MONA LISA SMILE

By Sunday Morning, I wake up and do some research I assumed that this is the small research that I do.

Anyway, the first song that I listen when I wrote this journal is Vienna by Billy Joe, after I cleared up my tiny house. I jumped directly into Netflix and just randomly looking for some good stuff, been a while since I watch Cigarette Girl (in fact I'm not done yet to finish all the episodes due to my heavy heart) when watching it. So let's discuss what we have after watching this beautiful movie called... 

Mona Lisa Smile, it is a film about women’s awareness of education.

In a good review delivered by The New York Times said that... 

''Mona Lisa Smile'' preaches disruptive female self-empowerment out of one side of its mouth while out of the other it invokes the dream of being swept up, up and away by Prince Charming.

Julia Roberts played a role as a lecturer, moves from California to East to teach demure art and history at Wellesley College in 1953. The pressure for become a lecturer is not that easy for her due to the girls are well educated and already born with high standard society. Unfortunately, the girls are educated by only text book, they believes they were very bright, and their education would prepare them to be better wives and mother, and they believe that the value of the woman is to raising kids, marriage when in freshman year, bake a cake for her husband, no work, no dreams, cleaning the house, etc. Meanwhile we are as a woman could do something beyond that, and even we can do all at the same time to be a housewives, and having higher education. 

Julia Roberts try to delivered something new from her perfective of life, what she believes, what does she learns, what is the value she has, and she is encouraging her students for pursuing their dreams and beyond. Julia is challenging, she's so smart, and full of intelligence, she's a center of a woman a free spirit in an open system. She tries to open her students minds through her teaching as a teacher and a woman. She always makes a difference and gives something new in her syllabus. She uses her art teachings to tell her opinion to her students at Wellesley College that they needs, not to conform to stereotypes of women become housewives and mothers. She feels that young women at Wellesley College have the right to pursue higher education and career. She believes that women need to be changed if they want to achieve better future.

Julia is the inspiring teacher that overcome adversity to enlighten and guide the students, her determination to install feminism at Wellesley. The way this Movie is trying to say is, there is no right and wrong about what are we thinking of our future, or even our opinion at class, just try to delivered it by your own thinking not by a text book. As so in life, you can choose everything you want, either to marriage, going to school, open a business, travel a lot, just remember to take every decision with full responsibility. Julia involve us as an audience to feel sympathize with her students dreams and despair of their matrimonial tunnel vision, and at the end we are relieved that we listened to Miss Watson (Julia Roberts) and became the wonderful we are today.

Let me drop the last convo between Julia and her students, this is a really good one closing statement of the movie. When her student write her a letter before Julia move to another country to find her way in education. 

"My teacher Katherine Watson lived by her own definition and would not compromise that. Not even for Wellesley. I dedicate this, my last editorial to an extraordinary woman who lived by example and compelled us all to see the world though new eyes. By the times you read this, she will sailing to Europe where I know she will find new walls to break down and new ideas to replace them with. Hold it, everybody, I have heard her called a quitter for leaving an aimless wanderer. But not all who wander are aimless. Especially not those who seek truth beyond tradition, beyond definition, beyond the image."

We had an equal right to get an opportunity to get whatever we wanted in our life, don't stop keep going.

I closed when song She by Elvis Costello played on my Ipad, have a good day.