Move Over, World War Two Generation, the Sixties Generation Has Arrived!
An Essay Review of the Movie, "Pleasantville"

   by Mickel Adzema

 

MusePaper   December 15th, 1998:

PART THREE:  THE CHANGING OF THE GENERATIONAL "GUARD"

It's a (Not So) Wonderful Life

The paramount theme in "Pleasantville" -- which is that thinking for oneself and following one’s own unique path and being open to the change that comes with that brings "color," truth, and aliveness to one’s life -- is truly a Sixties Generation idea.  Again, it is not that it has never been thought of before.  All great ideas have been thought of before, but that does not mean they have been implemented on a sociocultural, macrocosmic level.  Many ideas have remained in the realm of the solitary pursuits of philosophers and mystics and been exemplified only in individual lives.  But the Sixties was such a time of turmoil because the values of individual freedom, personal passion, feeling and experience, questioning authority, and thinking for oneself were shared by so many Baby-Boomers and were so contrary to the values of the generation in power.

An excellent example of how opposed the Sixties values are to those of the WWII Generation is found in that beloved movie of all time, "It’s a Wonderful Life," starring Jimmy Stewart.  In that film, the main character is prevented by circumstances from following his dreams.  One event after another keeps him from leaving his home town.  His story might be called "The Truman Show" in reverse for he comes to accept the loss of his dreams.  He is rewarded for giving up his yearning for adventure with the warmth of a loving family and friends.  Nonetheless, he has been reduced to someone who simply follows a script or role and when it appears that he might fail in that role he considers killing himself.  The movie is beloved and timeless, no doubt, because it reassures an entire generation and all those who have had to give up their dreams for whatever reason that their sacrifices were for a higher good and that it is a wonderful life after all.  It provides a rationalization against the painful feelings of knowing that one will never know "what might have been" by pointing out the truth that one's life affects others and has meaning regardless of whether or not one has been fortunate enough to actualize one's deepest desires, talents, aspirations, and dreams.

As mentioned, "It's a Wonderful Life" calls out to and epitomizes the experiences and attitudes of the World War Two Generation in particular.  They were called upon to fight a war, after all, which no doubt would derail many a young man’s (and woman’s) dreams.  As in "It’s a Wonderful Life," the circumstances that arise to prevent their following through on their dreams are imposed from the outside – the state of being at war and being called upon by a draft to enlist or else be enlisted.  For the women, as well as the men who stayed behind, the war’s influence on their lives and the carrying out of idealistic schemes and dreams are only a little less pronounced.  For, as in "It’s a Wonderful Life," the war created a society heaving with needs and pain, which only the truly heartless (who wouldn’t have any dreams anyway) could not help but feel compelled to respond to.  In one way or another, the situation in the Forties, with the war effort and afterwards, created a generation who, except for the rare individual or one of unusual circumstances, was called upon to step up into mature responsible tasks long before the idealism of their youth would have preferred that they do so.  And their generation is scarred for having missed this opportunity.  They are individuals deserving of our sympathy; yet crippled they are nonetheless.
 

Mashing Butterflies and Drowning Kittens

This is not to say, however, that the generations before the WWII Generation were allowed their dreams and that the WWII Generation is unique in being crippled in its development.  For we know that earlier child-rearing modes required the submission of children and youth to parental wishes (again, see "The History of Childhood As The History of Child Abuse" by Lloyd deMause).  Therefore, dreaming or envisioning an adventurous life was not the norm.  For much of the history of the world and in most cultures, indeed, even the selection of one’s spouse was decided by the parents.  So much has our history – in both Eastern and  Western cultures – been marked by the assassination of youthful dreaming, idealism, and choice that Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet can be said to be a revolutionary work in even depicting that this assassination of dreams is a tragedy!

Still, the WWII Generation can be said to have been especially affected by this slaying of self, for they did, after all experience the heady freedom of the "Roaring Twenties" and the dreaming that preceded the Great Depression.  In the Twenties, victorious in World War I and with it now put behind, America was coming into its youthfulness and was heady with its accomplishments.  Unbelievable accomplishments and inventions in all areas of life were speeding up sociocultural change causing some to believe that a new era was around the corner, just within reach, an era unlike anything the world had ever known.  This was the atmosphere in the Twenties when the WWII Generation were in their childhood or adolescence.  It couldn’t help making a very strong, because of its being early, imprint on their expectations.

However, these dreams would be dashed in the Great Depression, during which time they would be adolescents and young adults, and they would be harnessed into struggling like their parents had had to earlier and were now again struggling.  Still, as time wore on the dreams of a new world would be reignited with the idealistic union movement and the Franklin Roosevelt changes in the social contract that rescripted the relation between the society and the individual, creating a symbiotic one which enhanced them both as champions of each other.  Folks would magnify the power of the person when united with others.  They would dream of a fairer world in which the rich did not dominate with their wealth because the poor could balance the scales with their strength in numbers, adding to their individual power by joining in unions and by combining their votes in elections.  They could begin to envision the light at the end of the tunnel of the Great Depression in which they might realize the freedom and adventure they’d glimpsed around them as children in the Twenties.

So it is understandable that they would not wish to enter World War II when it began.  And Pearl Harbor Day, when their fate was inevitably forged, when it became clear that for the second time the light of individual freedom would be extinguished, would become an important marker in their lifetimes – a day almost as much to be memorialized as their birthdays.
 

Sitting on the Shoulders of One’s Ancestors

For this we can pity the World War Two Generation.  As in John Updike’s The Centaur, the World War Two Generation is depicted as a generation that was required to give up its dreams and do its "duty," above all.  It was required to carry out a script given to them by their society, not allowing them to follow their natural youthful ideals.  And as in Updike’s novel, they are beaten down in a life that is regimented and has no "color," spark, life, idealism, or dreams.  They have become the robot-like residents of "Pleasantville."  But Updike points out in his novel that their sacrifice, despite the personal tragedy of it on the individual scale, is both necessary and noble in that it makes possible the realization of dreams by the generation that they gave birth to.
 

The Sixties Generation Has Arrived

It is significant that the protagonist of change in the movie "Pleasantville" would be a young male, Bud (David).  This is in keeping with legends of old where a young prince comes bearing the new knowledge.  But in New-Age style, wonderfully so, he is drawn only reluctantly into this role and we see that it is women who are the real instigators, the least threatened by change.  At first, David/Bud opposes his sister and argues for the status quo, maintaining that his sister, who is actually the first one to "break the rules" and thereby to bring color to the town, must abide by the script.

The "young prince" knows the rules well.  This fits with legend, where the new ways are brought by a prince who is not ignorant of tradition; in fact the prince is the one who has excelled in training in traditional ways.  In the movie, David is in fact a Pleasantville trivia whiz.  He knows exactly the way things are supposed to unravel, the way events are supposed to go.

So when his sister first introduces color by introducing sex, he admonishes her.  And when he also is tempted to a change in the "script," he refuses at first.  This is when Bud is offered homemade cookies by the young woman  who would be his romantic partner.  He refuses because he knows that, according to script, it is another young man who is supposed to get the cookies and end up with that particular girl.  Despite his attraction for the young woman, his strong sense of maintaining the status quo, not rocking the boat, causes him to try to refuse the cookies.  It takes a great deal of forcefulness on the young woman’s part to get him, reluctantly, to accept the cookies that he actually does want.  So, again, it is a young (significantly "colorized") woman who tempts him into a change in the script.

It is not that the young man does not have the makeup for accepting change.  In fact, even before his sister blatantly brings about change, and therefore color, by rebelliously introducing sex, he has already sown the seeds of change, although unconsciously, when he suggests to his boss, Mr. Johnson, that he think for himself, instead of following a rigid script.  This he does unconsciously and out of selfish motives in that he by nature is different from the character he is supposed to portray and so he does not play his role exactly as it is "supposed" to be played.  Specifically, because he is not really the robot character he has replaced, he ends up being late for his job – which heretofore was a totally unheard of event.
 

The Hundredth Monkey

It is also significant that it is the young that are the first ones in the town to become "colored."  As in the hundredth monkey phenomenon, it is first the young, especially females, who are open to new experiences, ways, and ideas.  Then it is adult females – in this movie exemplified by Betty Parker, the mother of Bud and Mary Sue -- who are next to consider alternatives and new ways.  Adult males are the last to turn to color, but among them it is the sensitive of heart, exemplified by the artist/soda-jerk character, Mr. Johnson, who "turn on" initially.

Last to become colorized (to be open to change and thinking for oneself) are the "authorities" of the town, in this instance, those on the Chamber of Commerce.  And among these the most recalcitrant of all is their leader, Big Bob, played by J.T. Walsh, in his final film role before his passing away.  Though Big Bob displays a pleasing and affable persona on the surface (for this read "good old boy"), there is an insidious Hitleresque quality to him which provides the suspense at the climax of the movie where he presides over the fate of the artist, Mr. Johnson, and the "young prince," David/Bud.
 

"You Can’t Legislate Morals"

With the support of the Chamber of Commerce, we know Big Bob has the power to do whatever he will with the two  on trial.  And since the events preceding the trial has included mob actions which have included a book burning, the attack and destruction of the malt shop, and the cornering, physical intimidation, and physical attack of "coloreds" by gangs – images common to modern times which has seen these sorts of events in actuality occurring in the civil rights and anti–Vietnam-War movements, and currently in democracy as well as anti-America demonstrations in third-world countries – the fate of the prisoners is imagined to include the ultimate penalty of death.

Indeed, this ominous possibility is promoted by the actions of the soda-jerk Artist who, at the trial, pitifully pleads for a compromise.  This is pitiful since we know that his art is his life, that it is the one thing that has truly enriched his life and made it worth living.  We know of its importance in that, even after the attack on his malt shop, he defied the "rules" laid down by the town’s authorities which outlawed art and color by working with the Prince through the night to produce a colorful mural on the outside wall of his shop depicting the current events of the town and the feelings swirling about inside its residents – an act which is reminiscent of antiwar demonstrators, who got fired upon at Kent State, of civil rights demonstrators, who police attacked with dogs, and of Tiananmen Square demonstrators, who were rolled over by tanks, shot, and killed.  Since this character, recently so courageously defiant, is intimidated into pleading for a compromise in which he would be willing to use only certain colors or where he would submit for approval by the Chamber’s leader his ideas for painting beforehand (a compromise which his body language and facial expressions show – wonderfully acted by Jeff Daniels – is one near up against the very death of his soul), we know he fears for the loss of his physical life.

The compromise is too much like the compromises we have witnessed being offered and come to expect being offered to some of the Tiananmen Square and other political prisoners of recent times wherein they are required to do something along the lines of admitting their guilt, apologizing to the State for the trouble they have caused it, and promising to never again to engage in such activities (and only in the most benevolent of circumstance being allowed to continue anything like their former activities but if so only under the supervision and with the approval of authorities with veto power over their proposed actions).
 

The Religious Wrong

So Big Bob and the Chamber of Commerce represent in the current social framework the Religious Right (sometimes referred to as the "religious wrong" and sometimes about which it is noted that the Religious Right is neither).  Big Bob's Chamber of Commerce represents Republicans and those in general in our society who have succumbed to the rewards and threats of the World War Two Generation to live a regimented robotlike unfeeling passionless life; to become one of J. D. Salinger’s "phonies," to abide by their misconstrued idea of "family values," and above all to "behave" and not do anything to rock the boat of the status quo which might threaten the privileges of those currently enjoying power and wealth handed down, mostly, by heredity.
 

Civil Rights Movement

It is highly significant that in the courtroom scene the "colored" would be sitting in the balcony, above the black-and-white men.  One might say this represents their status as being an elevated state, something to aspire to, and yet not on the level where matters are decided.  But even more so, this scene is important in that it is a near exact replication of the courtroom scene in "To Kill a Mockingbird," wherein the balcony of the courtroom is filled with Blacks, another kind of "colored."  This makes it clear that when the movie is dealing with the conflict between the adult males of the town and the "coloreds" it is referring to the Civil Rights movement.
 

The American Tiananmen Square

The events in China's Tiananmen Square almost ten years ago so affected and still affects some of us here in America because we know at some level that we have experienced it before.  What happened in China a decade ago is so much like what happened here almost three decades ago around the Vietnam War demonstrations, although more subtly.  Let me explain.

For one thing, the images of the demonstrations in China, e.g., the lone man standing in front of the tank, were so like those of Sixties demonstrations, e.g., Sixties youth blocking the paths of soldiers and placing flowers in their gun barrels.

And the result of both was the same:  In both cases the opposition, the youth movement, crushed (violently in China, subtly and behind the scenes in the US) at the command of an octogenarian generation, clinging desperately to power as much as to their waning physical frames.
 

Assassinations -- Character and Otherwise

We see the same pattern of violent versus subtle played out in the US as well where we no longer assassinate our president as we did with JFK, we character assassinate instead, as currently with Clinton.  One might say the WWII generation in America has gotten more finesse, with practice, in its beating back sociocultural change not to their liking and that the Chinese geriatric set hasn't as much practice with it as yet.

Nevertheless the results in both countries are the same.  They involve the ultimate victory of sociocultural change in both instances being delayed until the dying off of an elderly generation in power – a generation refusing to die or hand over the controls at the proper time like the generations before them.
 

War Over, Opposing Army Disappears

But time is running out for the octogenarians on either side of the Pacific.  The eventual defeat of the WWII Generation (their dying off) is portrayed in "Pleasantville" by Big Bob, head of the Chamber of Commerce, ending up fleeing the scene in the courtroom.  There are many ways his defeat could have been played out in the movie.  I think it is highly significant that he runs away, never to be seen again, just as in the current context the dying off of the WWII Generation is a literal leaving of the scene, not an outright defeat, or some other means of change of power.
 

Beyond Pleasantville

With these factors in mind, what might we expect in the coming years, as the Sixties Generation finally gets their turn.

We know that it will not be what the WWII Generation has been serving up during their forty-plus years’ reign.  At least we think we know what it will not be, for even of that we cannot be totally certain since the WWII Generation has -- like the endings of horror flicks, which leave always a hint or part of the monster living on somehow, thus setting up a possible sequel -- left behind part of itself in the form of the Eighties Generation clones and the Fifties Generation.  And these folks ain't going away any time soon!

Yet, however much we cannot know the future, and despite the seeds of WWII Generation values left incubating in the minds of Eighties and Fifties Generation members, we can speculate that the vision of "Pleasantville" will hold out.  Just as in the movie when after everyone has experienced color there is no semblance of a wish to return to a black-and-white world, so also we might hope that as our society turns more and more away from war-making, selfishness, race- and sexism, ecological destruction, and all the other WWII Generation evils left behind, and turns more and more toward economic prosperity, peace-keeping, loving our children and having honest relationships, and the reclaiming of our natural environment and ecological balance, there will be fewer and fewer who wish to turn back the times to the unreal black-and-white world of the "Blue Meanies."

We see evidence of this in the great support for Clinton currently.  His sixty-some percent level of support certainly is not comprised only of Baby-Boomers.  Sixties Generation values are infectious because they offer so much hope.  Blacks of all ages support Clinton and they also would not wish a return to the black-and-white world that included discrimination and violence against them.  Women of all ages, for the same reasons, would not be expected to wish a return to a less individualistic state, to a subservient state.  And the young will always be idealistic if they are shown any ideals, which is what we can expect the Sixties Generation to do, as they continue taking their seats in the parliament of sociocultural creation.

We are beginning to see examples of this change all around us:  Al Gore’s recent speech in Malaysia – it is fitting he would speak out on behalf of the demonstrators – he being of the Sixties Generation; the conversion, under Sixties Generation Clinton, of our military from war-wagers to peace-keepers.  The evidence is there for all with eyes to see.  And with no inclination to see it, no amount of listing of the evidence will bring them into view.

Still we might note some other analogies from the movie "Pleasantville" which can provide insight as to what may be on the horizon or at least be considered food for speculation.  Whereas the black-and-white Pleasantville ends at the town’s borders and turns round again to the center of town, the post-color Pleasantville roads continue going, connecting Pleasantville with the rest of the world.  Thus, with color and by inference imagination and thinking for oneself, Pleasantville has become part of a larger world, one in which Pleasantville citizens can participate and in which they can travel and take up residence.  This represents the global village, the coming together of the interests of all nations – as Clinton says, the emerging "global economy."  But perhaps most of all this connection to a larger world represents those factors of modern telecommunications and travel that have made the world open to the eyes of all, which is the real reason the Iron Curtain fell, the real reason apartheid was overthrown, the real reason peace is coming to the Mideast and Ireland, and may yet be causative in bringing democracy to places like China and Korea.  And the most potent analogy of all: the World Wide Web, bringing together all peoples of the world into a collective consciousness sharing ideas and together shaping a world, not just a neighborhood, with true democratization of information, uncontrollable by any wealthy elite of any country or any generation.

Finally, the image at the end of "Pleasantville" is the most apt for what we may next expect.  The only thing we know for sure is that it will be different.

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Related MusePaper:  "Drugs, Consciousnesses, and Generational Cultures"

Related MusePaper:  "What's So Bad About Doing Good?  An Essay Review of 'The Rainmaker'"

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Comments? E-mail me by clicking on:  mickel@primalspirit.com       Mickel Adzema

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