Themes In Pleasantville

In the film Pleasantville, at the beginning of the film David and Jennifer I believe represent the working class. Their mother isn’t shown too much but she doesn’t seem to be there for her children. After transforming into Bud and Mary Sue who live in Pleasantville, their family, along with the rest of the families and characters shown seem to have everything they need to live a happy life. I would say everyone there represents the middle class. There are no homeless people in Pleasantville and everything is just pleasant. Mary Sue gets the opportunity to gain a higher education in Pleasantville, something she wouldn’t have been able to achieve back home. Bud works at a local burger place but he didn’t take it too seriously and it wasn’t something he needed to do to survive. The portrayal of social class is not realistic, everyone has a large house and a white picket fence around it.
They’re considered different because they don’t look the same as the rest who are black and white. They are to be feared because the colored people are trying to promote change and the characters who are still black and white want everything to stay the way it is. Racism is institutionalized because they soon implement laws in order for colored people to have “separate but equal” everything. By doing this they’re bringing to show how the 1950s really were. The mayor of Pleasantville shut down Lover’s Lane along with the Library to make sure the people of color had nowhere to go. He also made laws regarding how big ones bed could be, selling umbrellas and playing music that isn’t