Introduction
This film reflects an original image about how the life was going on in 1953, and what was the role of the woman in 1950? .The role of women in the 1950 was repressive and constrictive in many ways. Society identified high importance and many expectations on behavior at home as well as in public. Women were guessed to accomplish certain roles, such as a caring mother, a diligent homemaker, and an obedient wife. A diligent housewife had dinner on the table exactly at the moment her husband arrived from work. In fact, even if she wanted to voice an opinion, her education, or rather lack of thereof would not allow it. In Mona Lisa Smile, different stories for different women and how their lives and choices were being affected by both traditions and taboos were presented in a very sensitive movie that went back to 1953 to start the events that took almost a year. The notion of education itself became more than the traditional training of reading, writing, and arithmetic for students. The social and cultural events of the decade had an vast strike on the way in which Americans defined education. Who should be trained to teach students, how should teachers perform their jobs, and what were the goals of education. As we know, according to theories of modernization, each society would evolve inexorably from barbarism to ever greater levels of development and civilization, but it needs a savior, so the hero of this film (Katherine Watson) appeared as the changer or teacher who fought to change the antique traditional view of Wellesley society.
Commentary
This movie, "Mona Lisa Smile" is an inspirational film that explores life through feminism, marriage, and education lead by a modernist teacher at the end of a traditional era. It begins by introducing the lead character, Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts), a liberal-minded novice instructor from California, who gets a job in the art history department at a snobbish, all-girl college, called Wellesley, in the fall of 1953. Katherine was thrilled at the prospect of educating some of the brightest young women in the country however; she comes to make difference. “Betty Warren: Katherine Watson didn't come to Wellesley to fit in. She came because she wanted to make a difference.”
What is this difference? As she appointed as a teacher at Wellesley College for women. This conservative college prides itself in conforming to the traditions of the time with a prestigious reputation for academic excellence the expectation is that the women will never really apply it, as they are expected to be married and have families instead. Watson tries to inspire her students into believing in themselves, study to become career professionals and improve their economic futures. She utilizes her art teachings as a vehicle to show young women her opinion: that the stereotype of women being born to become housewives and mothers was wrong and women could do more things in life than just the roles of wives and mothers.
In one scene of the movie, she shows her students four newspaper ads, and asks them to question what the future will think of the idea that women are born into the roles of wives and mothers.
At her first day in teaching, she realized that most of her students had memorized the text book. This was the traditional methods in teaching which depend on memorization, repetition and imitation, so she decided to change her methods in teaching art by utilize imagination, critical thinking, analyzing, transfer of knowledge, Synthesizing, and choice making .However, in the next day she brought a slide (Soutine's Carcass of Beef ) - which was outside the syllable –
in order to motivate students ‘minds in the critical and productive thinking . AS the following:
dialogue between her students and she how she employed the Class Discussion techniques : Katherine shows the class a painting of a rotting animal
Katherine Watson: "Carcass", by Soutine, 1925. Is it any good? C'mon, ladies, there's no wrong answer. There's also no textbook telling you what to think. It's not that easy, is it?
Betty Warren: Alright, no. It's not good. In fact, I wouldn't even call it art. It's grotesque.
Connie Baker: Is there a rule against art being grotesque?
Giselle Levy: I think there's something aggressive about it. And erotic.
Betty Warren: To you, everything is erotic.
Giselle Levy: Everything *is* erotic.
Susan Delacorte: Aren't there standards?
Betty Warren: Of course there are! Otherwise, a tacky velvet painting could be equated to a Rembrandt!
Connie Baker: Hey, my Uncle Ferdie has two tacky velvet paintings. He loves those clowns.
Betty Warren: There *are* standards! Technique, composition, color, even subject. So, if you're suggesting that rotted side of meat is art, much less *good* art, then what are we going to learn?
Katherine Watson: Just that. You have outlined our new syllabus, Betty, thank you. What is art? What makes it good or bad, and who decides?”.
By this way she encouraged her students to think more and to go deep in analyzing and exploring new ideas. In other scene she tried to applied her point of view by matching between past and present to prove that anyone must do what he want not what other want :
(about Vincent van Gogh)
Katherine Watson: He painted what he felt, not what he saw people didn’t
understand, to them it seemed childlike and crude. It took years for them to recognize his actual technique. To see the way his brush strokes seemed to make the night. sky move. Yet, he never sold a painting in his lifetime. This is his self-portrait. There's no camouflage, no romance. Honesty. Now, sixty years later, where is he?
Giselle Levy: Famous.
Katherine Watson: So famous, in fact, that everybody has a reproduction. There are post cards...
Connie Baker: We have the calendar.
Katherine Watson: you go. With the ability to reproduce art, it is available to the masses.
No one needs to own a van Gogh original, they can paint their own. Van Gogh in a box, ladies
! The newest form of mass-distributed art; paint by numbers.
Connie Baker: [reading from the box] "Now everyone can be van Gogh. It's so easy. Just follow
the simple instructions and in minutes, you're on your way to being an artist."
Giselle Levy: Van Gogh by numbers?
Katherine Watson: Ironic, isn't it? Look at what we have done to the man who refused to conform his ideals to popular taste . Who refused to compromise his integrity. We have put him
in a tiny box and asked you to copy him.
Anyhow, any modern movement in traditional and conservative society must face a lot of obstacles and resistances, so Katherine Watson’s views at the beginning had been rejected by her administrators and students. The following dialogue between the teachers (Katherine) and her student (Betty) show how she struggles to teach her students and she may lose patience or control in order to impose discipline and her points of view:
Katherine Watson: Since your wedding, you've missed six classes, a paper and your midterm.
Betty Warren: I was on my honeymoon and then I had to set up house. What does she expect?
Katherine Watson: Attendance.
Connie Baker: [timidly] Most of the faculty turn their heads when the married students miss a class or two.
Katherine Watson: Well then why not get married as freshman? That way you could graduate without actually ever stepping foot on campus.
Betty Warren: Don't disregard out traditions just because you're subversive.
Katherine Watson: Don't disrespect this class just because you're married.
Betty Warren: Don't disrespect me just because you're not.
Katherine Watson: Come to class, do the work, or I'll fail you.
Betty Warren: If you fail me, there will be consequences.
Katherine Watson: Are you threatening me?
Betty Warren: I'm educating you.
Katherine Watson: That's *my* job.
Another scene reflects the rejection of the society for any types of modernization or development , when school newspaper editorialist Betty labels Katherine "subversive," well, the battle between backward and forward thinking is on. Petty Betty will bring down her nemesis and Katherine will impress upon her students the value and rewards of independent thinking.
“Miss Katherine Watson, instructor in the art history department has decided to declare war on the holy sacrament of marriage. Her subversive and political teachings encourage our Wellesley girls to reject the roles they were born to fill.”
In her last, bravura performance in this capacity, she shows a series of circa-'50s advertisements, featuring women making meat loaf, cleaning house, and wearing girdles that set them "free." "What does that mean?" she asks, her forehead vein bulging with frustration .
Watson's ideas and ways of teaching were met with dislike by part of the school's directors, conservative women who believed firmly that Watson should not use her class to express her points of views or befriend students, and stick only to teaching art. Watson was warned that she could be fired if she continued acting the way she did around students.
Undaunted, Watson became stronger in her speeches about feminism and the future of women. She was a firm believer that the outlook of women in society needed to be changed if women were to achieve better futures, and that she needed to instill a spirit of change among her students.
Watson chooses to leave after the one year, but, as she was leaving the campus for the last time, her students ran after her car, to show her affection and thank her for her lessons .
Conclusion
Respect from both the students and the teacher is very important to have any kind of response. The movie showed how Miss Watson encouraged the girls to go to school and get an education. She also used her own philosophy of teaching, which turned out to be great with her students, but the school board didn't have the same look on miss Watson ideas on teaching. A teacher is not only a teacher in a subject, but a teacher in life and decision making. Miss Watson found that having an open mind about the ways of society isn't the way a lot of people think. They felt teaching should be taught strictly from books that they picked out. With this type of relationship it made it easier for miss Watson to teach and shower her potential. Miss Watson was different, but highly thought of by ones she taught. Miss Watson was a teacher that used history and current events to guide the students to realize their own potential to life. The producer did a great job giving examples of ways schools were schools were back then. It's great to have teachers that understand and are always willing to help young adults when they need someone. In the end the girls started thinking for themselves, evaluating their lives and what they really wanted from life. The students learned a lot from Miss Watson, probably more than from any other teacher they had in the past. The school administration and staff questioned her teaching methods.
Her methods in teaching, she tend to motivate students’ brain, ask question, groups work, analyzing , Case Studies , glass discussion and worksheets . She excellently applied imagination which is the ability to see the unseen before it happens. It is the ability to imagine possible discoveries before they take place .Her basic principle in teaching is to Know yourself and be yourself . She always tries to break the barriers between her students and herself, so she sometimes appears as an adviser other time as a tutor or friend and rarely to appear as discipliner or punisher .
Betty Warren: ''My teacher, Katherine Watson, lived by her own definition, and would not compromise that. Not even for Wellesley. I dedicate this, my last editorial, to an extraordinary woman who lived by example and compelled us all to see the world through new eyes. By the time you read this, she'll be sailing to Europe, where I know she'll find new walls to break down and new ideas to replace them with. I've heard her called a quitter for leaving, an aimless wanderer. But not all who wander are aimless. Especially not those who seek truth beyond tradition; beyond definition; beyond the image.''
