The movie “Pleasantville” is a story about living life in and outside of your own box. It is a place created in the imagination of an individual that stands the test to repressed emotions and passions of soul’s closed in. The movie places emphasis on pure family values, some of which reflect the hierarchy of needs by Maslow. It suggests proper nutrition, safe sex (the separate beds measuring no more than 36 inches across), income, and shelter.

The under-lying theme of a near-Nirvana becomes grossly overrated with the connotation of ‘pleasant’. It starts with the town parameters studied in school; the beginning of Main Street is also the end. One circle constantly going around and around. The ‘pleasant theme’ continues with the basketball games when in practice on every throw, the ball goes in. Everyone smiles, talks to you, there are no car accidents nor a need for a fire department because nothing burns. There is no police force because there is no injustice being done to anyone, it is always ‘pleasant.’

Then came the colors. These are a reaction to the emotions stifled indoors; while, outdoors chaos broke out in the streets. Flowers, cars and brown grocery bags replaced the white, black, and some grays indicating life was at best, continuing without meaning.

There is little joy and excitement for a place so pleasant where nirvana-conditions are defined under a dictatorship script and changes are strictly forbidden.

Yet it was paradise for these people living in the 1990’s who looked to the 1950’s for stronger values, attitudes, and behaviors to shape their belief systems. The brother and sister in 1990 especially desired a close-knit family. Instead they deal with the reality of a split-household and loose reputation. Becoming fascinated by a sitcom, where there dreams can come true.

They are visited by a television repairman who has a remote control used only for entering the sitcom. Some examples of the paradisiacal theme throughout the movie are emulated in sports, business, role of the housewife in a nuclear family, the high school required curriculum, and how siblings and peers interact with one another.

At the high school gym, during basketball practice, the basketball goes in to the hoop every single time UNTIL an unexpected visitor changes the script for the show of the day. The new course of events by disclosure of new information about Skip and his affections for Mary Sue. Bud questions the authenticity of Skips decision to make Mary Sue his girl. The traditional ‘pinning’ a 1950’s practice shared between sweethearts who had been courting for some time, has been thrown a curve and questions about timing arise. The basketball that misses the hoop symbolizes change and a silencing of the team represents, fear.

When something is altered or taken out of its required sequence, chaos in awakening can occur. Mr. Johnson, the local diner owner, is brought personal chaos when closing the diner. Bud fails to arrive for his evening shift therefore leaving the job completely up to Mr. Johnson. This is so out of the ordinary, of a consistent tradition, Mr. Johnson cannot acclimate. The counter already took a beating, a grinding of its surface for nearly two hours because that is all Mr. Johnson did, while Bud did everything else. At first his reaction was inadequacy, can I do this? As a result of fear. Probably at the moment of thinking and asking, “can I do this?’ an enlightenment that he could, evolved cognitively.

The dilemma is an inspiration. Mr. Johnson, who once reacted aimlessly without passion in just wiping the counters, realized how much enjoyment he could derive by doing things his way, instead of the way it was done in so many previous episodes. He found that changing the order of closing protocol, the diner would be closed and ready for business the following day, despite not having Buds assistance. He could this my himself. That certain nudging from the internal self was a mystical experience, that it opened his eyes now sparkling with confidence.

It is a great example for the characters seeking perfection without measuring or utilizing the potential they just did not know existed within them. ‘Pleasant’ was now reacting to the emotional connotations of the word and really making it pleasant rather than stifled by strict order and daily regimen, void of emotional response.

Myths are scripted stories authored by the storyteller reiterating her or his version of living in ‘the human experiment’. Entities not yet chosen for human form, jest at us having to hide the beauty of a story. We should be proud of the particular meaning it has to us as we are telling them to others. I studied mythology in junior high and high school where my appreciation for the fantasy versus reality debates became much clearer. I later read works by David Elkins who stated that mythology is his fifth path of recognition towards personal transformation and that without the inclusion of this path, our lives can be mundane and bleak, or colorless, meaningless. This non-religious path is crucial to the development of the soul and Elkins augments this brilliant way of learning. (1)

David Elkins explains that myth is the oldest path to the sacred for it encompasses centuries of historical value from all diverse cultures across the globe. It is handed down by previous storytellers and added to over and over again, by new ones. When my parents, or clergy members, or teachers, or even a trusted adult sat next to me when I was a child, I knew a story with purpose was going to be spoken. The one person genuine and comical, heart-wrenching and imaginative was my maternal grandfather.

In his native tongue, Ukrainian, he would weave the stories of pain, suffering and torment between the threads of survival, famine and death. He additionally painted and professed his way through this life by using the easel and the blank page as tools of the trade for enlightening those who sought his wisdom. The life he had lived since 1915 was recreated for me in stories about his own hunger, his own hand dismemberment after stepping on a landmine, his own heartache in watching his family slaughtered, and his own survival techniques.

He was seven, living in the Ukraine while my great-grandfather served in the regime of Czar Alexander as a hussar, a cavalry officer and captain of the Russian people. It was a dark time followed by several darker times before some light shone at the end of the Lincoln Tunnel and grandpa found himself in New York City with a beautiful wife and two wonderful children, my mom and uncle, in 1950.

As grandpa became more enthusiastic about his involvement in pre and post WWII, I could almost feel what the words ‘suffrage and poverty’ really felt like to those that experienced it firsthand. His soul was always in his storytelling as well as in his life. He would shed tears for the cries of thousands dying in the streets that he and his family left behind. I could sense his despair.

This was my grandfathers and great-grandfathers legacy to me: the importance of myth and how it does serve as the glue to our existence. We all have a mythology handed down from generation to generation that serves a purpose to teach. Questions like ‘where did I come from? Or “where am I going”, can be addressed by story especially through the enthusiasm of an old-timer with a remote or just a vivid imagination. Myth is a truly colorful addition to the sacred from a personal level involving creativity, research, intuition, and passion.