Fear as Desire: Pleasantville Film Analysis

Pleasantville​ is a 1998 film directed by Gary Ross about siblings from the 1990’s
that cross into a 1950’s sitcom and take on the roles of the main characters. The
society in Pleasantville​ r​ epresents the ideal 1950’s community of white picket
fences, atomic families, and traditional roles. When Jennifer and David take on
their new roles in Pleasantville​ ​they quickly evoke changes across town. Jennifer
introduces the naïve teens of Pleasantville​ t​ o sex and being “cool.” As the
townspeople indulge in pleasurable activities, their black & white complexions
transform into color. In the beginning, David condemned Jennifer for “messing
with their whole goddamn universe.” David later helps the townspeople escape
their standardized lifestyles by discovering their passions. As he becomes more
invested with the townspeople, specifically the teenagers, he gradually shifts into
the monster seen by the black & white townspeople. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s essay,
“Monster Culture (Seven Theses)” examines how monsters reflect cultural fears. In
Cohen’s sixth thesis “Fear of the Monster is Really a Kind of Desire,” he asserts that
the monster is viewed as an alter ego (Cohen 79). People are secretly jealous of the
monster’s ability to act against standard social customs. Cohen’s idea is reflected in
Pleasantville​ by the traditionalists’ fears of David’s ability to change their
old-fashioned values. Even though the traditional townspeople hold this fear of
change, they secretly envy the colored part of society for their vivid experiences of
emotion and knowledge.

The night after the fire David walks into the soda shop to a crowd of his peers
waiting to ask him how he knew the way to stop the fire. David says, “well, where I
used to live that’s just what firemen did.” When David reveals that he’s from
outside of Pleasantville he creates another “cultural mode of seeing” (Cohen 81).
This means that David has implanted the idea that there is somewhere else,
another place that functions differently. This displays the importance of viewing
things multidimensionally as described in the 2015 graphic novel by Nick Sousanis,
Unflattening​. The teenagers are able to use this different perspective to unflatten
their conventional thinking (Sousanis). Then the group asks “What’s outside of
Pleasantville?” The group’s request for more information about the outside world
exposes their desire to learn and expand their knowledge. David tries to avoid the
question saying, “it doesn’t matter. It’s not important.” He does this out of his own
fear of corrupting their “pleasant” society. After being pressed further, David
explains that “there are some places where the road doesn’t go in a circle. There
are some places where the road keeps going… It all keeps going. Roads and rivers
and…” David is cut off by a peer’s question, “like the mighty Mississippi?” The
boy’s interruption with a connection he formed between the unending river David
spoke of and the book he was reading displays critical thinking skills. The
traditional townspeople do not question anything; they usually accept everything
as a fact. The boy’s inquisitiveness exhibits a shift in thought between the black &
white and colored townspeople. The boy hands the book to David, ​The Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn​ by Mark Twain, as David turns through its pages he notices that
the majority of them are no longer blank. Jennifer explains that the pages filled in
as she shared the parts of the book she remembered. The books were blank,
because the desire to read and the desire for knowledge was nonexistent. When
asked to describe the ending of ​The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn​, David says,
“they were going up the river trying to get free and in trying to get free, they see
that they’re sort of free already.” The description of the end of the book relates to
the town’s struggle for freedom. The townspeople are unaware that they have led
the same standardized lifestyles. They conform to the mayor’s idea of how people
should act “pleasant.” The camera pans to the book just as the blank page begins
to fill with text. The scene ends with another teen handing David another book to
tell them about. As David and Jennifer continuously broke through categories, they
began to normalize pleasurable practices like sex, reading, music and dancing
among the open-minded individuals of Pleasantville. Their efforts to impose a new
way of life for Pleasantville’s society is later challenged by the mayor.

Bill and David were put on trial for using a variety of prohibited paint colors and
violating “laws of common decency.” They painted a mural on the side of the
police station that represents the riots and destruction from the social uproar
between the black & white and colored people. Pleasantville’s division into colored
and non-colored people mirrors the segregation that was prevalent throughout the
United States in the 1920’s. The mural’s depiction of burning books, teenage sex
and the town hall sinking into the ground was accessible to everyone in town. The
mayor was unhappy with the entire town being exposed to the mural because it
portrayed forbidden practices that destroyed “pleasant” societal concepts. David
goes against the town standard of accepting the mayor’s directions without
protest. David questions the mayor frequently throughout the trial. When David
asks, “Where’s our lawyer?” he pushes against the social pressure to obey the
mayor and admit guilt to the supposed crimes. This act of defiance demonstrates
his disruption of social order. During the course of the trial, there is a shift in the
audience’s energy and their skin begins to take on color. When David transforms
George into color after exposing his longing and love for Betty, members of the
audience begin to change colors as well. The transformation into color is
accomplished by the townspeople uncovering and acknowledging their hidden
desires. Cohen states that loathing a monster turns into desire, society’s fear of
David turns into a yearning for the vibrant emotions that the people of color
experience (Cohen 79). David smashes distinctions between the segregated crowds
by evoking individuals to change. He encourages their change by helping them
discover things deep within themselves that they were unaware of and never
thought to explore. The town is reunited at the end of the scene when everyone
changes into color and realizes that they are more similar than different.

Harboring a fear of change is natural, but in order to gain what one desires they
must accept change. ​Pleasantville​ is representative of a society that is stuck in a
cycle of standardization. David and Jennifer evoked change in their society in order
to break the cycle of standardization and improve the townspeople’s quality of life.
The people of Pleasantville desired the freedom to expand their knowledge and
experience life vividly. The heavy undertones of racism in ​Pleasantville​ and the
rules set forth by the mayor which prevents the colored individuals from
participating in their preferred hobbies. In our society, some groups of people
aren’t given the opportunity to experience their desires. Many people believe that
discrimination is a thing of the past, but it actively prevents groups of people from
attaining their desires. People can be discriminated against based upon race,
ethnicity, disability, or sexual orientation. When viewed by the dominant part of
society, individuals that are discriminated against are seen as monsters for
disrupting the dominant’s preset social categories. A change in the dominant part
of society’s mind-set would be beneficial in order to facilitate equal opportunities
for everyone.

Sources​:

Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. “Monster Culture (Seven Theses).” ​Readings for Analytical
Writing, Third Edition​. Ed. Christine Farris, et al. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s,
2011. 68–86. Print.

Pleasantville​. Dir. Gary Ross. Perf. Tobey Maguire, Reese Witherspoon, William H.
Macy. New Line Cinema, 1998. Film.

Sousanis, Nick. ​Unflattening.​ Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.

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