Mona Lisa Smile Film Review

The film Mona Lisa Smile is about a young woman professor that takes a job at an all female college. Her goal in taking this job is to teach these women art history. When she gets to the college she ends up being able to teach these girls something more than just art history. The "college" is not really an educational institute...it is more of a prep school for marriage. The young women in the college are given an education but the main thing they are taught is how to find a good husband and once they have found that man how to be a good and proper wife to them. Julia Robert's plays the professor. She ends up seeing what this school really is and is very appalled by what she sees. She sets out to teach these women that they do not have to conform to society's rules, they can be something other than just wives...they can be real women that make a difference in the world.

The film was a good display of why the feminist movement began. Women in that day were taught from a very early age that their whole purpose in life was to become and wife and mother. It shows just how willing women were to follow in the foot steps of every other woman in that time without really thinking about what they wanted. The feminist movement began because of a simple survey and book that was published. The author that did the survey found out that the women of her time were not really happy with their lives; they were just doing what they thought they should be doing. In the movie you see some women shift from doing what is normal to becoming their own woman. They begin to see what life should really be about...and that is being happy and doing what makes you happy. This whole class was centered not just around the idea of beauty in our society but also the different gender roles throughout the years. This is a perfect example of how the whole feminism movement works.

I did like the film. I liked the film because it showed that we as women do not have to conform to society in order to be happy. When I was younger all I wanted to do was fit in...to feel "normal". But as I grew older I realized that the only way I was going to be happy was to do what made me happy...not what made the world happy. As long as I was not hurting any one else in the process of following my own happiness everything would be OK. I have never wanted to get married or have children and many times this has been a very hard subject to talk about with people. People cannot seem to understand my reasoning behind this, but I feel as if they do not have to...it is a personal choice and I am in control of my own life. I think this is why I really enjoyed the movie; because I could relate to it. It has began to show people that women are human beings and we have our own wants and needs and sometimes; if not most of the time; these wants and needs do not conform to what society thinks we should want and need. More movies like this need to be made to bring to light a lot of the issues that women struggle with on a daily basis outside of just beauty.