A Review of "Pleasantville"

It is a beautiful film. It is a powerful film. It is well made. It is fetching. But it has a deadly idea.

There is a film I saw yesterday that is so important for you to see it because of the forceful way it captures and communicates a particular point of view. What is frightening is that it communicates it principally through the power of images. I would characterize it as a thorough-going visual polemic against Christianity. That is, it made its case principally by the clever use of images, and not by a careful assessment of ideas. This movie is so clever and--pardon me for saying it this way--dangerous. I know those who saw the movie and liked the portrayal will think I'm paranoid like those the movie depicted, those narrow, troublesome members of society. But I think it's fair to say it was a polemic against Christianity, even though Christianity is never mentioned.

There are no Christians in the film that are made to look ridiculous. There are no churches. In fact there is only one religious image, that of Eve offering Adam the fruit of the forbidden tree. Other than that, there is no direct attack against Christianity. Yet this is what the movie is all about.

[Since I did this commentary, I came across a review that makes my point rather bluntly. Ron Wells wrote in All Movie Guide, "Essentially, where I expected a piece of fluffy escapism, I got a well placed middle finger to America's conservative, religious right. What more can you ask from popular entertainment?"]

In fact, as I reflected more on the film, I realized it attacked every single fruit of the Spirit. Each was held in disdain, singled out for contempt by the film maker.

Love, the first fruit of the Spirit, was reduce to sex, for the most part. It was not the love the Bible has in mind; agape love, charitable love, sacrificial love, but rather sex, eros. Joy was depicted as the freedom of breaking free from moral constraints. So freedom and joy came from getting away from the virtues, not embracing virtue. Every single remaining virtue--peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control--was singled out for ridicule in some subtle way.

"What was the movie?" you ask. It is a movie that has received some of the highest critical acclaim of this year. Two big thumbs up by Siskel and Ebert. Newsweek called it "a complex, entertaining film that has real ideas. And how nice to see brilliant special effects used not for destruction but revelation." The New York Times said it's "an ingenious fantasy." Time magazine said it's a "smart, fun, epic-sized entertainment." The Boston Globe: "Simply brilliant! Film itself is being reborn. The magnificent Joan Allen may finally win the Oscar she has long deserved."

And, by the way, virtually everything said here by the critics is true, I think. It is a beautiful film. It is a powerful film. It is well made. It is fetching. But it has a deadly idea. The movie is simply called "Pleasantville."

What's to object to a film with a name like "Pleasantville" and a PG rating? Well, the objection has to do with the underlying idea.

There are Christians who, for good reason, will not go to an R-rated movie because of sex and violence. Often though, they will send their kids to PG movies that subtly promote ideas that are much more damaging than the sex and violence of the R films. "Pleasantville" is one of those movies. Yes, there are some cars rocking on lover's lane. But that is small potatoes to the ideas that drive "Pleasantville."

This is a thoroughly post-modern film. In fact, it is not just an expression of post-modern values, it champions post-modern values. It depicts people who hold to classical virtues as shallow, one-dimensional, two-colored, black and white, empty, abusive kinds of people. Pleasantville folks are the kind who get oppressive if their moral worldview is challenged by something really subversive, like sex--as if Christians have no healthy interest in sex, or art, or literature. And at this point there are prominently displayed book burnings of books like Catcher in the Rye, Lady Chatterly's Lover, Huck Finn and there's censorship of any music with a beat.

When these folks in Pleasantville are confronted with change, they get bigoted and then they get violent. If you have seen the trailers for this, you know that Pleasantville is in black and white until people get reborn to a new way of thinking. Then they turn Technicolor, and so they're derisively called "coloreds" by the local folk and are the subjects of bigotry.

Stores put signs in their windows that say "No coloreds." And in the courtroom, coloreds sit in the balcony and colored defendants don't get the benefit of legal counsel. And then the malt shop, owned by one of the coloreds, is destroyed by an angry black-and-white (non-colored) mob.

It's interesting how morality is depicted during a town hall meeting called to deal with this menace. Morality is determined by a vote of the people. It's a convention the group in power decides on and then has the power to enforce. This is a post-modern view of morality. Morality is an invention of the powerful which the powerful use to maintain their position of power and control.

I am especially sensitive to these issues since the book Dr. Beckwith and I have written--Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air--came out a few weeks ago. Many of you purchased it from Stand to Reason and have read it. This is right in line with our ideas, and very consistent with what I heard David Wells say in an interview recently. A few years back he wrote a very perceptive book entitled No Place for Truth. It's a very powerful indictment of the theological circumstances the church finds itself in here at the end of the 20th century. Now he has written a new book called Losing our Virtue that ties in directly with this issue.

I have a note taped to my computer. It is a quote from J.P. Moreland: "You'll never amount to anything and you'll never accomplish anything of significance unless you learn habitually to do those things you don't like to do."

Now, this sounds like something my dad might have said. This is a reliable truism about life. You won't move ahead in life by letting it all hang out, by just doing what feels good in the moment, by following your passions. You only really make an impact in life by saying "no" to pleasurable but empty things and saying "yes" to the good things that may not be pleasant in the moment.

And it is a sign of maturity to be able to do that, by the way. It's the sign of a mature adult to say no to the short term pleasure in order to reap the long term good.

I listen to Mars Hills Tapes and if you don't subscribe to these tapes you should. They're great. They are a bi-monthly series of interviews, PBS "All Things Considered" style. Ken Meyers does the interviewing. The latest one had the interview with David Wells I just mentioned, whose new book, Losing Our Virtue, was the subject of conversation.

The book isn't really about the rise of immorality, although it addresses that. It goes much deeper and deals with some underlying ideas that have compelled the prevailing moral ethos.

Wells argues that in order for people to be fully and truly fulfilled, they have to have a strong sense of self. How do you build a strong self? Not by letting it all hang out. Not by doing whatever feels good, following your impulse, letting it all go. But rather by restraining your impulses and seeking to develop a virtuous life by denying yourself. A strong and healthy sense of self comes from self-discipline, not unbridled self-expression.

People who have a strong sense of self--and I mean "self" in the best sense of the word, not in the fleshly, sinful sense--are people who know who they are. That is, they live by a moral code and are true to their conscience, not their impulses. They are not given, as Pascal has said, to "licking the earth," letting their base passions take charge.

If you've seen the movie "Moonstruck", a romantic comedy with Cher, there is a scene that captures what I'm talking about. The husband of the family is having an affair. His adult daughter (played by Cher) and his wife (played by Olympia Dukakis) know about it.

One evening the wife is having dinner by herself in a restaurant and is befriended by a man who also is alone dining at another table. They have a conversation. It is the pleasant kind of warm interaction she hasn't known for years. As he walks her home he invites her up to his place. She says "no." He asks her why. She answers, "Because I know who I am."

Here is a woman who says no to a tempting proposition because such an ignoble and unfaithful act would wound her conscience and violate her character. Because she knows who she is, because she has developed a strong sense of self, she is able to live a noble life with her head held high in spite of her loneliness. This is a very profound freedom.

That's the old style. The new style is just the opposite. On the new view, freedom is liberation from all the moral chains of the past with their restrictive notions of virtue. And the new style--the post-modern, relativistic style--is argued for very persuasively through the use of images in the movie "Pleasantville".

This, of course, is the power of film, the ability to create your own world and write into your story whatever consequences you want and still make it totally believable. This is why Plato was suspicious of the poets and gave them no place in his republic. He knew the poets could manipulate truth by using imagery and thus mislead people, making them think that a lie is the truth.

That's exactly what happens in this movie. There is no depiction of the consequences of the moral anarchy being argued for in this film. There are no pregnant high-schoolers, no STD's, no broken families, no rioting in the streets--except for the rioting caused by those shallow, colorless, bigoted people who couldn't stomach the "diversity."

The movie ends in contradiction, though I'm sure few noticed it. I don't think the film makers were even aware of this. The young man who had been transported into this TV world of Pleasantville finally gets transported back to his real life--after converting Pleasantville to the post-modern notion of morality and truth. In real life, he doesn't live with a perfect family. His parents are divorced. His father doesn't want to visit him on the weekends. His mother is going off to spend the weekend with a man nine years her junior, leaving her son and his promiscuous teenage sister to fend for themselves. It's a mess, which is one of the reasons he lost himself in the TV series, Pleasantville, in the first place, to escape his miserable life. In Pleasantville everything is perfect.

When he returns to the real world, his mother is sitting at the table crying, mascara running down her face. She realizes her life is a dismal failure. Going with a younger guy doesn't make her feel younger, only older. As her son gently wipes the mascara-blackened tears from her cheek, she says "My life is all f.....d up. It is not turning out the way it is supposed to be."

He looks at her from the vantage point of his newfound wisdom. He says, "Mom, there is no way it's supposed to be." His face is glowing. He smiles. She looks at him and the tears stop and her eyes get a little wider and she sees the depth and ponders the significance of his insight and she says, "How did my son get so wise?" He answers, "Well, I had a pretty good day." And the credits roll.

And what many don't realize is, this is a morality play in reverse. He is offering the solution. "There is no way it is supposed to be." That is post-modern morality. The fact of the matter is, that her life is "all f.....d up," in her words, precisely because there is a way life is supposed to be and she's not living it. She's been breaking all the rules. She has been living a profligate lifestyle with no commitment to virtue or morality. That's what screwed her up.

Yet, her wise son is offering relativism to her as the way to liberty. It's almost as if Pleasantville is the Garden of Eden, and it's boring. And the fall is what gives true liberty. That's what the picture shows. What they don't show is what the fall produces, accidentally portrayed, I believe, by the messed up life of this young man's mother.

And what did he have to offer her? Hope? No, just more relativism. "Mom, when you really realize this, that there is no truth, there is no morality, there is nothing but our desires, well, then you will feel better like I do. Be wise like me."

One last note. The supreme cleverness of this presentation is that if people like me object, like I am doing, if I challenge the ideas here and see them as subtly wicked and evil--as I do--then guess what? I am positioned automatically as one of those colorless, shallow, emotionally and intellectually enslaved Pleasantvillers. As I said, it's a very, very clever movie.

I saw this movie and it was very clever for the first 30 minutes or so. It pokes enormous fun at the 50's sitcoms etc. I thought it was great.

Then, like so many Hollywood Leftie Talibanist productions, it just coulnt resist playing against ALL of the stereotypes of conservatives. It got really tiresome and stayed that way for the next hour or so.

It was so obvous that the makers of this film thought they were clever, when in fact the were just as bigoted and close-minded as the steretypes they tried to attack.

As usual, the adolescent hypocrisy is what lingered long after the quasi-artistic effects were forgotten.

Excellent writeup. When this movie came out, I was really wanting to go see it. I am grateful that I read or heard what the "theme" was, i.e. "'sex' is what will free you", I choose to skip it.

It's a shame that such a creative graphical example, depicting right and wrong ways of living did so on a "moral" ground, with "immorality" as being what the producer choose as "right."

It would have been such a better movie if the producer could have reversed the roles. Let the black and white world represent the immoral, the decadent, the lost, those that can find no truth in life, no meaning ...

And let them come to be "technicolor" when they start going to church, give up the bottle, choose to change their current disctructive paths, etc.

So many examples the producer could have weaved into to make this cinematographically creative movie into a movie that provided a meaningful message as well.

Excellent review. But then, I'm one of those colorless, bland, right-wing Christian freaks. Of course, we never have sex (but somehow manage to have kids), fun (though scads of surveys indicate we are the most mentally balanced and satisfied people), or money (which is why we contribute to charitable causes in greater numbers than those on the Left). Yep, that's me - part of what the Washington Post considers the "poor, uneducated, and easily led."

I couldn't agree more, apart from the fact that I won't even say the film was "beautiful", as this guy does.

The device of black and white 50s type people vs. "coloreds" was so cliched, obvious and ham-handed that it became distracting.

The "50s" aspect of the film is not really discussed here, but it's the thing that struck me the most. The success of the film seems to rely at least partly on the worldview that everything in the 50s era was "boring" and "repressed". And the reason modern people believe this, is because "the 50s" are automatically linked in their minds with the television reruns they have seen, which just happen to have been made in black and white (for reasons of technology) and subscribed to rather high moral standards (for social reasons).

But that doesn't mean that that's the way everything actually was in the '50s in real life. All that it proves is that the people who were reached by the message of Pleasantville get all their impressions of a certain time and place from the TV shows they have seen about it. Which is pretty pathetic when you think about it.

Yes, a great review. There is, to me, more than about sex and coloreds. To me the message was freedom in total, not just freedom to have affairs and sex. There was the Honey I am home and the meatloaf on the table. And then there was the unironed shirt or rather shirt burnt while ironing. Some of it perhaps conveyed the then emerging idea that men and women are equal (however nutty that may sound to some of the wing nuts here).

And as you think so shall you do. If you devote time to thinking about unwholesome things and give time to unwholesome ideas then you are paying tribute and in a small way giving these things the power to be. Remember the saying “be careful what you wish for because it may come true”? This is about the same type of concept. Every time you think about an evil thing you bring yourself closer to actually doing that evil thing or at least accepting it as an option. Many people who kill or commit sexual crimes spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the act itself before they actually commit the crime. Ask any Psychologist. There is no such thing as just a movie or just a fantasy or just a joke. All your thoughts bring with them an element of reality or truth and if you spend enough time thinking about evil then it’s a matter of time before evil becomes truth or reality.

The New York Times said it's "an ingenious fantasy." Time magazine said it's a "smart, fun, epic-sized entertainment." The Boston Globe: "Simply brilliant!

That's all the info I need. I won't be seeing it in the theaters, on video, cable or broadcast ....EVER.

Great article. I think it was the smugness of the film that put many of us off. There was an unearned assumption of our superiority to the people of the fifties, which made it's way down to the dubious assumption that it would be harder to get into college today than it was in the 1950s. There was also the dubious portrayal of sexual liberation in terms of civil rights and color prejudice and also the trite stereotyping of the opponents of the change-over.

I think I see the point Pal makes, but I don't see it as a celebration of freedom or happiness as such, rather there was also a strong transgressive element and a strident celebration precisely of sexual freedom. The 1950s were caricatured as a prisonhouse of domesticity and repression. There might have been a more nuanced portrayal of the period and it's contrast to our own day. I think that's what the reviewer regrets.

There was quite a debate here about the movie when it first appeared.

I rented this movie awhile back and after it was over my comment to my wife was that it - as the reviewer and others here have stated - promoting the idea that morality and virtue are boring and oppressive (The black-and-white Fifties) and moral relativism is fun and liberating. Yeah, right.
Of course, if you dare to question this point of view, you're 'oppressing' people with your restrictive, fun-killing 'rules'. Meanwhile, let's not mention the millions of aborted babies, divorces, single mothers, abandoned children, drug-ruined lives, STD's and the big one, AIDS, much less the profound sorrow of wasting your youth on garbage and calling it liberation, only to find you have - like the Mother mentioned at the end of the film - nothing but unhappiness and misery to show for all your freedom from morality and values.

To me the message was freedom in total, not just freedom to have affairs and sex.

When you say 'freedom' what do you mean? Freedom from what? Morality?
There were 'rebels' in the '50's; people had affairs and illegimate babies, divorce, drinking and all the rest. The difference was that folks who engaged in these behaviors were somewhat ashamed of it and no one saw destructive behavior as 'liberating', just foolish. 'Pleasantville' simply attempts to justify immorality (while avoiding addressing the consequences) and calls it liberation. Nothing new here; same old lies.

A truly terrific piece of writing; wonderful insights..........absolutely dead-bang on. There was something that bugged the hell out of me (no pun intended) when I saw "Pleasantville", and I had a pretty good idea what it was...........but this author has expressed it beautifully. Great post, Khepera; great post.

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