http://chronicle.com/daily/2004/01/2004011403n.htm
Wellesley's President Isn't Smiling Over College's Portrayal in Film
By SARA LIPKA
The president of Wellesley College, Diana Chapman Walsh, issued a statement last week to "set the record straight" about the movie Mona Lisa Smile, a fictional account of women's lives at Wellesley in the early 1950s. Ms. Walsh, a 1966 graduate of the college, said she wanted to respond "as soon as possible" to what she called "the distorted and demeaning portrayal of our alma mater in the film."
She added in an e-mail message on Tuesday that letters from concerned alumnae had prompted her response.
Mona Lisa Smile, which was released last month by Columbia Pictures and Revolution Studios, depicts an arch-traditional Wellesley shaken up by a free-spirited art-history professor from California (played by Julia Roberts) who encourages students to reject conformity in any form and pursue careers rather than settle down as housewives. Colleagues advise the new professor that the trick to surviving Wellesley is to go unnoticed, as too much independence frightens administrators, who she is told have claws under their gloves.
Some people on the campus have fantasized about suing for libel, Ms. Walsh said in her statement, released on Friday, but Wellesley College's name is in the public domain and its use could not have been prevented, she said. Though the movie's writers, both men, conducted archival research at Wellesley, they did not solicit editorial or artistic counsel from the college.
Wellesley administrators read and discussed an early version of the script, one that Ms. Walsh said emphasized students' intelligence and their close relationships with faculty advisers, before granting permission to Revolution Studios to film on the campus. But the movie, "to a far greater extent than the screenplay we originally read, characterizes the college as rigid and hidebound and the students as rich and spoiled," Ms. Walsh said. Wellesley College supports those alumnae who speak out to correct the distortions in Mona Lisa Smile, she said.
A spokeswoman for Revolution Studios seemed concerned by Wellesley's position. "We did not set out to make a documentary," the spokeswoman, who asked not to be identified, said on Tuesday. "We sought to take a snapshot of a time more than an institution and to illuminate the lack of choice available to most women in the country at that time. ... Everyone associated with Mona Lisa Smile is proud that the film has renewed the discussion for many women of how difficult the balance of career and family can be."
Ms. Walsh acknowledged in her statement that the film "does attempt to raise genuine questions about women's life choices," and "is unlikely to do us any lasting harm." She noted that the number of applications for admission is higher than usual this year.
Discussion of the film will continue at Wellesley, she said, on the campus, on an online message board for alumnae, in a special feature in the next issue of the alumnae magazine, and in a series of programs planned for the spring. One of those programs will take place at the 50th reunion of the class of 1954, the fictional members of which graduate at the end of the film.
Copyright © 2004 by The Chronicle of Higher Education
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