Not So Pleasant(ville)
"(A) Nuclear family was where people could try to satisfy their long-pent-up desires for a more stable marriage, a decent home, and a chance to really enjoy their children" (Coontz, 59). What makes a family ideal or popularly called "nuclear"? In the movie Pleasantville, there is a character named David (Tobey Maguire) who wants to have this nuclear family and believes he has found the perfect family on a television show titled "Pleasantville." David believes an ideal family is like the one he watches on television. It has a mother and a father, two children, there is no conflict and that everyone has good morals. David's views change as he comes to the realization "Pleasantville" is not a perfect society, and every generation has it problems. This idea of wanting a perfect family comes from watching this television show called "Pleasantville." His family is made up of a Mother, Sister, and himself (maybe a father that we do not see), which is not that bad, but he does not think it makes him happy. David/Bud wanted to escape his family because he thought there was a better one for him in "Pleasantville". Like in the autobiography "An Indian Story" Jack "ran away from home one day"(Jack, 110). T
David also thinks there should not be conflict in an ideal family. He tells Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) that she should stop "causing trouble", she is sleeping with the boys and causing tension at home and in the town of Pleasantville. (Ross) This conflict he believes will ruin the values and what he loves about "Pleasantville." In Pleasantville David learns that with conflict brings compromise and happiness. Near the end of the movie David gets the Mayor of the town to change into color, by creating conflict. He wants the Mayor to express how he feels, which will change Pleasantville's reality forever. If the Mayor can see that his world is not perfect, he can accept the world for how it is, and now for how people think it was. David in the beginning wanted the opposite. He learns the hard way that with a bit of conflict his life and "Pleasantville" will be a better place. Just like when Jack in "An Indian Story" story went to Calgary and got in a drunken brawl, and! "Did you go all the way with him?"(Ross) That is what Mary Sue's friends asked in the movie. Mary Sue's morals and actions confused them. When David found out he ordered her to stop, he did not want to ruin the integrity and moral code of "Pleasantville." At first David wants everything to be orthodox and just like how he watched it on television. I
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Approximate Word count = 902
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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