A Robin Redbreast in a cage

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A Robin Redbreast in a cage puts all Heaven in a
Rage. --William Blake
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"What do you hicks do around here for kicks?" -
"The roses grow. People get married. Crazy as
anyplace else."
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• Consider George he is a normal, conventional
  average guy.
• He works hard at his job, is the head of
• his family, is a good citizen.
• Hes never had much opportunity or taste for
  questioning his life.
• He is happy with the normal life
• that he has made for himself in Pleasantville.
• But nice inoffensive George is going to be the
  villain of our story.

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Pleasantville is traditional

• Life is routine
• People live conventional lives designed by others
• They are portrayed as conventional types, not
  individuals
• They live by the rules and respect the status quo
• This is a town meant for George and those like
  him.

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• People live by scripts they do not think for
  themselves
• So Pleasantville is black and white everything
  is simple, nothing is ambiguous.
• Everyone knows how to live they live the way
  everyone has always lived they live the way
  everyone else lives
• No one is adventurous no one is eccentric no
  one deviates from the script

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• The solid black and white citizens of
  Pleasantville refuse to recognize anything that
  doesnt fit their views on how the world should
  be.
• Geography lesson Whats outside of
  Pleasantville? Nothing, of course.
• Pleasantville books have no contents. No one can
  learn anything that doesnt fit with the
  conventional views which are obviously limited
  and narrow. Pville books maps leave out much
  of the truth.

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train them young
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Traditional family/gender roles predominate in
Pleasantville.
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• Some people--the Georges-- accept the world and
  do the best they can while playing by its rules.
• Some people either cant or wont do anything but
  play by their own rules.
• Pleasantville is a fable about what happens when
  these two kinds of people collide.
• This course is about the ideas that justify
  people of the second kind
• and
• Some prominent examples of that kind.
• The Theory and Practice of Romanticism

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• Because not everyone is as content with the
  status quo as is George.
• Consider Bill and Betty. They are not so content,
  they are dissatisfied, though at first they dont
  know why.
• They are leading what Thoreau called lives of
  quiet desperation.

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Bill is really an artist at heart.
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Early scenes with Bill are meant to
illustrateIn an exaggerated form how people
sometimesunthinkingly do what theyve always
done and how they may be paralyzed by
novelty.When Bud doesnt show up for work, Bill
keeps wiping the counter, waiting for Bud to show
up and do the next thing in the script so that he
can move on. Bill doesnt know what to do if the
script for closing the malt shop deviates. He
cant ad lib.He continues uselessly wiping the
counter because thats what hes always done.
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Pleasantville Bill says to Bud, referring to
the fact that the one thing he really enjoys is
painting the Christmas scenes on the Malt Shop
windows Why should I have to wait all year long
for one moment that I really enjoy? Whats the
point of that? Bud So people can get their
hamburgers! Conventional society requires
deferred (or possibly no) gratification.
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Important issue here Can we have civilization
if everyone does what they truly want to do?
(Freud thought not civilization runs on
repressed sexual instincts, he thought.) Mustnt
people make sacrifices of their dreams so that
the hamburgers can be made? Whats the human
cost then of a civilization? Is it worth it? Can
it be ameliorated? Are hamburgers that important?
Perhaps we could do with less and live better.
(This will be Thoreaus message, as well see.)
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Betty has an unfulfilled sexual nature

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And the kids have undeveloped and unrecognized
sides To themselves. Skip is about to get a big
surprise when Mary Sue shows Him one of his
undeveloped sides sexuality.
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• Basic metaphor of the film
• Pleasantville is black white.
• It uses only a small part of the color palette.
• Metaphorically, Pleasantville uses only a small
  part of the human potential palette.
• As things happen to liberate peoples
• potentials, color erupts in Pleasantville

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Under the impetus of Mary Sue, the kids begin
to DISCOVER their TRUE SELVES(and turn
color as they do--people by nature are colored,
not gray)
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The film suggests that Mary Sue brings a healthy
expression of sexuality to kids whose sexuality
has been badly repressed. She liberates them from
the shackles of sexual convention.
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The initial liberation begins with Mary Sue
introducing Skip to sex. The word spreads to the
other kids. Sexual liberation is an essential
part of our story real life American rebels
are sexual pioneers and nonconformists. Sexuality
is easily seen as a natural part of who we
are. It is very intense, exciting, and fun and
once let out, can be hard to control it often
feels like a force of nature, rather
than something we control.
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Bill needs art supplies and a teacher to really
express his natural artistic side he might
have gone his whole life without being lucky
enough to be exposed to artistic influences. But
sexuality doesnt need any accessories or
training, so its Accessible to everyone. And
to many it has given two morals 1. Adults are
hypocrites nothing bad has happened now that
weve had sex -they just wanted to keep it for
themselves 2. And how can something that
feels this good and loving be bad? We shouldnt
believe everything weve been told.
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• And so sexual experience can lead to
• A realization that those in charge may have feet
  of clay.
• An attitude of skepticism toward traditional
  points of view.
• A belief that conventional life can rob one of
  exciting and
• Important experiences.
• A tendency to follow ones natural instincts
  regardless of
• what adults or other authorities day.

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Adults seem to be missing out on something good
Oh, I dont think your father would ever do
anything like that, dear
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• Pleasantville has been pleasant and safe because
  it walled out anything new or threatening
• It saw the new as automatically threatening and
  bad
• Allowing passion and liberation will not be safe
  and pleasant.
• Joy and passion have their down sides you dont
  get a rainbow without a thunderstorm

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awakenings
To their true natures. . .
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In each case of liberation there is a convention
that has been adhered to that is now broken in
order to express the true self Mary Sues
convention is that shes a slut who never opens
a book The Mayors is that he is a rational,
calm person who would never do anything
unpleasant Georges is that he could never do
anything unconventional or love someone who
did. Bills is that he only paints once a year
and is content with that. Bettys is that she
is happy being a traditional housewife The
Lovers Lane kids is that they are content
holding hands. But each of them finds something
different in themselves
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Mary Sue really has a brain and enjoys using it.
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Bill is an artist George finds that he can love
an unconventional woman (though he discovers it
too late). And Bud. . . What does Bud find out
about himself?
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Other awakenings

• Kids have sex
• Betty falls in love--Bill paints her and reveals
  her true, colored, self to her.
• The mayor gets angry.
• Bud defends his mother from the gang harassing
  her.
• Kids stand in the rain--its a gentle rain
  standing for the benevolence of Nature.

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• They are not choosing to be different they are
  discovering who they really are discovering
  their individuality identities
• Your genius will speak from you,
• and mine from me. That which we are, we shall
• teach, not voluntarily, but involuntarily.
• Thoughts come into our minds by avenues which we
  never left open, and thoughts go out of our
  minds through avenues which we never voluntarily
  opened.
• -Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Bill shows us that sexual liberation is only part
of the Romantic Package it is the whole human
being that needs to be Freed from unnecessary and
artificial social restrictions. Freedom for
artistic expression Freedom for intellectual
expression Freedom for aesthetic expression in
how one dresses, e,g Freedom to consume what one
wishes drugs e.g. Freedom of political
expression Freedom of spiritual expression In
a nutshell Freedom to be who one really is
despite social pressures to conform to
tradition, to live like everyone else.
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Maybe its not the sex, Mary Sue And it
isnt--its doing something real, something
authentic, Something that expresses who they
really are deep down Inside. As Bud says Its
inside all of us Sex is only one way of
expressing who they really are.
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Romantic lesson 1EXPRESS YOUR TRUE SELF BE FREE

• Insist on yourself never imitate
• -Emerson, Self-Reliance

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The shock of the new
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Buddy Holly Rave On A-well the little things
you say and do They make me want to be with
you-oo-oo Refrain Rave on, it's a crazy feeling
and I know it's got me reeling when you Say, "I
love you," rave on The way you dance and hold me
tight A-well rave on, it's a crazy feeling and I
know it's got me reeling I'm So glad that you're
revealing your love for me Rave on, rave on and
tell me Tell me not to be lonely Tell me you love
me only, rave on to me
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• Rave-on is the tune that plays when Bud
  rebelliously turns the jukebox back on after the
  City Council has banned rock n roll.
• Note its themes
• Craziness and irrationality of love
• Following ones heart
• Revealing ones true self (love)
• These are Romantic themes
• just why the Council banned rock n roll.

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the conventional will attempt to make the
newly-liberated retreat to conventionality
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Rebellion even in Pleasantville doesnt
come easily The kids need permission from Bud To
turn the juke box back on after the town council
has decreed that no one shall listen to that
kind of music anymore. They are used to
obeying the authorities and their instinct is to
do so again
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Bill tries to make deals about what colors he
will use in order to be able to paint while still
remaining respectably within the norms.The kids
in the malt shop give in to their traditional
respect for authority after the Town Fathers have
put forth the Code of Decency banning rock n
roll.
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Lesson 2 The old ways will reassert themselves
and must be resisted by courage and endurance.

• Some of the rebels in Pleasantville become
• afraid of their new selves
• ashamed of themselves for no longer being
• normal
• ones old conscience will not disappear
  overnight
• --Betty will suffer pangs of guilt for leaving
  her
• husband and children and committing adultery
• with Bill.
• --those kids who had pre-marital sex will not
  lose their
• conventional morality so easily they will feel
  guilty too.

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Conformity suppresses what is natural in us. Fear
of being different can lead us right back into
the closet.
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The judges of normality
looking askance (and a bit wistfully) at
expressions of authenticity
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Defenders of the status quo strike back
literature music art sexuality nature change
against
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Burning books
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Destroying Bills obscene art
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Destroying the malt shop
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Attempting to rape Betty
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Discriminating
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Lesson 3 PERSONAL CHANGESOCIAL CHANGE

• Its the personal example of individuals
• changing that converts Pleasantville into a
  colored town, that subverts the status quo and
  allows a new, more tolerant society to emerge
  one in which Betty can seek happiness and Bill
  can paint.
• Most of the Romantics were going to study were
  not political activists. They either wished
  simply to be free to live as seemed right to
  them, or they believed that personal change is
  the road to social change.

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But their attempts backfired, as the color spread
despite their best efforts
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• Imagination, emotion, and freedom are certainly
  the focal points of romanticism. Any list of
  particular characteristics of the literature of
  romanticism includes subjectivity and an emphasis
  on individualism spontaneity freedom from
  rules some choice of the solitary life rather
  than life in society the beliefs that
  imagination is superior to reason and love of
  nature

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• In Pleasantville, the revolt is led by kids
• According to Romanticism, kids are
• less set in their ways and its easier for them
  to
• hear the still small voice inside because
• social customs have not had time to
• set in so deeply that they are
• obeyed without even realizing one is
• obeying anything--the point where those
• conventions become second nature
• Kids can become nonconformists more
• easily too because the ruts of their lives
• are not very deep yet.

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But its not just the kids who rebel Kids
rebelling against parents has become normal
Parents anticipate it its a phase. But
romantic rebellion is not just an adolescent
phase. Notice two other important
figures Betty who symbolizes the liberation of
women from the conscripting scripts faced by
50s women Bill who symbolizes the alienation
from the philistine dominant culture often
felt by artists Both these groups, along with
the young, will be important to our story of
American Romanticisms expressions.
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Features of romanticism in Pleasantville

• the repressive nature of society
• the search for authenticity, for ones true
  self
• the use of nature as a standard for goodness
• the embrace of the present seize the day
• the importance of joy
• validation of imagination and emotion
• the liberation of the self from domination by
• conventional values and roles
• rejection of traditional ideas of "success"
• the personal is political

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• The modern fascination with self-definition and
  self-invention, the notion that adolescence is
  naturally a time of rebellion in which one "finds
  oneself," the idea that the best path to faith is
  through individual choice, the idea that
  government exists to serve the individuals who
  have created it all of these are products of the
  romantic celebration of the individual at the
  expense of society and tradition.

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The questions of Identity who am I if I am not
who society says I should be? Individualismwhat
is unique about me? and Citizenship how do
I balance the demands of my community with my
need to be an individual? that the major
Romantic writers have raised have remained the
relevant puzzles of America. "
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Is it a good thing for those kids to
discover their sexuality, for Bill to discover
his artistic nature and so on? Yes, say
Romantics Or is it a bad thing that will lead
to permissiveness and a loss of values, as sober
citizens like the Town Fathers would say?
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Knowledge destroys their paradise
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But the Romantic view is that Pleasantville is a
false paradise All this pleasantness is bought
at the price of ones individuality You cant
do this, Mary Sue, says Bud, Theyre
happy. Nobodys happy in a sweater set and
poodle skirt. Theyve got potential. (as a girl
leaning against a locker blows a colored bubble.)
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Living authentic lives, being true to oneself,
may not be As pleasant and certainly not as
safe. This is a theme we see as far back as the
ancient Greeks, when Socrates is executed by
Athens for his refusal to compromise his way of
life. Living an authentic life may be dangerous,
frustrating, Miserable but it may also be
exhilarating and satisfying. Either way, the
Romantic view is that it is how we ought to
Live, being true to ourselves, living up to our
potentials, Going our own way in the face of
disapproval, condemnation, And even persecution.
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When people begin to discover who they really are
and to diverge from the norm, there are
different reactions Some are frightened by the
discovery. They know they are missing out on
something important but dont have the nerve to
defy convention. They lead what Thoreau called
lives of quiet desperation. Some view the new
ways as immoral, degrading, disgusting they
strike back to reaffirm the old status quo, to
force these new individuals back into conformity
to the right values. Some embrace the new
possibilities and go on to live novel, eccentric,
individual lives. These are the Romantics Its
these last that we are going to look at in this
course Romantic rebels, bohemians,
individualists, counterculturalists