Tuesday: Pleasantville, where nobody poops... [SUB PLAN]

   NO  COMPUTERS  TODAY  

Learning Target(s):

• I can view the film Pleasantville as an informational text and take notes on the themes as they relate to modern media and my life.
• I can expand on those notes in FIVE one paragraph answers
• Paragraphs one and two are due NEXT CLASS
• Paragraphs three, four, and five are due FRIDAY

Announcements:  

• Do NOT Turn on the Computers
• Sit in front of your REAL computer so that Javier can take attendance 
• (If I told you it was your new permanent seat then that is different)
• Once attendance has been taken, IN THE SAME ROW AS YOUR COMPUTER, move your chair so that you can comfortably see the film AND write notes
• Take out a pen or pencil

AGENDA:

• Javier Reads Learning Targets, Announcements, and Agenda out loud as they are projected on the screen
• Volunteer Students hand out the Pleasantville Film Sheet 
• Four Students read out the description on page one, 1 student per paragraph
• Javier reads out the instructions at the bottom of page one
• Five Students read out the themes on page two, 1 student per theme
• Movie starts
• Movie stops 5 minutes before end of class for students to write notes.

The cheerful '50s TV sitcom "Pleasantville" is revived in the '90s for a loyal cable audience. One devoted fan is shy suburban teen David Wagner (Tobey Maguire - Spiderman Trilogy), who has an almost obsessive interest in the series. Living with his divorced mother (Jane Kaczmarek), David sometimes has disputes with his ultra-hip twin sister Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon-Legally Blond).

She wants to watch MTV just when a Pleasantville marathon is about to begin. They struggle over the remote control, and it breaks. A strange TV repairman (Don Knotts) supplies their new remote, a potent high-tech device which zaps David and Jennifer inside of the Pleasantville TV world, where their new sitcom parents are businessman George Parker (William H. Macy) and wife Betty (Joan Allen).

As "Bud" and "Mary Sue," the teens take up residence in a black-and-white suburbia where sex does not exist and the temperature is always 72 degrees. Life is always pleasant, books have no words, bathrooms have no toilets, married couples sleep in twin beds, the high school basketball team always wins, and nobody ever questions "The Good Life."

What Pleasantville accomplishes is a social study of television; it contrasts 50s and 90s television's view of those eras. While the TV shows of early television depicted intact families and traditional values, 50s culture was probably more 'real.' Current television has almost done the opposite: presenting us with reality that is perhaps more harsh and false than real life now is.

Themes in the movie Pleasantville

• Pleasantville is a movie of contrasts. What are some of the OBVIOUS contrasts they show between the 50’s and the Future? What are some of the film tricks they use to show LITERAL contrast (CONTRAST: The state of being strikingly different from something else, typically something OPPOSITE, or REVERSE)
• The TV 'repairman say’s "I know what I'd feel like if my TV broke; like I'd lost a friend.". How would you feel if you had NO TV, and no Internet TV/YouTube/NetFlix/etc...
• Destiny--everything in Pleasantville is scripted, has a place. What about our lives? Do you ever feel like all the decisions are already made for you?
• Censorship: The mayor of Pleasantville say’s "It seems to me we must separate out the things that are unpleasant from the things that are pleasant.". In Pleasantville personal expression and differences are unacceptable and anything straying from what is known is feared. Think about your family at home, what happens when your ideas or opinions differ from your elders?
• Racism: "No coloreds." reads a sign in Pleasantville window. "Coloreds" are people who have become enlightened or who become passionate; they are rejected from mainstream Pleasantville. Why would the filmmakers use this obvious sign from the USA’s racist past? Is this movie about racism too, or just intolerance? Is this the way the world still is? Why or why not?

adapted from here... and imdb