100 Kick-Ass Female Characters:#36
36. Joan Brandwyn, as seen in the film Mona Lisa Smile, portrayed by Julia Stiles
I'm aware I'm one of the few people who really loves this movie (though, really, how can you not love a movie where Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhal, and Ginnifer Goodwin are in the cast?) But what I love most about this movie is that, as a high school student, it made me furious, but, only as I have gotten older, did I realize how much it made me think.
Mona Lisa Smile aspires to be a female Dead Poet's Society, and it never quite succeeds. Basically, a young, hip art history professor (Julia Roberts) comes to Wellesley in the early 60s to teach and shakes up the system, which is that the best and brightest female minds graduate only to become housewives. Throughout the film Julia Roberts's character becomes progressively more angered by the establishment and what she sees as women "wasting" themselves. The four main female students (Betty, Joan, Giselle, and Connie) are essentially archetypes: Betty is the one who aspires to be the perfect wife and drops out to marry, Joan is the secretly brilliant one torn betwen duty and what she wants, Giselle is the promiscuous one who doesn't much care for tradition, and Connie is the chubby one who just wants to find love. But Joan's storyline is the one which I find most compelling.
Joan is the smartest in her class. She's engaged to a wonderful boyfriend (Topher Grace) who is going to Penn in the fall for school. Joan wants to go to law school and, with encouragement, she applies to Yale for one of the 5 spots they hold for female applicants. Katherine (the professor) is horrified to discover that Joan got into Yale but is not going so she can move with her husband (whom she eloped with) to Philadelphia, reasoning that she wants to be with him and that is more important to her than Yale and law school.
Needless to say, at 17 (and even through college) the logic of this absolutely blew my mind. I couldn't imagine why you would give up accomplishing something of your own just so you could follow your husband and be a housewife. Now, I don't mean to insult housewives here because God knows it's hard work I could never do, but, at 17, I (embarrassingly) always thought that being a housewife was something you did when you didn't have other options. The vast majority of women in my family are housewives, and, at the risk of sounding like a total bitch, most of them became housewives because 1) they accidentally got pregnant and had to get married, 2) they had no desire to further their education (if they even finished high school), or 3) their husbands don't want them to work so they don't have to pay for childcare. Now, at 26, I certainly understand the prohibitive costs of childcare which make it necessary to stay home, but I still don't fully understand my aunts/cousins who stay home and define themselves only by their family. It's almost as if they don't have wants/needs/desires of their own, and, if they do, they certainly never voice them because their children and husband always come first.
Okay, so maybe I don't wholly understand it.
But what Joan's story arc emphasizes is a part of feminism which I don't think gets explored/discussed enough: Feminism is essentially about choice. Yes, I should be able to earn the same amount of money as men, I should be treated the same as a man, but if I choose not to enter the workforce, if I choose to be a housewife, that's a valid choice too. It might not be one which is understood by everyone and some women will tear you down for it, but it's a choice. So often in the world (and in Joan's line especially) Katherine judges her harshly for a choice she views as being dictated by her husband, as "throwing away her life," but that isn't Joan at all; Joan made her choice because she wanted to make it, and it deserves the same respect as any other choice.
Feminism doesn't have to look the same for everyone, and Joan demonstrates that, which is uniquely kick-ass.
I'm aware I'm one of the few people who really loves this movie (though, really, how can you not love a movie where Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhal, and Ginnifer Goodwin are in the cast?) But what I love most about this movie is that, as a high school student, it made me furious, but, only as I have gotten older, did I realize how much it made me think.
Mona Lisa Smile aspires to be a female Dead Poet's Society, and it never quite succeeds. Basically, a young, hip art history professor (Julia Roberts) comes to Wellesley in the early 60s to teach and shakes up the system, which is that the best and brightest female minds graduate only to become housewives. Throughout the film Julia Roberts's character becomes progressively more angered by the establishment and what she sees as women "wasting" themselves. The four main female students (Betty, Joan, Giselle, and Connie) are essentially archetypes: Betty is the one who aspires to be the perfect wife and drops out to marry, Joan is the secretly brilliant one torn betwen duty and what she wants, Giselle is the promiscuous one who doesn't much care for tradition, and Connie is the chubby one who just wants to find love. But Joan's storyline is the one which I find most compelling.
Joan is the smartest in her class. She's engaged to a wonderful boyfriend (Topher Grace) who is going to Penn in the fall for school. Joan wants to go to law school and, with encouragement, she applies to Yale for one of the 5 spots they hold for female applicants. Katherine (the professor) is horrified to discover that Joan got into Yale but is not going so she can move with her husband (whom she eloped with) to Philadelphia, reasoning that she wants to be with him and that is more important to her than Yale and law school.
Needless to say, at 17 (and even through college) the logic of this absolutely blew my mind. I couldn't imagine why you would give up accomplishing something of your own just so you could follow your husband and be a housewife. Now, I don't mean to insult housewives here because God knows it's hard work I could never do, but, at 17, I (embarrassingly) always thought that being a housewife was something you did when you didn't have other options. The vast majority of women in my family are housewives, and, at the risk of sounding like a total bitch, most of them became housewives because 1) they accidentally got pregnant and had to get married, 2) they had no desire to further their education (if they even finished high school), or 3) their husbands don't want them to work so they don't have to pay for childcare. Now, at 26, I certainly understand the prohibitive costs of childcare which make it necessary to stay home, but I still don't fully understand my aunts/cousins who stay home and define themselves only by their family. It's almost as if they don't have wants/needs/desires of their own, and, if they do, they certainly never voice them because their children and husband always come first.
Okay, so maybe I don't wholly understand it.
But what Joan's story arc emphasizes is a part of feminism which I don't think gets explored/discussed enough: Feminism is essentially about choice. Yes, I should be able to earn the same amount of money as men, I should be treated the same as a man, but if I choose not to enter the workforce, if I choose to be a housewife, that's a valid choice too. It might not be one which is understood by everyone and some women will tear you down for it, but it's a choice. So often in the world (and in Joan's line especially) Katherine judges her harshly for a choice she views as being dictated by her husband, as "throwing away her life," but that isn't Joan at all; Joan made her choice because she wanted to make it, and it deserves the same respect as any other choice.
Feminism doesn't have to look the same for everyone, and Joan demonstrates that, which is uniquely kick-ass.