Conformity In Pleasantville

Conformity is a type of social influence on an individual, which causes the individual to transmute their personal notions, values and morals to be able to live up to a group's standards or expectations. Conformity can be positive or negative, however, as most people already know, the negative aspects of conformity outweigh the positive aspects in numerous ways. The concept of conformity was demonstrated throughout the fable, Animal Farm and the utopian movie, Pleasantville. Animal Farm is an allegorical novel by George Orwell. Animal Farm examines the concept of conformity through the story of a farm where the animals rebel against their master (Mr. Jones) and create their own society and rules. Pleasantville is a 1998 comedy-drama film written,

Peer pressure can be defined as the social influence a peer group exerts on its individual members, as each member attempts to conform to the expectations of the group. In Animal Farm, Boxer is described as a hardworking, but naive and ignorant horse, he is shown as the farm's most dedicated and loyal labourer. Boxer’s loyalty to Napoleon was incredibly strong, Napoleon was the farms leader and dictator, which pressured and influenced other animals to also follow Boxers footsteps and to conform to Napoleon and not question his actions. Boxer’s two slogans were, “I will work harder” and “Napoleon is always right”, which seemed to him a sufficient answer to all his problems. George Orwell used hyperbole as a technique to show Boxers character to the audience, hyperbole is shown through Boxers slogans. Which exaggerates Napoleon being right all the time, however, it is crystal clear that no one is always right one hundred percent of the time, but, it’s easier for Boxer to think this though and it really shows how loyal he was to napoleon. He never questioned whenever Napoleon changed something on the farm, because apparently, “Napoleon is always right”, which influenced the other animals not question anything either because of the pressure Boxer put on them to conform. In Pleasantville peer pressure to conform also plays a significant part. Peer pressure is demonstrated by the residents of Pleasantville

Also fear could cause an individual to conform to something they don’t desire to. Lack of knowledge and the sense of fear that leads to conformity was demonstrated in contrasting ways in Pleasantville and Animal Farm. In Pleasantville the characters are conforming mostly because they don’t know anything other than conformity. For instance, Johnson (who owns the soda shop) has no idea what to do when Bud doesn’t turn up for his shift and instead keeps cleaning the same spot on the bench and continues to conform to his role because he doesn’t know what else to do without anyone’s instructions, which shows lack of basic knowledge and common sense. The director shows this in Pleasantville (Johnson wiping the bench) with an extreme close-up of the bench where he has wiped until he has wiped away the surface of the bench, highlighting the impact of Johnson’s mindless behaviour. Another example is when Jennifer (or also known as Mary Sue) asked the teacher “what’s outside of Pleasantville?” she gets laughed at by her classmates and then teacher replies to her that “The end of Main street is just the beginning again”. Which is weird and unusual for Jennifer because she is an educated person and she knows that can’t be possible, however, the rest of the characters