasantville. As for Jennifer, she had planned to watch a concert with a popular guy from school. When they realized that they both had planes with the Television set and that both events were going to happen …show more content…
Various themes that have taken place thought-out history. The theme of color versus black and white, for instance, makes us remanence about the segregation of colored people the United States and in the civil rights. This movie didn’t show African Americans, because they were portraying and old conservative show that were made by white men. But the riots happening in Pleasantville against the people of color, seem to resemble the riots that happened in the United States against the African Americans by the KKK. The theme of color also seems to be related to the change of color in television and in movies, from white and black to color and the rejection by some directors that wanted to keep doing black and with films. This film also brought up the theme of the sexual revolution by the example given in section two of the separate beds and the seen when Betty was exploring herself, it is also portrayed by the Lover 's Lane. Another theme was the generational gap between the old generation of the 60s and the baby boomers. When the young people started listening to different more rebellious music and start having sex in Lover’s lane and hanging out in Bills restaurant. That was something their parents wouldn’t have done. Also how the old generation of parents seemed to be more closed minded versus the new generation of youngsters being more open minded. There is also the relation between this film and the book Fahrenheit 451, in the book the firefighters would start the fire instead of extinguishing it and in Pleasantville didn’t even had fires at all, the firefighters were used to save cats from trees only.in both stories the characters were repressed and control. As the director Gary Ross said, Personal repression gives rise to larger political oppression, the citizens in Pleasantville were repressed and controlled by their government which was ruled by white males and that only seem