Pleasantville Analysis

Throughout the course of this semester, I have analyzed several articles on the subject of gender and the media. While learning about the general stereotypes of each gender and examples in specific areas of the media such as sports, Disney and magazines, I have been able to generate a strong foundation for my last paper assignment analyzing a visul text. The visual text I chose was the movie, Pleasantville. In a brief summary, the movie is about the 1950's woman and the transformation of gender roles to modern day time. There were a few articles that I had previously studied in class that came to mind when I chose this particular movie. For example, Barbara Welter's article titled, "The Cult of Truewomanhood," describes the four main female attributes of the time that were needed in order to be considered a "true woman." These included, piety, obedience, domesticity and purity. This ties in perfectly with my description of the life of a woman in the 1950s. Another article that helped support my paper was Aaron Devor's article, "Becoming Members of Society: Learning the Social Meanings of Gender." In this article Devor describes the multitude of gender stereotypes from the past and present. He describes one stereotype about a female's posture and body language communicating and inferior and subordinate status whereas a male's posture suggest dominance and superiority. Another aspect of my paper assignment will include the feminist movement. The article, "Mediating Third Wave Feminism" by Helene Shugart talks about this issue which will help me relate and compare the two different eras. Overall, this course has helped me prepare for my final paper assignment and has given me lots of articles to help me build a foundation for my paper.