A College for Future Leaders’ Wives: Mona Lisa Smile

A College for Future Leaders’ Wives: Mona Lisa Smile

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Author Note

This paper was prepared for HUMN 330.

A College for Future Leaders’ Wives: Mona Lisa Smile

“She looks happy, so what does it matter?” – Betty Warren

The film begins in 1953 in a much socialized conservative society. Professor Katherine Ann Watson is a 30-year old art history teacher and graduate student in the Department of Art History at UCLA. She has just accepted a position to teach “History of Art” at Wellesley College; a very conservative private liberal arts college located in the town of Wellesley, Massachusetts. Professor Watson has always wanted to teach at Wellesley. As a firm idealistic arts teacher, she fully believes that she can educate her students to think for themselves through the use of the modern arts; which is not allowed to be taught at Wellesley. Through out the film, she is criticized by other faculty members for not following the syllabus handed down to her at the beginning of the school year. After months of teaching, she begins to realize that this is not a college for future leaders but for a college for future leaders’ wives. The film explores what feminism and marriage was like towards the end of the “traditional” era heading towards the beginning of a “modern” era.

The film is narrated by a young student by the name of Elizabeth (Betty) Warren. She is the editor of the school newspaper and is very opposed to the teachings of Professor Watson’s perspectives on feminism. Betty believes a woman’s pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is to get married to a wonderful husband, have beautiful kids and live in a house with a mortgage. Throughout the film there is a continuing argument between traditional and modern times between her and Professor Watson. It was quite obvious; Professor Watson believes women should be career-oriented when it comes to their goals,...