Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.
Sometimes a word needs to be re-defined in order to properly assimilate the constructs built around it. Webster’s dictionary defines ‘pleasant’ as agreeable and ‘mythology ’as the study of legends and stories. A writer who worked in harmony with the staff at A.R.E. (2,3), Keith VonderOhe, describes how ‘living in the heart of your heritage’ (or inside oneself) compares to that of the fish living in water. The fish never concerns itself with its watery environment in which it lives all of its life. A human can talk about where it lives and generally is concerned about the environment. A human can also change conditions of the environment and move from one location to the next and through adaptability and acclamation, can survive. (5-'basic survival')
The movie “Pleasantville” is a story about living life in and outside of your own box, or as Keith states, “living in the heart of your heritage“. It is a place created in the imagination of an individual using influence from our culture, family, and friends that stand the test of emotional and psychological time for re-evaluation. The movie places emphasis on pure family values, some of which reflect the hierarchy of needs by Maslow (5), for example suggesting proper nutrition, safe sex (the separate beds measuring no more than 36 inches across), income, and shelter. The movie did not demonstrate much affection being received nor delivered.
The under-lying theme of a near-Nirvana becomes grossly overrated with the connotation of ‘pleasant’. It starts with the town parameters studied in school; the beginning of Main Street is also the end. One circle constantly going around and around. The ‘pleasant theme’ continues with the sports and school activities. For example, the basketball games when in practice on every throw, the ball goes in. Everyone smiles, talks to you, there are no car accidents or a need for a fire department because nothing burns. There is no police force because there is no injustice being done to anyone; it is always ‘pleasant.’
Then came the colors. These are a reaction to the emotions stifled indoors; while, outdoors chaos broke out in the streets. Red, white, pink and violet flowers, cars and brown grocery bags replaced the white, black, and some grays indicating life was at best, continuing without meaning. There is little joy and excitement for a place so pleasant where nirvana-conditions are defined under a dictatorship script and changes are strictly forbidden. Yet it was paradise for these people living in the 1990’s who looked to the 1950’s for stronger values, attitudes, and behaviors to shape their belief systems. (4)
The two main characters, a brother and sister in 1990, especially desire a close-knit family. Instead, they deal with the reality of a split-household. Becoming fascinated by a sitcom, where there dreams can come true, they are inevitably saved my mental teleportation created in their imagination and with the help of a ‘visitor’, to assist them in 'leaving their miserable existence'.
He is a ‘television repairman’, played by Don Knotts who might be more familiar as "Barney Fife". In this movie he delivers a remote control used only for entering the sitcom. The son aims it at the television after not even believing something like this will work, and immediately finds him and his sister transmitted through the airwaves into a surreal new life.
Some examples of the paradisical theme throughout the movie are revealed through sports, business, the housewife role within a nuclear family, the high school required curriculum, and how siblings and peers interact with one another. The social, political, psychological and even physical parameters appear so limited by the fear of change. At the high school gym, during basketball practice, the basketball goes in to the hoop every single time UNTIL an unexpected visitor changes the script for the show of the day. (4)
The new course of events by disclosure of new information about Skip and his affections for Mary Sue, stir conflict. One of the main characters, Bud, questions the authenticity of another character named Skip whose decision to make Mary Sue his girl, is now challenged. The traditional ‘pinning’, a 1950’s practice shared between sweethearts who had been courting for some time, has been thrown a curve and questions about timing arise. The basketball that misses the hoop symbolizes change and a silencing of the team represents, fear.
When something is altered, taken out of sequence, chaos in awakening can occur. Mr. Johnson, the local diner owner, is brought personal chaos when closing the diner. In one scene, pivotal to the transformation of Mr. Johnson’s current boring perspective, Bud fails to arrive for his evening shift therefore leaving the job completely up to Mr. Johnson. This is so out of the ordinary, Mr. Johnson feels he cannot acclimate. The counter already took a beating, grinding its surface for nearly two hours because that is all Mr. Johnson did, clean the counters while Bud did everything else. At first his reaction was inadequacy making him ask, “Can I do this?” Perhaps at the moment of thinking and asking enlightenment that he could evolve cognitively, he does through his painting which inevitably rewards him in the end and a new life springs forth for him and several other members of the cast.
The dilemma is an inspiration. Mr. Johnson, who once reacted aimlessly without passion, realized how much enjoyment he could derive by doing things his way, instead of the way it was done in so many previous episodes. He found changing the order of closing protocol, the diner would be closed, ready for business the following day, despite not having Bud’s assistance. A certain nudging from the internal self was a mystical experience, which opened his eyes now sparkling with confidence.
It is a great example for the characters seeking perfection without measuring or utilizing the potential they just did not know existed within them. ‘Pleasant’ was now reacting to the emotional connotations of the word and really making it pleasant rather than stifled by strict order and daily regimen, void of emotional response.
The inclusion of myths in this review is necessary because myths are scripted stories authored by the storyteller reiterating her or his version of living in ‘the human experiment’. Entities not yet chosen for human form, jest at us having to hide the beauty of a story. We should be proud of the particular meaning it has to us as we are telling them to others. I studied mythology in junior and senior high school where my focus and sincerest appreciation was for the fantasy versus reality debates. Those became much clearer after having watched this delightful movie and studied up on how we see ourselves in our life.
I later read works by David Elkins who stated that mythology is his fifth path of recognition towards personal transformation and that without the inclusion of this path, our lives can be mundane and bleak, or colorless, meaningless. David Elkins explains that myth is the oldest path to the sacred for it encompasses centuries of historical value from all diverse cultures across the globe. It is handed down by previous storytellers and added to over and over again, by new ones.(1)This non-religious path is crucial to the development of the soul and David Elkins and Hollywood producers and directors augment this brilliant way of learning in this movie Pleasantville.
It is when the kids enter the sit-com, that the path of Elkins and Hollywood merged and everyone watching is now set on a path for transformation that is exceptionally achieved through mind, body and spirit !
Life imitates art when two teenagers from the 1990 s get sucked into the too-perfect black-and-white world of a 1950 s sitcom. Trapped and trying to f...More at Buy.com
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