Pleasantville Norms Summary

Norms are the rules of behavior that are agreed upon and shared within a culture. Pleasantville has taken for granted norms. Norms can also be broken in this movie. You can have a stable society that can undergo rapidly. Some view society as a system of highly interrelated structures. The norms of the town are different from today’s society where nudity, sexual conduct, violence and profanity are just apart of the everyday life in 2013. As for example in Pleasantville community members were more conservative but once the two main characters were pulled through the television show things changed. As the young man understood the towns need for structure and social order. Reese Witherspoon thought she could challenge their morals and beliefs by introducing the town to sex out at Lover’s Lane. That being a break from the norms that the town held so dearly started to break out.

Seeing and being seen in color for the very first time but some were still in black and white. Why? She entered this little town that no one had challenge the perfect little town’s ideals and norms. That’s why she was sent there. The people in the town were so obsessed by their norms that they were unable to follow and function without them. So, why not send someone to challenge the norms of the town. It’s like sociological imagination as in a relationship between an individual experiences and forces in the larger society that shape our actions. This movie is an example of the functionalist perspective in action. Some struggled to obtain the maximum benefit. Which causes society to change constantly in response to social inequality and social conflict.