In contrast, Jennifer is angry and resentful. She accepts that the universe around her has changed, but she's not going to play along with it. When she finally makes it to school, she introduces the word "cool" to her friends as a substitute for "swell." When she gets bored (which doesn't take too long) she seduces Mary Sue's boyfriend (who's never done more than hold hands with a girl) in the back seat of his car.
It is a change that is not universally welcomed.
A large part of the film's message relates to change...things we are comfortable with, will, inevitably, change, and how we deal with those changes defines how well we get through life.
There are many reactionary townsfolk dead set against the changes while many of the youths embrace the new and exciting.
Yes, something, in a town where nothing ever did. The film observes that sometimes pleasant people are pleasant simply because they have never, ever been challenged. That it's scary and dangerous to learn new ways.
"Let us boldly go where no one has gone before."
"Take me back to the good old days."
On the flip side, some of the decisions and options "change" produced, for some, may not be the most adequate. How do you choose not to change when your convictions direct you not to do so? How do you determine when this change is not proper, and when change is inappropriate? How do you stand behind your decisions even when they are not how others tend to think?
Some people in Pleasantville opposed change and campaigned against it. What factors lead you to stay the same and not change? Do you have any models of consistency in your life? How are they consistent? How is positive or negative? How do you foster change when others don't want it?
Once we've invented the wheel to travel roads to newness and change, we cannot stop the process.
There are many reactionary townsfolk dead set against the changes while many of the youths embrace the new and exciting.
The kids at school are the first to start appearing in colors. They're curious and ready to change.
"People do not want their memory messed with", Ross explained. In a person's memory, only the highest ideals and "values of abundance" survive: everything is subsequently better in thought then it was in reality. People have gone and invested their hope in the past, always griping that the past was much better times. Ross made "Pleasantville" to contradict that notion: "hope belongs in the present". Sure, people are always going to be afraid of uncertainty and they will always hope to "disengage from things that are troubling" and "long for perfect times".
Always going to be afraid of uncertainty and they will always hope to "disengage from things that are troubling" and "long for perfect times". Ross hopes there will be more Davids and Jennifers though: those who can break down the predetermined roles of individual and social repression and allow people to come to terms with the things they are scared to discover in themselves.
It is a true thing, we all justify and celebrate our own sins. We all have done wrong things, fully understanding the consequences. Life never remains innocent. Never. That is what makes this film so honest.
The road to freedom can only be found by breaking through our fears. We will never know all God has for us by clinging to what is safe and acceptable.
They discover their identity through understanding that they can change the things in the world to suit their needs.
Your idea of the world being evil, and that people are sinners goes against reality. The idea that we cannot change ourselves, but that the metaphyical can be changed by some magical force ie god is flawed. In reality it is the metaphysical that cannot be changed and you and I that can. If men are sinners then reason cannot exist, but if reason does not exist then hoe do you know men are sinners. Religion denies the metaphysical and the logical in place for menial fanatasy.
"Think it over. Consider the subject, check your premises, check past history and find out whether it is true that man can never be free. It isn't because man has been free. Find out what made it possible. See for yourself. And then if you are rationally convinced, we can save the world together. We still have time. Let your mind and love of existence decide."
saw this as a freedom of choice/resisting authority/coming of age movie and believed that the movie largely wanted for us to identify with David/Bud's (and the rest of the town's) development toward freedom of thought. He clings fiercely to the ideas of freedom: religious, moral, ethical, emotional, financial, governmental, and universal. He appreciated the nostalgic sense given to the original Pleasantville as having something that our generation lacked, but he felt a greater sense of well-being as the superficial (naive/sheltered) lives are replaced by dis-ordered, natural emotions and actions. "you can't stop it because it's inside you and you can't stop something that's inside you."
W E RESIST CHANGE AND AT THE SAME TIME WANT IT