Platos Allegory of the Cave in Pleasantville Essay

Writer and director Gary Ross captured the essence of Plato’s philosophical views in his movie, Pleasantville. The movie is about two siblings, David and Jennifer, who live in completely different high school social scenes. Jennifer is the wild, extroverted teen who is obsessed with partying and boy drama. David, on the other hand, is a social outcast and spends most of his time watching TV, specifically, his favorite show, Pleasantville. David idolizes the show because of the perfect town in which everyone is accepted and there is never anything that goes wrong. When the siblings’ mother goes away, the two are left arguing over what TV channel to watch. As their fighting develops, they eventually break the remote, which leads to the†¦show more content†¦Because the people of Pleasantville and David and Jen learn new things about themselves, they all escaped the cave and gathered knowledge. The road to enlightenment was not an easy road, however. David and Jennifer had a difficult time maturing and leaving behind their old masks; the town of Pleasantville had a very difficult time gaining a new perspective—the town leaders tried everything they could to forbid people from leaving their perfect little world. This parallel of the cave explains Plato’s first conclusion of how education can often be difficult because it means turning your back on everything familiar. The movie also very clearly identifies with Plato’s second conclusion that explains why philosophers are often ridiculed. When Jennifer and David were transported to Pleasantville, they were immediately hated for disrupting the order in the town. They had to learn how to cope with a completely different world, while also instilling in others their new perspective and experience. While Pleasantville is black and white, the town represents the ignorance that people in the cave feel. However, when the town begins to turn to color, the people are fin ally seeing the light and escaping from the cave. This I somewhat ironic because, for both the people of Pleasantville and David and Jen, they all begin their journey in black and white. This is interesting because, from Jen and David’s