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Pleasantville

In: English and Literature

Submitted By bonnielee03
Words 829
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Pleasantville?
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited racial discrimination in schools, housing, hiring, and many other areas, began an increasing mandate for racial integration (Suburban Segregation 1998). Many middle-class whites during the post-World War II years fled to the suburbs to move away from crime, poverty, and away from the minority. With the rise of the suburbs, planned communities with high economic growth, low crime rates, and nice roads came about. Living in a planned community has many rules and regulations. The movie Pleasantville creates a dramatic view of the cookie-cutter, plastic, perfect life living in the suburbs is supposed to provide and how sometimes the so called “perfect life” is not always quite what it may seem. Some may think living in the suburbs, in planned communities, with many rules, is worth living in because it is safe and gives people the sense of unity they may crave. It can also be thought, rules of living in a planned community should not be taken to the point where people are not able to be true to themselves in order to live in the suburban area.
The suburbs are a district lying immediately outside a city or town, and are usually a smaller residential community. The movie Pleasantville depicts a dramatized version of suburban living. In Pleasantville, all is black and white, everyone is perfect, and all houses are the same. The entire town of Pleasantville acts the same, dresses the same, and no one ever steers out of the box. Residents living in the suburbs demand perfection; this is usually found in planned communities. Planned communities have socially diverse populations and conform to a single master plan that seeks to produce social, environmental, and economic benefits that a great deal of planned developments have not achieved (Planned Community Archives). Author of Moving: is a Planned Community Right

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