stating that his mother’s responsibility in a family and society is to stick within the nuclear family and that she should be a supporting wife and responsible mother. While David is not affected by the “enormous cultural dominance of the baby boomers” (Levin 24), he is in fact nostalgic for the past as a result of his current circumstances.
These current circumstances which cause David’s nostalgia for the past all of a sudden have a literal manifestation as David magically enters into the past that he is so nostalgic for. With a remote given to them by a mysterious repairman, David and his sister Jennifer get sucked into the TV, and straight into the town Pleasantville. They are consequently forced to adapt to their new aliases as Bud and Mary Sue respectively. While David and Jennifer slowly experience the town, David is delighted to be a part of a world that he so longed for. He had a mother and father who get along, a life in which everything is predictable and stable, and moreover, everything is ‘pleasant.’ What David does not realize yet is that there are fundamental underlying problems with Pleasantville.
Despite the depiction of the longing for the ‘good-ol times’ of the past, both David and the baby boomers fail to identify the negative aspects and continue to believe that their view of nostalgia is good. So much …show more content…
al in the introduction of the paper quotes Caryl Flinn stating that “many authors have argued that nostalgia takes people back to a glorified past” (1). Tilburg then goes on to say that in their research, they found that nostalgia can actually “harness the past for engaging with the present and future” (1), specifically in a way that involves a utilitarian contribution. Specifically, in the context of Pleasantville, David uses his nostalgia for the past, which was triggered by circumstances from the present, in order to create a useful new view of the role of women, specifically in his family and for the broader community in the
These current circumstances which cause David’s nostalgia for the past all of a sudden have a literal manifestation as David magically enters into the past that he is so nostalgic for. With a remote given to them by a mysterious repairman, David and his sister Jennifer get sucked into the TV, and straight into the town Pleasantville. They are consequently forced to adapt to their new aliases as Bud and Mary Sue respectively. While David and Jennifer slowly experience the town, David is delighted to be a part of a world that he so longed for. He had a mother and father who get along, a life in which everything is predictable and stable, and moreover, everything is ‘pleasant.’ What David does not realize yet is that there are fundamental underlying problems with Pleasantville.
Despite the depiction of the longing for the ‘good-ol times’ of the past, both David and the baby boomers fail to identify the negative aspects and continue to believe that their view of nostalgia is good. So much …show more content…
al in the introduction of the paper quotes Caryl Flinn stating that “many authors have argued that nostalgia takes people back to a glorified past” (1). Tilburg then goes on to say that in their research, they found that nostalgia can actually “harness the past for engaging with the present and future” (1), specifically in a way that involves a utilitarian contribution. Specifically, in the context of Pleasantville, David uses his nostalgia for the past, which was triggered by circumstances from the present, in order to create a useful new view of the role of women, specifically in his family and for the broader community in the