DeConick A.D

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PLEASANTVILLE RELIGIONS
Figure 10.1 Betty Parker (Joan Allen) covering up her “color” with gray cosmetics in Pleasantville
(1998).
revolutionize, and transform. This Gnostic undercurrent frames David
and Jennifer as emissaries from the “real” world who come into Pleasantville
with a subversive message that awakens the characters in the show
and turns them from black-and-white to color.
Their awakening is depicted along traditional lines, as eating from the
tree of knowledge. Yet this act is not depicted as sinful. It is glorious. It
is a Gnostic awakening that conveys the characters from death to life,
from black-and-white to color. Throughout the film, character after character
turns to color when they realize that their lives have been shams
of obedience to convention. They live with no real choices. Once they
begin thinking for themselves, however, they become conscious of their
personal desires and choices. They begin doing things that transgress their
conventional society, a pleasant paradisiacal world that has been put in
place to pacify the men, who want their dinners on time.
The show’s mom, Betty, begins to awaken from the sham when Jennifer,
who is her Pleasantville daughter, tells her about sex. Betty becomes
colored when she begins to think for herself, when she realizes that she
has been living in a sham that has suppressed her true nature, her true self.
Mr. Johnson, the owner of the local soda shop, begins to think about
the phoniness of his life wiping counters and flipping burgers. What really