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Revised Essay

Olivia Myers

Mona Lisa Smile & The Spring Comes
Women in both China and in the United States are expected to meet certain criteria in order to achieve some sort of success within their society. Mona Lisa Smile and And the Spring Comes show two well talented and women that are desperately trying to make a name for themselves in their environment, but the society they are in has requirements that determine who is able to become what is considered ‘successful’. In Mona Lisa Smile, Julia Roberts plays a new professor, Catherine, at a women’s academy where she is struggling to connect with both her society of teachers and the students who take her course. She is constantly questioned and tries to prove her worth with her intellect, quick wit, and pleasant demeanor but constantly finds herself challenged by a society centered on female perfection. And the Spring Comes also presents a teacher of the arts in Ms. Wang, an extremely talented opera singer who cannot catch a break due to her appearance and impoverished living situation. These two women of the arts are held back and pressured by similar expectations of the culture that surrounds them.
Purity, beauty, and agreeableness are all valued traits shown within both movies for the women in the Eastern and Western societies. In the United States, the women were being trained to become the perfect wives for their husbands in order to reach a higher level in their society. Mona Lisa Smile showed that the women must not drink, date, act out of line or their own accord, and have to value their virginity. Their beauty is almost manufactured in the sense that the definition comes from how well those women behave and they each are expected to behave the same way. Catherine struggles with this, as she tries to break the mold of the expectations set on her without losing everything she has worked for and become disgraced. The school nurse lost her job due to attempting to disperse birth control secretly for the female students that did not want their sexuality exposed by pregnancy, which in turn caused a negative reputation for the school she worked for. If the school was shown to have employees that did not encourage virginity and purity above all else, even the health of the students, then that school would be frowned upon by the society of the time.
Mona Lisa Smile also showed how men in that era of American society could lie, cheat, and essentially use women as tools. This was shown when one of Catherine’s students found her lover cheating, Catherine’s own partner lying, and how the structure of the school was to encourage women to serve their men. And the Spring Comes shows men in a different light. The men in Ms. Wang’s life also try to use her for their own convenience, one even convincing her to sleep with him just for him to say he was using her when she admitted her love for him. This continued with men appearing before her not as interested lovers but as men who wished to use marriage as a platform to raise themselves higher in society. The standard of marriage in both Eastern and Western society is used to identify people who have value and therefore are more accepted than those who are individuals.
And the Spring Comes shows the examples of success through the means of beauty as well. Ms. Wang was looked down upon, despite her talents, due to her physical appearance of having acne, scars, and imperfect teeth. Living in poverty discouraged others from socializing with her or wanting to be involved. Just as the West pressured women to become perfect wives, the East pressured women to get married and settle for the sake of having a husband. Despite her appearance, Ms. Wang was proposed to numerous times by men desperate to raise their social status through marriage and not by love. It seemed that only the beautiful women with talent and a high social status were able to achieve love and that notion left Ms. Wang suicidal. If the society she was in valued her talents above all else, she would have been given chances and opportunities she deserved.
In terms of how their roles affected their ethos, or their credibility, the women believed they should be respected due to their talent but are reduced in effectiveness because of what their society considered that they lacked (husband, beauty, wealth, conservatism, etc.). This was shown at the beginning of Mona Lisa Smile when Catherine was attempting to teach a lecture and the students undermined her credibility. She then had to struggle to gain respect and recognition despite her knowledge. In And the Spring Comes, Wang tries to desperately sing for an audition to join the opera group she dreamed of getting into but they would not accept her because she was not beautiful, nor was she a resident of Beijing (a notification of her wealth status). The way the women lacked effective ethos was due to the way their society interpreted people of importance, which was mainly by appearance and social standing.
Both movies showcased how women are/were treated in a society that values women by their appearance and use for those around them. The women in the West were only valued for what they could provide as wives for their husbands and how well they fit the mold of factory-produced perfection, and the women in the East were only valued for their physical appearance and ability to obtain a husband and family. Success was defined entirely by the men present in their lives or simply the social appearance of having a family, wealth, and beauty.

Reflection

1) I did not really have any expectations for the activity but I was thoroughly impressed with the language used by the Chinese students in their comments and essays. Learning multiple languages enough to be fluent is extremely challenging but they prove their capabilities with a polite demeanor and elegant ideas in their essays.
2) I find it to be interesting that in the United States, we typically write our responses with an immediate drive to the point of what we are talking about. The Chinese students always started with thanking the person they were speaking to before they responded to what they said. I found that to be interesting. I also was impressed by the discussion of economic/historical references used in their essays and responses. A lot of the responses also mentioned feminism and even though it was part of the scope of the project, I was curious about what feminism in Eastern ideology versus Western ideology looked like. It seems to be the same.
3) I still really liked what I had previously written but I added an additional paragraph about the men shown in the two films according to a post one of the other students wrote. They felt that men also suffered from societal standards and I agreed with that, so I wrote about how men in both films were shown in their respective societies.
5) I was pretty much myself so I would not say that I have created a persona. The Chinese students spoke very directly so I did find myself matching the vocabulary and terms they used so we could understand each other's points easier. I think conversing with students who speak a different first language helps keep me conscious to not write frivolous things. I found myself being much more direct with everything I said to match their writing style.
7) Interesting, distant, and narrow. I personally would have liked to have gotten to know the students I was working with as people and earlier in the semester. I understand under current circumstances made things really restricted all over the world, but I would have loved getting to know these students as individuals and share ideas throughout the semester.
8) As I stated in the previous comment, I would have liked to have talked to/get to know the students either before the activity or throughout the semester. When peer-reviewing in our classes, we get to meet and talk to other students and befriend them. I feel that I am typically more comfortable and relaxed with what I say when reviewing a friend's work because I genuinely care about their success. Having a connection with that person is a motivating factor for me, so I would have loved to have an opportunity to get to know who I was working with before we began to work.