Film Contemporary & Earlier Periods

The image from these two films based on life in 1950s America is constructed around a complacent, adult society where teenagers are often rebellious and are shut off from real communication with adults. In Pleasantville, two teenagers discover themselves in a 1950s sitcom. In Rebel Without a Cause, a troubled young man comes to a new town. In both films the teenagers and the rebellious young man will have an impact on the complacent environment. Yet, in Pleasantville we see a complacent, black-and-white reality with few wrinkles on the surface. In Rebel, we get violent gangs, tough-talking hoods, and dysfunctional family dynamics. While Pleasantville attempts to demonstrate that 1950s America may have been complacent but unfulfilling, Rebel demonstrates that the real 1950s America was every bit as violent and fraught with social ills as modern society. Thus, in looking back at the period during which Rebel was filmed, Pleasantville only focuses on the complacent, chicken-in-every-pot perspective of 1950s existence. In Pleasantville the two teens transform the adult