Based on the recommendation of a good friend, I spent a sleepless night watching the 2003 drama Mona Lisa Smile. The film had the typical hints of “feel-good” and “nostalgia” that any early-2000s movie gives off, and had quite the star-studded female cast: Julia Roberts, Julia Stiles, Kirsten Dunst, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Ginnifer Goodwin to name a few. Warning, there are a few spoilers ahead.
Set in the 1950s, the movie follows the journey of Katherine Watson, a recent grad who decides to accept a teaching position at the all-girls Wellesley College. To her expectation, Watson’s students are all brilliant young women who mastered the syllabus of her Art History course before the first day of class. But Watson quickly pivots and turns her class into an interpretive experience that challenges her students’ perspectives on learning itself.
The main conflict in the movie occurs between Watson and one of her students, Betty Warren. While Watson is revered for her progressive lifestyle by many of her students, Warren is revolted by Watson’s liberal approach to her life. While Warren is a sharp student and academically adept, she believed the pinnacle of her life would be achieved through marriage. During this time period, it was the norm for women students to attend college, but not pursue a full career afterward due to the responsibilities that came with marriage. Warren herself had many conservative values and often expressed those through the editorial for the Wellesley student newspaper.
Warren’s first editorial shown on screen covered the school’s nurse Amanda Armstrong, and exposed to the Wellesley community that she was supplying contraceptives to students; the piece resulted in Armstrong being fired. Warren’s other editorials focused on Watson’s unorthodox teaching methods, her encouragement of students to pursue careers, and her strange desire not to get married. In an effort not to spoil the entire movie, all I’ll say is that Warren and Watson end up patching up their relationship, which leads Warren’s last editorial in the movie to focus on Warren’s respect for Watson.
The movie got me thinking a lot about what the purpose of an editorial is and the power it can have on a community. My favorite part about writing for this editorial has been having the opportunity to express my own and The Stute’s opinions, and I recognize that this column holds a decent amount of weight. It’s freeing to have the opportunity to comment on the student body, talk about art, and talk about my personal feelings. But watching Mona Lisa Smile and reading stories about groundbreaking editorials changing the course of a community made me think: am I being too soft? While some people are using the editorial to comment on the deep injustices surrounding them, here I am expressing my love for Taylor Swift and talking about walks I’ve taken in the park.
My philosophy with the editorial is to be true to myself and The Stute. I want to use this platform to share with the student body the strides that The Stute has taken, but also share things that I’ve learned about the world through my own experiences. I also acknowledge that I’ve had limited and somewhat sheltered experiences at Stevens, but if even one person can take away a lick of advice or a cautionary tale from the mistakes I’ve made, I can consider my job done.
To stay true to my normal theme, here’s some advice and motivation for the rest of the semester with midterms on the horizon: you can do it. Not the groundbreaking advice you were probably expecting, but after six semesters of grinding for midterms and reaching that mid-semester burnout, I can promise you that you’ll make it out of midterms season alive. The most important thing you can do now is not to forget to take care of yourselves.
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