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Analyzing Pleasantville: Racial Discrimination, Personal Freedom and Love

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Analyzing Pleasantville: Racial Discrimination, Personal Freedom and Love
Pleasantville
By: Pooja Maharaj

In a famous 50’s movie called Pleasantville, there have been many themes being presented which includes racial discrimination, personal freedom and love. This movie presented many other themes like chauvism, sexism, sex, and so on. But in this essay I must state only three themes. In the following paragraphs there would be a summary of this popular movie and descriptions of the themes above. David and Jennifer are twins that attend the same high school. Jennifer is mainly concerned with her appearance, relationships and popularity while David watches a lot of TV, has very few friends and is socially awkward. One day, their mother leaves Jennifer and David alone at home while she heads out of town for a date with her younger boyfriend. When she leaves, the twins begins to fight over the downstairs TV because Jennifer wants to watch an MTV concert with her boyfriend Mark Davis, while her brother, David, wants to watch the marathon of Pleasantville. Pleasantville is a black-and-white 1950’s sitcom which is a cross between “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” that centers around the idyllic Parker family George, his wife Betty, and their two children, Bud and Mary Sue. During the fight between David and Jennifer, the remote breaks and the TV can’t be turned on manually. A moment later, a mysterious TV repairman shows up uninvited, and quizzes David on Pleasantville before giving him a strange-looking, retro-styled remote. Soon after he leaves, David and Jennifer continue fighting. However, though some mechanism that was located onto the remote, David and Jennifer gets transported into the television, ending up in the Parkers’ black and white Pleasantville living room. David tries to reason with the repairman, who can communicate with them through the Parkers’ TV set, but he only succeeds in chasing him away. David and Jennifer must now pretend they are, respectively, Bud and Mary Sue Parker. But, while staying in
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