Color Symbolism In Pleasantville

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Pleasantville Color Symbolism and Use Heba Ayoub 18/02/2013 HHS4UM0-B The Pleasantville begins as a town of black and white. As the plot progresses, colour is introduced to portray the changes that have accrued in the American society over the past 50 years, changes in sexual relation, violence, and family matters and roles. The changes in different color represents the change of a perfect, yet still uninteresting life to an imperfect, yet fulfilling life like our society now. Colour is used during the movie and plays a huge role as a cinematic tool to symbolize freedom and change. The traditional, restricted ideals of Pleasantville imitate the nature of all items having no color. Everyone, everyday follows a typical routine that is accepted by the old American society. Therefore the black and white colours in the early part of the movie were introduced to be a symbol of firmness, dullness, and conformity. Black and white life is straightforward and simple. As the plot progresses, certain traits of Pleasantville begin to gain color and cease to be depicted in black-and-white or grey. In scene where the father came home from work and didn’t find his dinner like his usual routine, he was very hurt and concerned. After this scene, certain places in Pleasantville begin to gain colour. Gaining…show more content…
As the characters gain more knowledge, the colors in Pleasantville continue to change. Gaining more colour represented the liberty of individual’s desires and freedom. ‘Normality’ in Pleasantville has changed when sexual knowledge has also become a part of people’s lives. The scene where Mary-Sue’s goes on a first date with Skip, after that Skip sees a ‘red’ rose. The rose used the symbolism of red to indicate changes in the residents’ attitudes to love, passion and lust. These passions were considered to be absent from the idealized
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