What would it be like if someone from the real world were magically transported into the land of television and interacted with the characters? The 1998 movie Pleasantville presents the story of a teenage brother and sister, David and Jennifer, who are transported into the world of a black and white TV show that takes place in the good old days when women worked in the home while the men went off to work. As David and Jen (now named Bud and Mary Sue) interact with the characters, they notice that certain things disrupt the order to this other universe. When Skip Martin, captain of the basketball team, talks to Bud about asking out his sister, Mary Sue, Bud — who is actually David from the real world — says that it may not be a good time to ask out Mary Sue. The reason he says this is that Mary Sue is actually Jennifer from the real world, and Jennifer is nothing like the good girl, Mary Sue. Nonetheless, Skip looks horrified at the thought of Mary Sue refusing to go out with him. He throws the basketball at the basketball hoop and it doesn’t go in. The other basketball players look in shock as the basketball bounces off of the basketball hoop without going in. The coach’s mouth drops open, and he tells everyone not to go anywhere near the ball. Why is this a big deal? Because in the land of this black and white TV show, the basketball team always wins and every time a team member throws the basketball at the hoop, it goes in. However, when something threw their universe out of whack in that moment, the ball did not go into the hoop.
As David and Jennifer — disguised as the characters Bud and Mary Sue — continue interacting with the characters, they throw the order to this other universe more out of whack. Jennifer teaches the mother of the family how to masturbate, something that is against the order of this universe, which presents only wholesome family values. When the mother masturbates, a tree goes up in flames. The firemen do not know what to do because there never was a fire in this town. The firemen only rescued cats out of trees. Then David’s charm wins over Marley, one of the cheerleaders. When Marley bakes cookies for David, David knows that this is wrong because according to the correct chronicling of events in the TV series, Marley was supposed to bake cookies for Whitey. Whitey is not happy, and he and his friends no longer behave the way that characters would behave in a simple black and white TV show of wholesome family values. Rather, they become a group of bullies.
What about the universe within Hollywood TV?
Let us say that 20-year-old Jenny from the real world enters the fantasy land of television. What would that be like? What would happen when Jenny interacts with the characters? What would it look like if Jenny were to throw off the order of their universe? Below is presented the hypothetical story of Jenny entering the land of television:
Once upon a time, Jenny takes advantage of an opportunity to be magically transported into the land of Hollywood TV. Jenny is not transported into any specific movie or sitcom. Rather Jenny shifts from one movie and sitcom to the next and meets different characters along the way.
Initially, Jenny is excited. She, like some other people, believes that Hollywood TV provides viewers with an escape from the harshness of reality, and presents a land with less cares and less concerns. Not to mention, the people on television are generally better looking, and Jenny is excited to meet some cute guys, even though they technically do not exist.
Jenny makes some new friends
When Jenny first enters the land of television, she takes on a job at a workplace where everyone is working in cubicles. She makes friends with one of the women there, and the woman introduces Jenny to her coed group of friends. After not too long, however, Jenny does not like the way that her new friends are treating her. Sometimes Jenny finds that something at her workstation has gone missing. Jenny does not know where it is, and because it is missing, Jenny is not able to get certain things done. Jenny’s boss expresses disappointment even when Jenny tries to explain to him that something at her workstation went missing and she does not know where it is. Throughout all of this, Jenny is vaguely aware that there is an audience from the real world watching everything. The audience seems to chuckle a little bit at Jenny’s workplace difficulties.
Eventually, Jenny finds out that her new friend was the one who took the item from her workstation. Jenny confronts her new friend about it, saying that she should not be taking something without asking first. “I was just borrowing it…” the woman keeps saying. “I was going to give it back.” It is obvious to Jenny that what this woman did was still wrong. Even though Jenny’s new friend planned on eventually returning the item, Jenny still did not have the item when she needed it, and because of that, she was unable to get some of her work done, and she got unfairly reprimanded by her boss. Jenny tries to explain all of this to her new friend, but her new friend just accuses Jenny of blaming her for her problems.
Jenny finds that many of the other people in her new group of friends are not nice either. Sometimes one of them says something to Jenny that humiliates or denigrates Jenny in front of other people. As Jenny gives an angry look in response, she can vaguely hear an audience chuckling in the background. Why would viewers find this to be funny? Jenny wonders. These people are obviously not very nice.
At one point, one of Jenny’s new male friends has a crush on Jenny. He decides to tell lies to the other guys about Jenny, saying that she is gay. This way the other guys will not pursue Jenny, and he can have Jenny all to himself. Jenny gets angry when she finds out what he did. To Jenny’s surprise, the audience that is watching finds all of this to be amusing.
People always “forgive” each other in the land of television
Eventually, Jenny decides that she does not want to be friends with these jerks anymore, so she stops hanging out with them. There is a problem however. It is against the order of the sitcom universe for a character to terminate a friendship with the other characters. Such a move would alter the status quo of the sitcom, and make the writers have to modify all of the succeeding episodes to accommodate this change. Instead, characters are to always forgive each other, and then continue being friends as if nothing happened.
Jenny finds more difficulty than she expected when she tries to stop being friends with these people. They begin to stalk her. They keep thinking that Jenny will eventually forgive them and become friends with them again, even though they obviously do not plan on changing any of their behaviors. One day, as Jenny is relaxing in the bedroom of her apartment, she hears a sound. She walks out of her bedroom to see what it is. What she finds is her X-friends standing in her living room. They have broken into her home, which should be against the law based on Jenny’s understanding. They don’t care what breaking and entering means, however. After all, they just wanted to talk to her. Yet they do not seem to care that Jenny does not want to talk to them, and does not want to have anything to do with them ever again.
At this point, Jenny’s X-friends call Jenny the mean and unforgiving one. They just don’t know why Jenny cannot find it in her heart to forgive people. They seem to believe that forgiveness requires a complete restoration of the original relationship to what it was before. Jenny is not in agreement. She believes that forgiveness just means coming to an inner peace and acceptance over what had happened and moving on. Jenny does not think that forgiveness needs to involve any restoration or even a continuation of the relationship.
Jenny gets tangled up with a protagonist character
As Jenny continues living in the land of Hollywood TV, she meets another protagonist character. This one seems to have a crush on Jenny, but Jenny does not like him. She finds him to be selfish and immature, as she does many other male characters that she has met. Yet, this protagonist character cannot seem to take “no” for an answer. He is known for being a smart guy, but he also is arrogant and judgmental. When he finds out that Jenny herself is a scientist, and is smart like he is, he develops very strong and irrevocable convictions that the two of them are meant to be together.
When other characters see how much Jenny does not like the protagonist guy, they (to Jenny’s surprise) also develop convictions that Jenny and this protagonist butthole belong together. Jenny does recall many stories where a man and a woman initially do not like each other, but then fall in love later. Certainly, though, dislike between two people does not mean that the two people are going to eventually fall in love. That would be a preposterous assumption.
As Jenny tries to get away from this selfish and egotistical guy, he starts to stalk her. To Jenny’s surprise, the audience is not bothered or offended by his behavior. Instead, the viewers find it to be romantic that the protagonist guy is going after the girl that he loves. Do they not understand that this man is a second-rate human being who is not good relationship material? Jenny thinks. Jenny feels isolated at this point. It is as if the whole world expects her to fall into the arms of this mediocre person, and the only one who sees this arrangement as a problem is her.
Then Jenny remembers that in movies and sitcoms, the protagonst always gets the girl that he wants (unless of course she turns out to be pure evil later on). Maybe if Jenny becomes a serial killer, he will go away.
Limitations on conversation topics
Jenny usually likes to talk to other people and get to know them. She likes to find out what makes people tick. When she talks with television characters, however, she finds that the conversation topics are pretty limited. In particular, almost every conversation seems to be about sex and/or romance. Of course if Jenny is in a horror or suspense movie where there is a big crisis or catastrophe, then the crisis or catastrophe is generally the topic of conversation. Otherwise, so many conversation seem to be confined to sexual and romantic relationships, or the lack thereof.
Jenny is one of those people who has decided not to have sex before marriage. This decision, however, is practically unheard of in the land of Hollywood television. Many of the men that Jenny meets seem to expect Jenny to have sex with them that very night. When Jenny tries to explain that she does not have sex outside of marriage, they simply say “So then, you are only having oral sex…” Jenny is surprised and a little offended. Based on her understanding, oral sex does qualify as sexual activity. Jenny explains to the man that, no, she is not having oral sex either. The man then assumes that she must be doing hand jobs. At this point, Jenny is fed up and realizes that this kind of talk is about private matters and is not fit for civilized conversation.
Other unexpectedly bad experiences
One day, while Jenny is trying to watch a movie in a movie theater, some woman behind her just won’t stop talking. Nobody else seems to notice that the woman is talking, but it still bothers Jenny. So Jenny decides to tell the woman to be quiet, but the woman ignores her. Jenny keeps trying to tell her to be quiet, but now the other people present are telling Jenny to be quiet. Apparently they did not notice the other woman talking, but they were bothered by Jenny talking even though all that Jenny was trying to do was tell the other woman to be quiet. Jenny does not understand why she is being treated so unfairly, but the audience from the real world seems to think that the scene is somewhat amusing.
Another thing that Jenny notices in the land of TV is that the children are sometimes smarter than the adults. Meanwhile, the authority figures are often stupid, whether they be parents, teachers, police officers, other government officials or scientists. Over time Jenny learns that when she is in certain movies where some evil force is trying to take control, she often gets more intelligent conversation out of children than from figures of authority.
The aftermath
Jenny’s journey through the land of Hollywood television has taught her how much she would not want to live in this alternate world. Indeed, the order to the TV universe is laced with evil, though it is not, itself, completely evil. Nonetheless, Jenny still has some healing to do after this experience. She finds that she is afraid to make new friends because she is afraid that they will not leave her alone in the case that she decides that she does not want to be friends anymore. Jenny also is apprehensive about meeting guys now because she is afraid that they will not take “no” for an answer, and furthermore she is afraid that the rest of the world will expect her to say “yes” just because of the world’s infatuation with new romantic relationships.
Though the protagonist always gets to be with his/her love interest eventually in the land of TV, Jenny notices that some protagonist characters are not very good people. There is Ron Burgundy from The Anchorman, Carrie Bradshaw from Sex in the City, Ferris Bueller from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Liz Lemon from 30 Rock, Malcolm from Malcolm in the Middle and the nerds from the Revenge of the Nerds movies. Do viewers actually think that it is representative of reality for these people always getting love interest? Jenny hopes not.
Unfortunately, many people model their behaviors after what they see on television. The more we model the behaviors we see on television, the more reality becomes like that horrible world on television that we do not want to live in.