Dial File: Film stumbles over un-‘Pleasant’ assumptions

Friday, Oct. 30, 1998 | 10:16 a.m.

"Pleasantville," Shmeasantville.

OK, so maybe that isn't the most critically incisive reaction to this week's top box office flick -- and rumored Oscar contender -- as well as the latest movie infatuated with the influence of television (following "The Truman Show" and "Mad City") on our culture.

I'll try to be a tad more specific:

"Pleasantville" is a smug blast of self-congratulatory '90s condescension that, by equating '50s TV with the era's culture-at-large, scores a direct hit -- on a false target. Filmmaker Gary Ross hammers home his my-era-is-better-than-your-era theme by deconstructing an exaggerated stereotype instead of the truth, and misunderstanding the history of TV in relation to American society.

(Pardon my peevishness. As a TV critic, this sort of ignorance of the medium -- marketed for mass consumption -- ticks me off.)

For those who haven't seen it, a recap: "Pleasantville" is a vigorously anti-nostalgia fantasy/fable/parable in which two teens from the savvy '90s are magically transported back to a "Leave it to Beaver"-ish '50s sitcom town, straight from the archives of a Nick-at-Nite-style programming vault.

It comes complete with all the mom-and-apple-pie cliches: starched collar, "honey-I'm-home" dad, obedient, apron-clad mom, squeaky clean kids and Pleasantville itself -- a model of sexless, black-and-white, I-Like-Ike-ified Americana. (There aren't even any toilets -- did you ever see Ward Cleaver on the throne?)

Why, it's all so ... PLEASANT. Until our '90s urchins bring their MTV M.O. to bear on this stuffy scene, literally liberating the two-dimensional townsfolk -- at least the ones who want to be liberated -- into three-dimensional lives. Gradually discovering such pastimes as intercourse and masturbation -- not to mention artistic passion and plain ol' emotion -- the black-and-white Pleasantville-ites actually turn flesh tone, and the town actually goes technicolor.

That means, in this film's simplistic symbolism, that they're complex human beings now.

And, in case you miss the sledge hammer-subtle message, the messy-but-mature '90s are superior to the comforting-but-constricting '50s. As one critic put it about the film's Sermon-on-the-Screen: "Knowledge can't be put back. Good or bad, forward is the only direction." That's a strong -- and worthwhile -- social message to debate, but it collapses on a weak foundation. It's as if writer-director Ross was afraid to frame his argument against the truth -- the actual '50s -- a tougher sell.

Still, critics are largely -- to use a word never imagined in Pleasantville until the contemporary kiddies dropped in -- orgasmic over "Pleasantville." And as a fantasy, it works fine -- visually clever and innovative -- but unfortunately, it also reaches for badly constructed social commentary.

You can certainly view "Pleasantville" -- as many critics have -- as a subversive backlash against the prevailing nostalgia craze, a vote for here-and-now over way-back-when. And anything remotely "subversive" is catnip to compulsively contrarian critics -- just by writing this, I'm being compulsively contrary to the contrarians (take two Tylenol here).

But this film reveals a rotten understanding of TV's relation to real life.

At the core of "Pleasantville" is the unchallenged and false belief that the "Leave it to Beaver"/"Donna Reed"/"Father Knows Best"/"Ozzie & Harriet" motif was a true reflection of late '50s/early '60s America.

Since when? I grew up watching those shows. An only child surrounded by friends from one-parent families viewing siblings-only, two-parent tele-families. It wasn't reality -- it was escapism, fantasy, idealism, wish fulfillment.

It was just TV, for crying out loud!

Certainly, Americans of the Ike/JFK era were innocent by today's standards, but that "Beaver"-ish country was also smitten by the hedonistic antics of the Rat Pack and mesmerized by that sexual powder keg, Marilyn Monroe. (Pure of thought? Hardly). "Pleasantville" -- by branding '50s TV characters as emblematic of the entire era -- makes the mistake of directly equating that America with the shows it watched. Television, still in its toddlerhood, had not yet caught up with the culture -- and wouldn't, until the '70s.

Personally, none of my childhood friends resembled the Beave and his white-bread buddies -- my compadres were Hungarian, Greek, Italian, German and Jewish -- and I never hung out with Bud, dated Princess or teased Kitten. (Also, as I recall of the era, Americans actually had sex and used the toilet, as opposed to the Americans of "Pleasantville," all of whom were presumably virgins, immaculately conceived and exploded at 50 from backed-up bladders.)

In his book "Glued to the Set," Steven D. Stark describes "Beaver"-style sitcoms as "visions of suburbia which provided reassurance to the new, unsure middle class of the 1950s, as fathers left home for long periods in their corporate jobs. On television, in contrast, no one could ever quite figure out what Ward Cleaver, Jim Anderson or Ozzie Nelson did for a living, since they were always hanging around the house."

Stark concludes: "The verisimilitude of 'Leave it to Beaver' was so powerful that it is now widely assumed that the '50s were exactly the way this show portrayed them."

In fact, it wasn't until later in the '60s that TV attempted to catch up to and reflect contemporary America in disguised form: the oddly stated feminism of an eye-blinking genie/Jeannie and a nose-twitching witch (message: women can do wonders but have to suppress their abilities to gain male approval); the liberalism of families named Munster and Addams (message: let's not be afraid of people who are different).

Only gradually did TV wear its feminism on its sleeve ("That Girl," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show") and discard the filter of fantasy. And it wasn't until 1971 -- and the debut of "All in the Family" -- that the medium reflected us back at ourselves so bluntly.

As for "Pleasantville," Time magazine's Richard Corliss, in an otherwise positive review, does acknowledge the argument that "the opening of (the '50s characters') emotional pores brought a more debased culture: drug epidemics, teen pregnancy, splatter movies, penis-size jokes on every sitcom, Marilyn Manson and Monica Lewinsky. Perhaps the four-letterization of America was not an unalloyed blessing, and the handing of artistic freedom to an infantile culture was not a wise gift. These views are open to debate -- a debate the film doesn't acknowledge."

Even the film's black and white-to-color gimmick is ironic. Yes, many of those '50s shows were in black and white because of TV's technical limitations. Yet, as film critic Roger Ebert has often noted about classic black and white movies, they are more dreamlike because we dream in black and white. Those sitcoms were dreams -- not reality.

"Pleasantville" promotes itself with the ad line: "Nothing is as simple as black and white."

Then it colors the truth.

Croon a Tune: We let first caller Andrew Hatcher out of his bottle just long enough to grant our most cherished wish and tell us that last week's theme was "I Dream of Jeannie." Stuffing him back in the bottle was the real problem -- especially when Dr. Bellows walked in, and there was poor Andrew in his harem outfit, his exposed belly button puckering and unpuckering to that bouncy theme music.

Maj. Nelson had a lot of explaining to do.

Congrats also to fellow "Jeannie" geniuses, in alphabetical order: Daniel Brown, Martha Campbell, Skip Canavan, Dave Fetzer, Dorothy Finley, Holly Gelser, Peter Green, Rich Kackstetter, Augie Kunkel, Joe Lacy, Linda Noel, Mark Ritchie, Patrick Roach, Dan Ryan, Victoria Shaw, Andie "You're Right Master, Of Course, I Know The Answer To That" Sorvig, Sandy Waide and Hazel Wright.

And now, with just the blink of your eyes with your arms folded across your chest -- and, just in case that doesn't work, by dialing 259-4012 -- you can conjure up this week's theme (it will pick up after four rings). Then name that Croon-a-Tune.

Jeannie would be awfully upset if you kept it bottled up.

Play us out, Maestro: No, it's not a dream: Richard Simmons, the fidgety, frenetic Father Flanagan of Fitness, will host a new syndicated series next fall called "Dream Maker" -- to be taped in Las Vegas. The idea of the series, as described by the trade magazine Electronic Media, "is to watch everyday people get their wishes fulfilled in an entertaining, humorous and sometimes poignant way."

The segments include: "Let The Richard Cam Ask For It," in which Simmons asks for favors on behalf of guests; "I'm Your No. 1 Fan," in which guests meet their favorite celebrities; "Thank You," allowing guests to thank others for their assistance; and my personal favorite, "Take the Day Off," featuring Simmons taking on a guest's job for the day, "giving the guest a much-needed day of rest."

Hmmmmm. ... Dial File, by relief columnist Richard Simmons, will return next week.

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