Pleasantville

This morning my chosen method of procrastination has been browsing some articles on Boundless.org. In an article on how cheaply our culture views sex, I found the following description of the movie Pleasantville:

The plot revolves around a teenage brother and sister whose TV remote control magically transports them into the peaceful, black-and-white world of a Fifties TV sitcom. The sister promptly seduces the captain of the high school basketball team, and before long, the once-innocent teenagers of Pleasantville are all engaging in sex. Soon, their dull, black-and-white world turns to glorious color. The director's message is obvious: Sexual promiscuity will lead to freedom and happiness.

I should say from the outset that I love the movie Pleasantville - it's one of my favourites. I know that a lot of Christians complained about it, but I'd never actually read any articles or reviews about it. Here's some more from another Boundless article:

While some film critics, notably USA Today’s Mike Clark, found [director Gary] Ross’ style preachy and his attacks on the 1950s “specious” and “simplistic,” even they bought into the notion that sex was a metaphor for something else: creativity, freedom or nonconformity what have you.

Perhaps these critics bought into the notion that sex was a metaphor for something else because sex WAS a metaphor for something else. But even if it was a metaphor, this reviewer still doesn't like it:

They fail, however, to understand why directors like Ross rely almost exclusively on this metaphor. For them, sexual freedom is synonymous with personal freedom. You see, at the heart of the 1960s, when many of these directors grew up, was a rebellion against traditional sources of authority: government, moral standards and the church.

True, in our society, sexual freedom is viewed in this way, and that's exactly why it works as a metaphor. But it was just a metaphor. To me, it seems crazy to think that the director was advocating sexual promiscuity in this movie. And to focus solely on the teenagers' sexual exploits leading to the colouring of their world ignores most of the movie and, to be honest, makes me wonder about the preoccupations of such reviewers. To be sure, Jennifer (the sister in the film) seduces the captain of the basketball team, and he starts to see the world turning coloured after this experience, but she herself doesn't change into colour until she ignores the basketball team captain in favour of reading. And her brother David, the geeky one, doesn't change into colour until he stands up to a bunch of nasty guys to defend his mother (well, his mother in Pleasantville).

Other changes that take place in the movie:

• The books are initially all blank, but the pages gradually fill with text, and going to the library becomes a popular pastime for the kids.
• The town is completely closed off from the outside world - the people can't even understand the question "what's outside of Pleasantville?" At the end of the movie, there are mountains and trees to be seen outside of the town.
• Things are not perfect anymore - people don't always get strikes in bowling; the basketball team loses a game; the firemen need to do more than just rescue cats stuck up trees; and it actually rains from time to time.
  
• People show emotions - good emotions, such as love, and bad, such as anger.
• Jennifer decides not to even go back home. She's done with being a "slut" as she puts it, and decides to go to college instead.
  

There's so much in this movie, and I find it very narrow-minded for people to look at it and condemn it as a bad movie because it "clearly" promotes sexual promiscuity.

To be fair, this article did have some good things to say about the way Hollywood views romance as identical with sex. For example, in Shakespeare in Love, the only reason we know that the two main characters are in love is that they can't keep their hands off each other. I felt the same way about Moulin Rouge. It was supposed to be some great love story, but there was nothing between them except lust.

It is good, and right, to challenge the world views that we are bombarded with by Hollywood. We should understand love as being much more than just lust - it involves sacrifice and commitment as well as fun and pleasure. But I think sometimes Christians can go too far in the movies they condemn. I'm not saying that Pleasantville is some incredibly deep, philosophical movie with an ultimately redeeming message, but it's fun and does make some interesting points about challenging the status quo (whatever that might be - not just the conservative status quo). And I just don't see that it's out to promote the destruction of all morality.