Pleasantville Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Pleasantville - Essay Example and polished world they represented did not express the truth about life, thus giving people a false belief about what it means to live in the United States. Looking at the writings of Cornelius Plantinga Jr. and Bruce Epperly, the film Pleasantville is analyzed against writings that express the meaning of God within the life of the Christian, creating a discourse on how the perfection of this world is measured against the expectations of God. Plantinga reminds his readers that God expects us to embrace suffering, to go out into the world and serve without expecting to find glory. Epperly reminds us that the world is bigger than the human experience, that finding the whole world gives the human experience the authenticity that God had intended. Through looking at Pleasantville through the writings of Plantinga and Epperly, the Christian experience in the world is expressed as more than just the illusions of perfection as it is sought after within the confines of the American dream. The film Pleasantville (1998) is a fantasy in which the idea of what is the ideal of American life is explored through the concept of 1950s television. Television shows such as Leave it to Beaver and Daddy Knows Best are often used as measures against which the American dream is examined for the best case scenario. In the film Toby McGuire and Reese Witherspoon are sucked into an alternate universe of Pleasantville, a black and white television program. Pleasantville is McGuire’s favorite television program and a bit of magic occurs during a marathon which pulls them into this universe. The perfection of the world is challenged as the black and white life of the characters begin to give way to bursts of color as they emerge on landscapes and people when their belief systems are challenged by the two interlopers. This symbolizes the nature of the oppression of emotions as they are released so that a greater depth is experienced. The restrictive, always content and serenely bla nd