Mona Lisa Smile

I saw the film Mona Lisa Smile last month.  I found it very enjoyable and it also helped me to understand Lowell’s history.  This was one of the many movies shown to go along with this year’s common text.  It was shown in O’Leary Library in a small auditorium.  I came to this without any knowledge of what the film was about.  I heard that Julia Roberts was in this movie, so I figured it would be good, and I was right.  It took me quite a long time to realize this, but this film had a lot of significance to the history of UMass Lowell.

The film takes place in the 1950’s.  Julia Roberts’ character, Katherine Watson, comes from California to a conservative school in Wellesley to teach at an all girls school.  She came to this school with new ideas that were completely unheard of.  Because of this, Katherine had to overcome many problems with both her students and her colleagues.  On her first day of teaching, her students had planned to memorize the syllabus and all of the ancient paintings she planned to show the class. She came to Wellesley College with completely new and modernized teaching methods that were not at all approved of.  Katherine continuously tries to teach her students to be more independent.  All of the women are stuck in this conservative mindset and Katherine does everything she can to free them from it. The school focuses on the correct way for women to behave.  They are required to attend classes on grooming and table setting.  She was hired as an art history teacher, but instead, she shows the girls modern art pieces that are like nothing they have ever seen.  When she began teaching, she got no respect from her students, but she did not let that stop her or her mission to change these girls. 

The school had always taught their students that becoming a housewife and a mother is far more important than pursuing a career.  They expected these women to forget about all that they had worked so hard for, and live their life how every woman should, with a family.  This made me sad because there were many women in this film who were very passionate about their studies, but everything they had ever known told them to quit.  One student, Joan, had always wanted to be a lawyer.  She never mentioned her dreams to anyone because they were so far from the norms of society.  Joan had a fiancé from Harvard; she thought that was her only future.  She became very close with Katherine, who instanttly realized Joan’s desire to become a lawyer.  Without telling her, Katherine applied Joan to Yale and she got accepted.  This was such an unusual opportunity for women in the 1950’s and if it were not for Katherine, Joan would not be able to pursue her dreams as a lawyer.

I cannot imagine living as a woman in this time period.  It seems so unfair that women’s futures were so limited.  If I were a student at Wellesley College, I would feel so grateful to have a professor like Katherine to show me that there is so much more to life.  She showed her students that they could live out their dreams and have the career that they longed for, and also have a husband and family. 

Katherine was able to overcome the adversity that was so present at Wellesley College, and she helped her students to do so, too.  Katherine stood up for her beliefs, even though she was risking her job, and I find that to be very inspiring.

            Mona Lisa Smile can be compared to Marie Frank’s University of Massachusetts Lowell, our common text for this year.  In this very same time period, women were studying in Lowell and facing the same exact struggles.  There was a two-year teaching college in Lowell for only women.  The only profession seen appropriate for women was teaching.  This school prepared women to become teachers, although most of them eventually put aside these studies to become housewives and mothers.  It is so hard for me to fathom living in a society such as this.  I do not think I would get along in a time where women were not treated equal to men and had certain roles that they were expected to fulfill.  This being said, I am so thankful for the progression that has been made in society, making it possible for me, and all women, to strive for greatness.