ect to hierarchical control. Perhaps this film is saying that we cannot believe what the media tells us. Just like the newspapers in The Truman Show displaying headlines like 'Seahaven the best place on earth' and 'who needs Europe!' The television also seeks to influence Truman against any thoughts he may be having that are contrary to the desires of those who control him. For example, they play a programme in response to his desire to travel called 'Show me the way to go home.' Here the film is suggesting that through television and the media, the world that we perceive around us is in fact all a big charade. And that we as individuals are living in a society that is manipulated and controlled for the benefit of an establishment. This theme is somewhat highlighted and reaffirmed by the treatment of the lady Truman falls in love with. She tries to break the truth to him about him being used as a television star, but she is taken away. It's as if she's sectioned off and deemed mad. The man who claims to be her father tries to tell Truman that she is schizophrenic. The inescapable theme here is that of control. The Truman Show quite blatantly portraying a society that suppresses its individual and anyone who tries to enlighten others by preaching the truth will be punished.
             It is on this idea that what we know as society is one that withholds the truth from us, and one that suppresses our desires as individuals that brings me onto Pleasantville. The idea of ignorance being bliss can be extrapolated from this film very clearly. To begin with when David and Jennifer first arrive in Pleasantville, the world of this place is not dissimilar to the Garden of Eden before sin entered. People are unaware of their bodies sexually, no one questions their existence and their whole world is this one place. The very fact that this world is in black and white could be taken as a blatant sign of how simple ...