Mona Lisa Smile (film)
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Mona Lisa Smile is a 2003 American film that was produced by Revolution Studios and Columbia Pictures, directed by Mike Newell, written by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, and starring Julia Roberts, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kirsten Dunst, and Julia Stiles. The title is a reference to the Mona Lisa, the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci, and the song of the same name, originally performed by Nat King Cole, which was covered by Seal for the movie. The film is a loose adaptation of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, a novel by Muriel Spark, and the title also references that text.
Plot
Mona Lisa Smile tells the story of a feminist teacher who studied at UCLA graduate school and left as a first-year teacher from "Oakland State" University (thought to be a fictionalized University of California, Berkeley), leaves her boyfriend behind in Los Angeles, California in 1953, to teach at Wellesley College, a conservative women's private liberal arts college in Massachusetts, United States.
Watson tries to open her students' minds to their freedom to do whatever they want with their lives. She encourages her students to believe in themselves, to study to become career professionals, and to improve their economic futures. She uses her art teachings as a vehicle to put across her opinion to the young women that her students need not conform to stereotypes of women made by society, or the roles made for them by society, as women born to become housewives and mothers. She feels that women could do more things in life than solely adopt 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.
Watson's ideas and ways of teaching are contrary to methods deemed acceptable by the school's directors, conservative women who believe firmly that Watson should not use her class to express her points of views or befriend students, and should stick only to teaching art. Watson is warned that she could be fired if she continues to interact with students as she has been doing.
Undaunted, Watson becomes stronger in her speeches about feminism and the future of women. She is a firm believer that the outlook of women in society needed to be changed if women were to achieve better futures, and that she needs to instill a spirit of change among her students.
Watson chooses to leave after the one year, but, as she is leaving the campus for the last time, her students run after her car, to show their affection and to thank her for her lessons. Many people have noticed the film's similarity to Dead Poets Society even going so far as to refer to it as "the feminist Dead Poets Society" or "Dead Poets Society with girls" [1]. It was released on VHS and DVD on July of 2004.
Reaction from Wellesley alumnae
In a message to Wellesley alumnae concerning the film, Wellesley College president Diana Chapman Walsh expressed some degree of regret concerning the distressed reactions of some Wellesley alumnae to the film. Many alumnae who attended Wellesley during the 1950s felt that the film's portrayal of Wellesley as a stodgy, conservative college was inaccurate.
Campus controversy
During the filming of "Mona Lisa Smile", the Wellesley College campus broke into controversy surrounding the casting of student extras. The use of the phrase "not too tan" in a casting call for current Wellesley students sparked a fear that casting directors were using race to discriminate against potential extras. Producers claimed that they were merely stressing the importance of finding women that had the "look of 1953", but later their response to the growing concern was that the film could not reflect the current Wellesley demographic, and had to be "accurate" to the period.
Students presented their concerns to president, Diana Chapman Walsh to no avail, and began a campus-wide guerrilla campaign entitled "Too Tan for Mona Lisa Smile", with a photo roster of African-American students denied the chance to participate in the film as student extras.
Student MAC, Jenna O. Bond-Louden, claimed that the film overrepresented the Asian student population, which was believed to be approximately 3 in 1953 (as the "Asian" ethnic group is not listed in the college's records), and underrepresented African-Americans: only one of the about 200 extras in the film was African-American (in reality there were 12 African-American students enrolled in a total student population of 1685, so with 200 extras approximately 1.4 of them should have been African-American).
The controversy spilled over into the local media, and producers considered a compromise of hiring willing minority students to act as production assistants. The college released a press statement highlighting the realities of Wellesley in 1953, and defending their decision to allow the film to shoot on campus. When the film's lead cast was featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, a select group of African-American students were allowed to attend the show's taping, including the "Too Tan for Mona Lisa Smile" leader.
Students also protested the lack of concern by the studio for their ability to attend classes as normal with the blocking of pathways, streets, and buildings during the 8 days of shooting the film. Producers initially tried to adhere to the class schedule by not shooting in open areas immediately before and after classes, but that lasted only a short while. Student extras frustrated professors by missing class and important exams, and the entire campus began to speak out against the film's presence. The film was so intrusive to the quiet campus, that the board of trustees deemed that Wellesley College will never again open its doors to a film studio[citation needed].
Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa_Smile
