Preview

Sociological Perspective on the Movie Pleasentville

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
852 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Sociological Perspective on the Movie Pleasentville
Sociological Perspective of Pleasantville
Pleasantville is a motion picture that was released in 1998 which is a fictional drama on how life evolves. The main Characters are teenage twins David and Jennifer (played by Tobey
McGuire and Reese Wetherspoon) David and Jennifer life Is not li the perfect life that is betrayed on Pleasantville that David was fascinated with. Life is in fact perfect in Pleasantville; the families are perfect, the school is perfect, the weather is perfect, the relationships between parents and kids are perfect, and the relationships between kids are perfect. One night while arguing over the TV remote, David and his twin sisters Jennifer are sent back into the fictional place of Pleasantville. When sent into Pleasantville Jennifer is extremely upset and David is excited to be in the fictional life of Pleasantville. Pleasantville is perfect because there are no outside influences, until David and Jennifer arrive. No one in Pleasantville knows anything beyond their limited experiences in Pleasantville, which is a world without real life experiences?
Pleasantville is perfect and every day is the same. Jennifer’s impact on Pleasantville is more influenced and had a greater impact then David. Jennifer did not want or need the “perfect life”, that Pleasantville had to offer. Since Jennifer did not watch the television series, Pleasantville, her values she learned the 1990s caused her to change the lives of the characters living in
Pleasantville. Her free spirit was adored and the women of Pleasantville started to gain their own sense of self-confidence. Mary Sue’s Mother was the first to observe this and take action in becoming a woman with more freedom. Mary Sue’s Mother was one of the first housewives to change color once she found her inner self and who she really was.
The sociological perspective: that Jennifer had on the women of Pleasantville shows how one person’s views and opinions, can have a major impact on a group

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Mary Read Research Paper

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages

    instead of living a women’s life ("Mary Read"). The guys soon came around and realized that…

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Pleasantville explores gender boundaries are established through single beds, no colour, no sex, and lack of knowledge. Make up also plays an important role in breaking boundaries in Pleasantville as it did in 1984, when Betty puts on make up to cover the fact that she has turned into a ‘coloured’ person. Bud and Mary-Sue are agents for change in Pleasantville ad bud educated Mr Johnson and the rest of the Pleasantville population by filling in the books, putting out the fire, showing them colour. Mary-sue educated betty by teaching her what sex is. Repeated scenes in Pleasantville ensure that there is no change in their world, such as George walking home every afternoon, putting his briefcase down, and saying ‘honey, I’m home’. This is broken when he gets no reply from his wife, as Betty is out with Mr…

    • 255 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Change In Pleasantville

    • 616 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Pleasantville is a movie about a boy named David and his sister, Jennifer, who get transported into an alternate universe based on a 1950’s television show, Pleasantville. This town has no faults, there’s no inclement weather, no violence, no fire, their basketball team never misses a shot, and no sexual activity. This all changes when these two siblings enter this world. They try to conform to the world, but instead the world conforms to them. Change isn’t always easy, and this movie shows how difficult it can be.…

    • 616 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tucker and Dale vs Evil

    • 628 Words
    • 3 Pages

    As the title suggests, the film centers on two rednecks named Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) who buy a ramshackle rural cabin that they intend to use as their vacation home. Meanwhile, in the same area, a group of college kids, led by the ridiculously aggressive Chad (Jesse Moss), arrive to do some camping during spring break. Things get a bit hairy when one of the college girls, Allison (Katrina Bowden), nearly drowns during night swim and is rescued by the two protagonists. What the pair doesn’t realize is that the twenty-somethings are convinced that Tucker and Dale have kidnapped their friend and try anything to get her back.…

    • 628 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Question: Why do you suppose the New Woman, portrayed in either a positive or a negative light, was such a pervasive image in popular culture of the era?…

    • 970 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    pleasantville

    • 653 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The movie “Pleasantville” is a very successful movie that based on change and finding actual self. Throughout the movie, changes can be seen. In the movie, the television show called “Pleasantville” portraits people’s ignorance and unawareness of themselves, their emotions, and what surrounds them. Furthermore, the dullness of the Pleasantville indicated with black and white, as if it was lacking the colors of the life.…

    • 653 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Chapter 9 Quiz

    • 354 Words
    • 2 Pages

    1. David was valedictorian of his high school graduation class and also near the top of his class in college, but never lived up to his potential after that. His personality was such that he often alienated people, leading to four failed marriages and trouble holding down a job for any length of time. It is likely that he had a low level of…

    • 354 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Dialectical Journals

    • 1042 Words
    • 5 Pages

    David, he stands up for himself. He doesn’t stay quite like Melinda. David is always good until he has to stand up and speak up. He knows his rights and what he can do.…

    • 1042 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Uncommon Soldier

    • 1881 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Born on January 16, 1843, in what would become Afton, New York, to Harvey and Emily Wakeman, Sarah Rosetta Wakeman was the eldest of 9 children, seven of whom were female. To Harvey and Emily’s dismay, Sarah and her two siblings that followed were all female, which was less than to be desired during the era. Sarah was nearly nine years old before Emily was able to give Harvey a son (Burgess, 101). At that time, children were expected to begin helping the parents by contributing as soon as there was work compatible and “appropriate” for their age and gender. This is how Sarah’s transformation was necessitated. To understand these driving forces in more depth, one must take a look at the role Sarah played in her home life.…

    • 1881 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The roles of women took a big turn and have developed into new roles for them today in modern society. According to Erika Cox in Life in the 1950’s, “Life in the early 1950’s was still very strict. Women were still obligated to the status of housewives and men were the main breadwinners in the family.” In the 1950’s and 60’s housekeeping and raising a family were considered ideal female roles. Women were expected to be perfect, in every way. Everyone wanted the perfect TV family and a wife who would gladly wash the dishes and do the housework. In 1950s Daily Life, Kayla Allen writes “Women were the ones who had to cook and clean. They had dinner on the table before their husbands came home from work. That lets them know that their wives are concerned for their needs.”For example, other than women having dinner ready, they also had to take care of the children, keep the house organized, and happily wait for their husband to come home from work. In our television programming of today, we see women taking the jobs of men. Women are now able to get an education and become police officers, join the military, and many other things. Females are now able to take the role of a female along with the role of a male. They have now become the housewife and the breadwinner in the family.…

    • 1243 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    I have recently read the novel The Giver, by Lois Lowry, and watched the movie Pleasantville. These works focus on making perfect societies. The Giver is about a boy named Jonas who lives in a community with many rules. He is assigned the job of the Receiver of Memory and goes through great amounts of pain and happiness during his training. Pleasantville is about David and his sister Jennifer who goes into their TV to a show called Pleasantville. This town is supposedly peaceful and pleasant. Although The Giver and Pleasantville are both about perfect societies, their characters, setting and the symbolism establishing their greater involvement.…

    • 598 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dolley Madison

    • 894 Words
    • 4 Pages

    While Dolley was still in her teens and after the Revolutionary war in 1783 the family freed their slaves and sold their plantation based on religious beliefs, and moved to Philadelphia. There Dolley's father started his own business. Dolley was not as happy without servants and a large plantation. Also, because of unpaid debt for her father's new business, the family was shunned by the Quaker community and leaders. This was the first time the beautiful Dolley began to question her place in the Quaker society. She was very attractive and charismatic, and women in this kind of community were not supposed to draw attention to themselves.…

    • 894 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Feminine Mystique

    • 12188 Words
    • 49 Pages

    It was 1957. Betty Friedan was not just complaining; she was angry for herself and uncounted other women like her. For some time, she had sensed that discontent she felt as a suburban housewife and mother was not peculiar to her alone. Now she was certain, as she read the results of a questionnaire she had circulated to about 200 postwar graduates of Smith College. The women who answered were not frustrated simply because their educations had not properly prepared them for the lives they were leading. Rather, these women resented the wide disparity between the idealized image society held of them as housewives and mothers and the realities of their daily routines.…

    • 12188 Words
    • 49 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    "The Color Purple" is a very powerful film that tells the story of Celie, a poor black woman living in the old south. The film begins at her childhood and follows her up to old age. She was raped and abused by her father as a young woman and was sent to marry and equally abusive man, Albert. The various people in Celie's household may seem strange in their actions to an outsider. However, if one examines the actions of the characters, their behabiors can be explained, and sometimes justified, by the systems theory, symbolic interactionism and finally, developmental theory.…

    • 694 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    David is an immature person. After his father moved away, he was so angry that he refused to talk to his dad and even burnt all the letters from his father. He thinks that he is as same as his neighbour's dog, Monty, a victim of neglect. He even stopped working and got low marks at…

    • 537 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays