Pleasantville Themes Essay

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The 1990s brings yet another film of intelligence that outshine the majority of film released during the 21st century. “Pleasantville” directed by Gary Ross is another perfect example of cinematic boom in the 1990s that delivered movies like “The Shawshank Redemption” and “Pulp Fiction”. At first glance the movie seems like another comedy where the main characters travel to a fantasyland just like “Wizard of Oz”. However, the movie turns out to have more serious intensions than most comedy fantasy, by exploring various serious themes that relates to cultural issues from the 1950s. The main characters are twin teenagers. Played by excellent actors, Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon. They live in a very stereotypical household with divorced parents and often neglect toward the children by their parents. Witherspoon plays a girl who is always trying to be the popular girl. And Maguire plays a boy who is isolated from the cool kid and is considered a dorky nerd, who is obsessed with a certain TV show called “Pleasantville”. The twins are magically transported into an idyllic world called the “Pleasantville”, where they strive for perfection. However, the presence of the two twins knocks Pleasantville into disarray. One thing that sets Pleasantville apart from the norm is that it explores various key theme and cultural values. There a lot of themes in the movie Pleasantville, however some of the major theme include race and personal freedom. The whole plot of the movie was based on transformation of Pleasantville, from the monochrome of normal perfect life to the multicolor, this is how the theme “Race” surfaces. The first clear sign of racial segregation is when the Mayor of town comes to visit the Parker family to ask George Parker to become part of the city council. Betty Parker refuses to greet the mayor as she fears the mayor will disapprove of her state of

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