ThePleasantvilleEffect: Nostalgia and the Visual Framing of (White) Suburbia

Suburban films of the last fifteen years offer audiences spatial visions of nostalgically tinged suburbs, place individuals into the bosom of imperfect but loving and white families, and remake home and away, self and Other, on foundations of security and comfort. Functioning as “ethical” rhetoric, the films create suburban dwelling places that map the particular contours of suburbia. Representing and rejecting “impossible” sexualities and spaces, the films not only mark the boundaries of suburban space but also create the contours of “suburban subjectivities.”