Movie Blog 1

• Blog – Comment on how the film is portraying the time period of the 1950s.

The movie Mona Lisa Smile is a film that portrays the time period of the 1950’s. The movie takes place in 1953 at Wellesley College, which is an all girls’ school. Katherine Watson is a new teacher at Wellesley College and she was hit hard by how much the girls knew. Her first day in class she attempted to show transparencies, however it did not go well because the girls already knew them because they only study what is on the syllabus. Watson caught on quick and the next class period she started showing pictures that were not on the syllabus, requiring the girls to decide for themselves. Another example of how the film portrays the 1950’s in that the girls all have to attend a marriage class. This class teaches the girls how to act towards their future husbands because the expectation was that they would graduate and then get married. In this time period men seem to have more ‘freedom’ then women. For example, one of the male teachers sleeps with his students and is not punished yet when the school nurse begins handing out birth control she is fired. During this time period they believed that a girl should be married before she could be given birth control.