Feminism on film: Panning pompous propaganda

Townhall.com ^ | December 29, 2003 | Phyllis Schlafly

[T Lady]

Another feminist propaganda movie hit the theaters during the Christmas season, proving again that the feminists are an unhappy bunch whose lifestyle leads to loneliness.

The heroine of "Mona Lisa Smile(s)," Katherine Watson, played by Julia Roberts, ends up single and jobless on a slow boat to Europe after tossing aside the latest of her faithless lovers.

At least her fate wasn't as grim as that of other macho-feminist movie heroines who mouthed the irrelevant silliness that women need to be liberated to make their own choices free from male domination. Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis in "Thelma and Louise" demonstrated their liberation by driving their automobile off a cliff to their death; Virginia Woolf, played by Nicole Kidman in "The Hours," walked into a lake to drown herself; and Demi Moore, playing the lead in "G.I. Jane," had herself beaten to a bloody pulp to prove that she could take it like any Navy SEAL.

Proclaimed by CBS-TV as "the best picture of the year by far," "Mona Lisa Smile(s)" is a sanctimonious feminist homily preaching salvation through modern art and making one's own career choices just so long career does not mean marriage and motherhood. But the sermon boomeranged on reality, and the movie proves again that those who follow that commandment travel a dead-end road.

Watson's erudition didn't extend to an ability to evaluate human nature. She was totally snowed by a dishonest fellow professor even though she knew he had the reputation of sleeping with his students.

A preachy professor of art history, Watson came from the University of California-Berkley to Wellesley College in 1953, before it was attended by Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., determined to change student attitudes, expectations and career plans. She wanted them to work toward a J.D. rather than a MRS.

Her strategy was to immerse them in Picasso rather than Michelangelo. She tried to replace their respect for artistic standards with a search for meaning in meaningless scribbles on a canvas.

Watson pressured her star student Joan to apply to law school and she was accepted at Yale Law School. When she tells Watson in emphatic terms that she is rejecting this honor and choosing instead to become a wife and mother, the audience is supposed to think Joan is a fool.

Clearly, that's what Watson thought. The movie probably was designed to show that feminism is progressive and modern, and that courageous female professors of a generation ago challenged traditional orthodoxy and opened up new pathways for young women.

Feminist propaganda is not just humorless preaching about how work in a law office is so much more fulfilling than raising children. It's also an incessant put-down of the homemaking role and even of traditional customs and morality.

The students and their Wellesley instructors are authentically costumed in the fashions of the 1950s. Nobody wore torn blue jeans, purple hair or the metallic items used in body piercing.

The neatly dressed and bright Wellesley students have more self-confidence and self-esteem than the professor. But the movie caricatures them to look smug and old-fashioned.

The movie ridicules the notion that a wife would delight in displaying her new automatic washing machine and dryer - remember, this was the '50s - or take pride in keeping a kitchen clean. The movie shows a wife who didn't even look oppressed when she was mopping or vacuming.

Irrelevant advertisements from the '50s for Dutch Cleanser, an ironing board and a girdle are what passes for humor during the dreary two-hour movie.

The audience is supposed to be unsympathetic to the student who had a big traditional wedding and soon discovered her husband was cheating on her. The audience is supposed to think it served her right because she was dumb to choose marriage.

On the other hand, the audience is supposed to sympathize with the lesbian nurse who is fired for giving contraceptives to college students in violation of state law. The audience is expected to empathize with the student who was outrageously promiscuous.

Despite enormous advance TV publicity, the message of "Mona Lisa Smile(s)" isn't selling. When Oprah Winfrey featured the movie cast on her program with a live student audience, the final comment came from a student who rejected her mother's feminist ideas and said she wants to be a wife and mother.

What's out of date today is not the fashions of the '50s, but the university-imposed political correctness of the 1990s.

To enjoy the smiles you didn't have while watching "Mona Lisa Smile(s)," I suggest you rent a video of the 1988 movie about another stereotypical feminist professor. The movie is called "Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death" and stars Bill Maher in the "politically incorrect" role of his life.

Copyright 2003 Copley News Service

[T Lady]

Here's yet another Hollyweird attack on marriage and the family, being swallowed by the Media sycophants, and a few of the Unwashed Masses, like a woman I overheard raving about 'Mona Lisa Smiles' to her mother over her cell phone, saying how "progressive" Julia Roberts' character was during that period of time. Oh brother!

[speedy]

Yep -- it's sad that many people continue to take these movies as "reality" or a substitute for genuine history. The heartening part is that fewer and fewer are falling for it. The idea that you could learn anything from Julia Roberts beyond applying cosmetics is laughable. Thanks for posting, T Lady.

[T Lady]

You're welcome. And there are actually some women I know- including my mother- who can apply cosmetics much better than Julia Roberts.

-Regards, T.

[speedy]

I don't doubt it. And she obviously raised an insightful daughter while she was at it!! Cheers.

[T'wit]

I have several photos of Julia Roberts in her natural state -- that is, no cosmetics. It is a frightening sight. She must buy her cosmetics in 55-gallon drums and apply them with a paint sprayer.

But it's her mouth that gets me. I have seen bigger mouths, but only at national parks like Carlsbad Caverns and Mammoth Cave. When she opens her mouth, I have to wonder how many bats fly in and roost for the night.

[longtermmemmory]

Wesley is discredited. The only women who will attend in the future will be lesbians or lesbian-wana-bes.


From your comment, it seems the left has indoctrinated itself into using the word "progressive." Even the "Candidate Schools" list themselves as trying to get "progressive" women elected.

[Reactionary]

Ah, liberals.

The believe in "progress" but don't believe that the values of liberal democracy are superior to those of Islam.

Max Weber lives on - with a hefty dose of Western imperialist egalitarianism.

[gonzo]

"...Yep -- it's sad that many people continue to take these movies as "reality" or a substitute for genuine history..."

You mean...you mean...Ahnold isn't really a TERMINATOR?

Better ask Davis about that one. How-the-hell have ya been, speedy? Happy New Year.............FRegards

[gonzo]

"...I have several photos of Julia Roberts in her natural state -- that is, no cosmetics. It is a frightening sight. She must buy her cosmetics in 55-gallon drums and apply them with a paint sprayer.

But it's her mouth that gets me. I have seen bigger mouths, but only at national parks like Carlsbad Caverns and Mammoth Cave. When she opens her mouth, I have to wonder how many bats fly in and roost for the night..."

Yup! I think ya nailed it, T'wit. Happy New Year..............FRegards

[bdeaner]

And on top of that, I hear the movie just plain sucks. Julia Roberts has to be the most overrated actor on the face of the planet.

[goldstategop]

A feminist friend wants to see this movie. Should I keep my lips sealed and humor her through a two hour ode to NOW's idea of the perfect womyn's paradise? Sorry, I do get ahead of myself here... ;-)

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Luckily, the movie-going public is hip to this over-ripened rehash of '70's feminism, and has stayed out of the theaters in droves.

Note that Roberts, great feminist icon, cast only plain to mildly-attractive women in this picture so she wouldn't be upstaged.

[Northern Yankee]

Where I live most women aspire to marry and have families. They see the fulfillment of their mothers and grandmothers. It never made any sense to me how movies could downgrade mothers and family life. Don't these writers have mothers?

It seems a silly question, but really isn't it the parents who offer the guidance and inspiration for their kids to succeed?

Are they not the movers and shakers that have devoted their lives in making sure their children become productive members of society?

[speedy]

Well shut my mouth, Gonzo. I guess there are a FEW films that reflect reality. I think we have seen that Ahnold really is The Terminator, and Julia Roberts seemed pretty much in her element as a hooker in "Pretty Woman." And I always believed in Francis the Talking Mule. Happy New Year to you too -- anyone who lives as close to Sponge-O-Rama as you do should be in a good mood most of the time. Freegards back at you.

[T Lady]

"...It never made any sense to me how movies could downgrade mothers and family life..."

That's simple: The writers in question probably attended college and graduate school, where they are taught that women who choose the home and family over a man-like career are actually oppressed and brainwashed victims of male domination. This has been the mantra of many a feminist for the last twenty-five or so years. From the time I came of age in the 1980s, the emphasis for women (in my generation) was to pursue a career (which I did, enlisting in the Navy back in 1982) and then, if you so chose to, settle down and raise a family. At least initially that included getting married- first. Sadly (although I have no regrets about serving this Great Nation we call America, mind you), I paid the price for buying into that logic in more ways than I care to admit; there are sometimes days in which I wish I had the last twenty-odd years to do over. But in the end, I thank the Lord for bringing me through them all. And my heart and prayers go out to anyone who is raising a child in this present day and age; the challenges the culture and society have placed before you! At least He is there right along side to keep you grounded and sane. Danielle Crittendon, the wife of author Bob Frum, sums this up rather succinctly in her book, "What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us." I highly recommend this for women between the ages of 35 and 43, since that is the generation which she addresses. In short, feminism is like playing the Lottery: You loose so much more than you gain.

-Regards, T.

[Lorianne]

"Another feminist propaganda movie hit the theaters during the Christmas season, proving again that the feminists are an unhappy bunch whose lifestyle leads to loneliness. "

A movie "proves" something?

Typical Schaffley illogic.