Examples Of Individualism In Pleasantville

Pleasantville is a very interesting movie. It deals with nearly everything we have gone over in the past few sections of our learning. It is a great portrayal of sociological subjects including norms, subcultures, social change, resistance to social change, traditional vs modern values, individuality, etc. The eight traditional values of the United States are very prevalent in Pleasantville. The first is personal achievement. This is shown when the parents are proud of Bud’s success in the science fair and when the dad is invited into the “Chamber of Commerce”. Individualism is sort of resented in their society because any individuality would go against the balance of their society. For example, the citizens hated the art created by Bill. The other side of individualism is the hard work of a person which is exemplified by the idea of the “American dream” portrayed in the movie. The citizens view people who work as valuable and good so the working men and housewives are the standard of what the people should be like. Morality is very important to this movie in that the parents are very against the “immoral” sexual activity by the children among other things. The chamber of commerce making the rules against the “colored people” shows the efficiency in the society because they are trying to fix the problem of the color. The men show their hope for progress because they spend just about entire second half of the

The people in the society believe in equality in that everyone has opportunities to succeed (albeit just white men in this society), such as when Bud’s father talks