AESTETA: Pleasantville

The movie Pleasantville was really impressive.

Actually, there's a lot for me to say about this movie and it's so many that I don't even know where to start.

First off, figuratively, the colors Black and White for me is just like answering a "Yes and No" question. While the different colors answers question with a lot of details in it. The colors black and white are dull, because it doesn't emphasize the detail of a certain object. (Well, Black and White are sometimes cool alone, like in gadgets and other techy stuffs, but when you put Black and White to a colorful area, it simply looks out of place.)

In a place where I thought everyone was perfect, In a place where there’s only one place to be, In a place where everything seems to be at the right place and at the right time, In a place where you don’t miss a basketball shot, In a place where you don’t know anything bad, something was still incomplete.

For me, at the movie Pleasantville, they were Black and White because everyone in that movie didn’t have an identity. I mean, they don’t know who they really are and they didn’t what’s their purpose in their world. They don’t even have an idea on where they are. It’s like their stuck in a world where they only know. (They don’t even know what’s outside Pleasantville, and assume there’s nothing outside Pleasantville.) They live in a mediocre life where they’re satisfied with what they already have and don’t even bother to explore more things and to know the meaning of life.

Here are just some of the scenes that I remembered prior to the change that began:

1. 1.       When Bud was at the basketball gym, and when Skip Martin(captain of the basketball team) knew that Jennifer didn’t want to go out with him, he was kind of depressed so he just tossed the ball at the ring, and as we expected, the ball should’ve went into the hoop, but it didn’t.

- It was really an interesting scene, because finally a basketball shot was missed, and I assume that the ball missed the hoop, because the perfect man in the perfect world got his heart broken. (An experience he never experienced.)

1. 2.       When Skip had sex at the Lover’s Lane with Mary Sue

-          For me, this was another interesting scene because it was showcased that Skip doesn’t know anything about sex, to the point that he didn’t know the substance that’s coming out inside him. It just gives another example of how a person in the world Pleasantville was really mediocre. And then, when Skip drove back home, it was the first time he saw a colored rose. He saw colors because that moment in his life, he started learning what his purpose is and that was to love Mary Sue.

1. 3.       When the fire sparked out at the tree and no one else in that place seemed to care.

-          In that part, again. It was the first time encountered a fire. And no one exactly didn’t know the meaning of fire. In that perfect place, they even cared more about kittens stuck on a tree. That changed the movie when Bud, hurriedly went to the “fire” station to ask for help on firemen. But unfortunately, they only could care less about the fire and didn’t even know how to use the water. It became the turning point of the movie when Bud used the water hose to put away the fire. And after that event, everyone thinks that Bud was a hero. (Well, I also considered him a hero for putting out the fire. But not a hero, like a hero. Whatever.)

The rest of the characters bloomed to colors after that event. The clock now had its neon green light colors. The jukebox now had colors and giving life to the diner.

In short description, the people in Pleasantville blossoms to color because event by event, they get to know themselves more, they get to know their worth, they get to be who they really want to be. They are free to do something different things, things that they’ve never done before, may it be missing a basketball shot. The important thing is that they get to be themselves freely. Just like the couples at the Lover’s Lane, everyone has their color, because they find themselves in that significant other and they feel free when they love each one another. It’s like loving the other is their purpose in their world. (What a cliché/cheesy statement. Haha.)

Meanwhile, when all things are starting to get beautiful, authorities of men started a movement to remove all the colors because they feel that having colors is not safe in their world. They tended to trash and burn all the paintings and books, to the point where they even proposed a law that having color is a prohibited law. They see their world with a mediocre perspective. They’re satisfied with what they have, and they don’t want to change it any further. They want things to be exactly the same. They prefer to be somebody else than to be themselves, because that’s how they view it and that’s their own perspective on life.

In the movie, arts were represented in two ways; either the people would love it, or the people will hate and be disgusted by it. Books were empty that time; it represents the lives of the people who lived there. Now, when Bud found this that he was familiar about, it was empty, and he started telling stories on what happened there. By that simple event, every people inside that bar are starting to get out and sprout from themselves. Each and every time they learn, the world comes to be colorful with them.

In relation to my personal experience, there was this point in my life where I didn’t know where my life would be. When I was at my 4^th Year at highschool, I didn’t know what to write on college application forms, I didn’t know what I want to do 5 years from that time. So, I was really confused about myself that time. I didn’t have an identity that time; I didn’t know what I was born to be that time. So, I just placed random courses (courses which I’m not sure about) at the application forms, and failed to pass on them. When I spent my first year at UST, I took up a last-resort course, a course which I’m really not interested to. I wasn’t happy with that 1 year and as time goes, something just went into my mind that, I wanted to take Architecture. I knew in myself that I was creative enough to do things an architect student can do. So I stopped at UST; and later on found out that SDA was having an Architecture course. So I took it and here I am now, full of colors, I feel like I do belong in this course. I know I’m still not as good as other students, but I do know that I can still learn and improve any aspect in it. I just feel comfortable doing the stuffs I really love.


For me, a person sees the world based on what is beauty to him/her. And we define beauty based on our interests, and we define interests based on our environment. Each and everyone of us has an identity. Everyone of us has different surroundings and environment. Everyone of us has different experiences.