Teaching Oneself

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Daniel Wilhelm

The role of the teacher takes in both the movie And the Spring Comes and the movie Mona Lisa Smile. Wang Tsai Ling is a vocal performance teacher. Katherine Watson is as art history professor. Along with strong female leads, the movie emphasizes the dedication educators take like putting one’s job at risk to see a student succeed. However the main argument of both movies is struggle between career goals and family goals. In the end the way to achieve happiness at the ends of both movies has Wing Cailing adopting a daughter, but still singing. Katherine Watson breaks up with her love interest, and has an impact on the all women academy Wellesley. Both movies subvert standard women’s gender roles by the interactions with their love interests.

And the Spring Comes presents several love interests for Wang. Huang Sbao desires to become a better artist. His art style lacks emotion and realism. To perfect his art he needs to get Wang to be a human model for him. Upon stripping for Huang Sbao in something that looks like it was inspired by the movie Titanic, Wang also lost her virginity in this scene. Traditionally, a woman’s worth ties to her virginity. When she loses it, her main value in the culture’s eyes diminishes.

The writers place Katherine Watson in Mona Lisa Smiles against mostly female characters. She is a professor of art history for many senior undergraduates. The majority of the women in this this 1950s’ period movie convince themselves that the previous gender norms were what the young female cast wanted. Betty, played by Kirsten Dunst, uses her voice through journalism to alter people’s perceptions of Katherine. As someone who focused on her career and didn’t get married at a young age, Katherine’s character is pigeonholed into being a failure. A failure by the standards of the student body at Wellesley is an impure woman.

Traditional gender roles provide the side characters of these two movies with security. For Betty’s character, it’s knowing that the sum of her life’s desires–a house with a washing machine–will reinforce what her school, but not Katherine Watson, have taught her. Unfortunately, thinking the way Betty does destroys her marriage. After learning the lesson that wasn’t on the syllabus for her art history class, Betty can become a woman lawyer. And the Spring Comes has a divorce in it two. However, instead of the Professor Xiao Zhang learning a lesson that will ultimately improve her relationship with the main character, Wang, it ruins it.

These to divorced women learn the same lesson: invest in yourself. Wang tells Xiao that their friendship is contingent of beauty standards. Xiao believe Wang to be ugly. Xiao will feel good about herself as long as the less attractive Wang is nearby.

Both films demonstrate that to achieve goals, following gender norms, or societal standards will impede individual character development. The films both end with idea that changing for others is problematic. Change for oneself, like adopting a child, or travelling abroad, is valuable for the individual.

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Hi Daniel,

The article about the understanding of the imagery and theme is brilliant and well researched. As a famous saying goes “ Go your own way, no matter what others say about it.” Teaching oneself is a significant lesson one should learn in his or her life. These two female idealist in movies suffer a lot from stereotype and society “fences”, but only they themselves know why they start the pursuit to their dreams. You contrast theses two heroines through and point out “individual values” clearly, which we really appreciate.

But here we have some suggestions which we want to share with you. First, you may confuse Betty with Jon in Mona Lisa Smile. Betty was the one who divorced while Jon was the one who can be a great lawyer. Second, if more detail analysis would be added in, we believe that the contents would be richer. Glad to share our opinions with you.

If you have any questions, please let us know. Look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,
Sven Xue & Li Lin

[1259591469]

Hi, Daniel,
We are glad to read your article and here are some understandings after reading.
The film review is very original, starting from the teacher, a common role of the two protagonists, with the clues of family goals and career goals.Finding common ground between the two shows that you are careful. You also mentioned their love concept and pursuit of self. At the end of the review, you also combined your point of view and expressed it very clearly. This is a very excellent article, thank you for sharing.
It may be better if you add some analysis about the techniques of expression and the extention of your own understanding. We hope to see more about your film review.
Good luck,
He Weiqi&Song Xinran

[1017507241]

Hi Daniel,

our communication is required by our teacher of this course. The more we contact with each other, the higher grade we will acquire. Could you help us communicate more? You can say anything about our essays or our replies for you. Hope to have a nice talk with you! If you have any questions, for more convenience, you could add my WeChat

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or send your words to my e-mail box 1017507241@qq.com please.Glad to meet you during the special time.

Look forward to hearing from you soon~
Best,
Xue Siwen.