Technicolor was the brand name process for a system of making color motion pictures by means of superimposing the three primary colors to produce a final colored print. It was first introduced in 1932 to expose black and white films and was one of the first changes to colorizing the movie industry. I like to think of it as an analogy for life which can seem very black and white and thus the need for change.

The movie Pleasantville is about a brother and sister who are sucked into a black and white family sitcom from the 1950’s. A Leave it to Beaver world where everything is the same, predictable and safe. Reese Witherspoon and Toby Maguire play the siblings who end up changing the course of the town’s fate by refusing to live the way everyone else does. The citizens of Pleasantville eventually go from a static black and white existence to a colorful reality.

The movie is creative, heartfelt and full of lessons about the human condition. Who we are as people and what our hearts desire. Reese Witherspoon’s character is a rebellious teenager caught up in things that really don’t matter and Toby Maguire plays a fearful and unhappy teen. What is interesting is that the two bring about the color and change to the people of Pleasantville, yet they remain in black and white for most of the movie. They don’t change until they identify the things inside them that they are missing and then take the leap to accepting it. Pleasantville is a story of self discovery.

In the film, as more and more people emerge in color the more tension it creates towards those who want to maintain the status quo. Signs appearing in stores that say “no coloreds” and a town hall meeting where the mayor explains that things need to be separated from “pleasant and unpleasant”. “Pleasant” being defined as things the way they used to be or the status quo. I’m reminded of Bob Iger, the President of Disney, who said that in business “status quo is a losing strategy”. So we should ask ourselves why would we apply the same strategy to life? Change is a path to self realization. It’s the process of finding insights into one’s own character and not ignoring it but embracing it.

Think about this movie as an allegory for your own experiences. What areas are you stuck in black and white? What are you not seeing as a parent, friend, neighbor, or colleague that prevents you from seeing the world in a different colors? Freedom lies in the moments where we are exposed to color by being true to ourselves.

We forget how important change is and how difficult and oftentimes painful it can be. But sometimes it takes seeing other spectrums of light in the world to realize that you’ve been living in black in white. Those are the moments where change is happening and where growth is inevitable.

The final monologue at the end of the movie is given by Toby Maguire’s character in a town hall meeting where he is being held responsible by the changes spreading through the town. He says,

“I know you want it to stay pleasant around here. But there are so many things that are so much better. Like silly, or sexy or dangerous or brief. Everyone of those things is in you all the time if you just have the guts to look for them.”

People who see something inside themselves are the ones that tend to glow in real life. I think it’s because they’ve found the courage to find what it is that makes them shine and they share that with others. In order to discover that though, you might have to take a risk or find the courage to change or maybe you need to stop holding on to beliefs about yourself that might not be true. The world is your kaleidoscope and a kaleidoscope in black in white is no fun to look through. So try twisting the dials a bit more and you’ll discover a more vibrant life in technicolor.