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The focus of this paper is on two movies “Mona Lisa Smile” and “And when the Spring Comes”. “Mona Lisa Smile” is an American film set in the 1950s at a private women’s liberal arts school known as Wellesley College. “And when the Spring Comes” is a film set in the 1980s in a rural industrial town in China. Although the two films come from different cultural backgrounds, there are many strikingly similar aspects of cultural representations in both movies. Those cultural representations include: Gender roles, as well as success and the means to achieve it. Both films also used non-verbal strategies to portray those cultural aspects.

In terms of gender roles, both films have an orthodox way of viewing women’s role in society. In “And When the Spring Comes”, Wang Cai Ling lives in a small rural town. In that town, a woman’s role in society is to marry young and raise a family. However, Wang Cai Ling is seen as unusual since she is still single at her age. There is a difference between Cai Ling’s goal in life versus the women in her town. Her goal is to become an opera singer, whereas the women in her town are ultimately trying to find a man to settle down with. In the other movie, “Mona Lisa Smile”, Katherine Watson challenges her students at Wellesley College to not be restricted by the labels that society puts on women. The students at Wellesley College attend school to learn to be a good wife. Their sole purpose of attending university is for marriage. Katherine Watson proves to her students that women are capable of more than just marriage. Both Wang Cai Ling and Katherine Watson have unconventional views on a women’s role in society.

Both films also put an emphasis on success and the means to achieve it. In “And When the Spring comes”, Wai Cai Ling goes through different hardships while trying to achieve her dreams of becoming an opera singer. She goes to the Capital of China, Beijing, multiple times in hopes of getting accepted into the prestigious opera concert hall. However, she gets rejected every time. Even at the end of the film, she still dreams of herself singing in front of a crowd of audience in the same Concert Hall. In “Mona Lisa Smile”, Katherine Watson is seen by her students as subversive due to her unconventional ways of teaching. She gets into trouble with the school’s board of trustees’ several times but still decides to keep her way of teaching. She firmly believes that women have the same capability as men in terms of raising a family while accomplishing their career goals. She is persistence even to the end of the film when she decides to give up her dream job to not conform to the conventional ways of teaching at Wellesley College. Those two examples both portray success and the means to achieve it.

The most commonly used non-verbal strategy in the two films would be the difference in camera shots. In “And when the spring comes”, the movie rarely has close-up shots of a character’s face. On the other hand, there are many close-up shots of people in “Mona Lisa Smile”. This contrasts the difference between Chinese and American culture. Chinese culture focuses more on collectivism, whereas American culture puts emphasis on individuality.

“Mona Lisa Smile” teaches us to never let society define who we are and what we are capable of. On the other hand, “And When the Spring Comes” instills hope in us that anyone, regardless of their upbringing or social status have the freedom to follow after their dreams. Both films target women’s role in society as well as success and the means to achieve it.

Hi Anny!

Thanks for sharing me with your unique ideas that I hardly thought of about the 2 movies. It seems that you focus on three topics: gender roles, success and the means to achieve it and non-verbal strategies, which instructs me a lot.
It seems to me that you illustrated the unconventional aspects that both Wang Cailing and Katherine Watson have and narrated the destinies of those two characters. In your third paragraph, you birefly depicted what the success means to each of them: Wang is singing opera and Katherine is breaking those old, out-dated thoughts. While in terms of the ways to achieve success, I think what you said is obscure. Maybe more details would make it more clearer and let your opinion more supportive.
I really like your “non-verbal strategy” part, since it really never occurred to me. I also wonder how the two different camera shots show different cultures ,like what you mentioned, collectivism and individualism. (because mostly I prefer to rely on the contents, such as people’s personality, background and plots to analyze the cultural factors, your perspective is really inspiring) I would appreciate it if you can show me more details and specific analysis.
Looking forward to hearing from you.

Hi Anny! I agree with you, these films certainly portray an “orthodox way of viewing women’s role in society.” I would have liked to read a bit more about which aspects of society you are addressing in terms of women. For example, are you focusing on women in careers, women as sexual objects, women in their relationships with men, women in heterosexual culture, etc? I think your main focus was on women in careers, but I would have liked that stated more clearly. You do talk a bit about women in terms of their relationships with men, i.e. Katherine and marriage, and I think that’d be a interesting route to follow up on. I think you focused a lot on Katherine and Cai Ling’s similarities; I think it would be interesting to add some differences in there as well. Theses women are both certainly struggling, but their social context is different. How does that impact their lives and their struggle? Overall, this was a great read! -- Liz H.

Xuan, thank you for your thoughtful feedback! I will definitely add more detail to the third paragraph and explain more on what success means to each of the characters.

Elizabeth, thank you for taking the time to provide me with feedback. I think the focus of my paper is on success and the means to achieve it for women in a time period that is conservative. I will certainly take your comments into consideration when writing my final draft.

The focus of this paper is on two movies “Mona Lisa Smile” and “And when the Spring Comes”. “Mona Lisa Smile” is an American film set in the 1950s at a private women’s liberal arts school known as Wellesley College. “And when the Spring Comes” is a film set in the 1980s in a rural industrial town in China. Although the two films come from different cultural backgrounds, there are many strikingly similar aspects of cultural representations in both movies. Those cultural representations include: Gender roles, as well as success and the means to achieve it. Both films also used non-verbal strategies to portray those cultural aspects.

In terms of gender roles, both films have an orthodox way of viewing women’s role in society. In “And When the Spring Comes”, Wang Cai Ling lives in a small rural town. In that town, a woman’s role in society is to marry young and raise a family. However, Wang Cai Ling is seen as unusual since she is still single at her age. There is a difference between Cai Ling’s goal in life versus the women in her town. Her goal is to become an opera singer, whereas the women in her town are ultimately trying to find a man to settle down with. In the other movie, “Mona Lisa Smile”, Katherine Watson challenges her students at Wellesley College to not be restricted by the labels that society puts on women. The students at Wellesley College attend school to learn to be a good wife. Their sole purpose of attending university is for marriage. Katherine Watson proves to her students that women are capable of more than just marriage and that she is a living example. Towards the end of the film, Katherine breaks off her engagement to her long-time friend in order to stay true to who she is. Both Wang Cai Ling and Katherine Watson have unconventional views on a women’s role in society.

Both films also put emphasis on success and the means to achieve it. In “And When the Spring comes”, Wang Cai Ling goes through different hardships while trying to achieve her dream of becoming an opera singer. She goes to the Capital of China, Beijing, multiple times in hopes of getting accepted into the prestigious National Opera Concert Hall. She even tries to establish a residency in Beijing by spending thousands of dollars just to be physically closer to the Opera House. However, she gets rejected every time by the Director of the Concert Hall. As though those rejections weren’t enough, she gets lied to by a girl pretending to be ill in order to be coached by her. Although, she faced many rejections, there is still hope within her. This is proven in the last scene of the film where she is still dreaming about singing in front of a crowd of audience in the same Concert Hall. In “Mona Lisa Smile”, Katherine Watson is seen by her students as subversive due to her unconventional ways of teaching. She gets into trouble with the school’s board of trustees’ several times but still decides to keep her way of teaching. She firmly believes that women have the same capability as men in terms of raising a family while accomplishing their career goals. For example, Katherine helped Joan fill out her application to Yale Law School and constantly encouraged her that she can be both a house wife and attend law school. She is persistence even to the end of the film when she decides to give up her dream job to not conform to the conventional ways of teaching at Wellesley College. Those two examples both portray success and the means to achieve it. Although both protagonists might not have achieved success by the end of the film, it’s the hope within them that shows the audience the power of having a dream and how far both characters are willing to go in order to have a chance of achieving it.

The most commonly used non-verbal strategy in the two films would be the difference in camera shots. In “And when the spring comes”, the movie rarely has close-up shots of a character’s face. On the other hand, there are many close-up shots of people in “Mona Lisa Smile”. This contrasts the difference between Chinese and American culture. Chinese culture focuses more on collectivism, whereas American culture puts emphasis on individuality.

“Mona Lisa Smile” teaches us to never let society define who we are and what we are capable of. On the other hand, “And When the Spring Comes” instills hope in us that anyone, regardless of their upbringing or social status have the freedom to follow after their dreams. Both films target women’s role in society as well as success and the means to achieve it.

Before participating in the Border Crossing Activity, I did not understand the purpose of this activity. I thought it was just another writing assignment regarding the two films that we had seen. Surprisingly, I did gain many different perspectives regarding the two films. It was interesting being able to interact with college students in China and understand their ways of thinking. I was impressed by their writing skills in English and how well written those essays were. If I were to write in Chinese, my grammar would not even make sense. This activity was definitely more of a challenge for the Chinese students than students at Penn State. Since those Chinese students had to write in another language while expressing their thoughts on two films. The Chinese students in my group had many interesting ideas in their essays. They were all very creative with their essay titles. One essay was titled, “ To be or not to be” while the other essay was named “Make a choice between Dream and Reality.” All of which were more creative than my boring title, “Border Crossing Activity.” I was also surprised to find that Chinese students’ essays were very opinionated. I thought their essays would be more on the logical side but they had some strong opinions regarding the two characters. Overall, I did incorporate most of the feedbacks that I had gotten on my first draft of the paper. One feedback was from a Chinese Student named Xuan. Xuan suggested that I should provide more examples in my third paragraph in order to better support my theme of success and the means to achieve it. Therefore, I added my thoughts on how the importance of the theme “success and the means to achieve it” isn’t really on being successful at achieving one’s dream but rather on the process of going through it. For example, both Wang Cai Ling and Katherine Watson both did not achieve what they wanted at the end of the two films. Wang Cai Ling did not sing in the National Concert Hall and Katherine Watson did not get to stay in Wellesley College. However, the fact that they both had so much hope and their persistence to not giving up until the very end is what we should put our focus on. If I were to provide three adjectives on this activity, I would describe this activity as thought-provoking, interactive, and insightful. The reason I chose those three adjectives is because I honestly thought it was a meaningful interaction with the students in China. Especially getting to see the similarities and differences between our writing styles and thought processes. If I had to provide a suggestion for this activity, I would say to assign one Chinese student to an American student instead of putting us in groups. I feel like by focusing on one person’s paper would help both sides to form deeper connections with each other. Overall, I really enjoyed discussing the two films with the students in China.

Anny, thanks for taking my advice into consideration. Your essay inspired me a lot. Actually, when I first saw your title "border crossing activity", it didn't occur to me that you meant this activity, and I thought it's about the movies' content——the class mobility. I thought it was a pun! So your title is not boring at all! It's interesting to talk about the differences between an east and a west movie with people from different contries. Gender and success are the invariable topics all over the world, and I can get some new perspectives here. Thanks for your revised essay and reflection. You did a good job!