“Mona Lisa Smile” was one of the few films I’ve seen get an “O - Morally offensive” rating from the US bishops’ film reviewers. And they’re a pretty lenient bunch. Phyllis Schlafly tells us why.
Proclaimed by CBS-TV as “the best picture of the year by far,” “Mona Lisa Smile” is a sanctimonious feminist homily preaching salvation through modern art and making one’s own career choices just so long as 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.
The US bishops’ film reviewer said his rating was for the movie’s depiction of family life and motherhood as burdens and tantamount to slavery for women. Ironically, the movie itself shows the bankruptcy of the feminist position, as my sister, who saw the movie, tells me. The feminist professor, played by Julia Roberts, ends up alone and abandoned by another boyfriend. Her designated protege abandons her potentially glorious career as a lawyer in order to marry and raise a family. But of course, we’re supposed to see that as a bad thing, since we see another of the students get married and then discover her husband cheating on her, to which her mother scolds her to overlook.
The problem with most radical feminists, like most liberals, is that they’re not content with extolling their own idealized lives, but must run down other people’s choices. It’s not enough for them to trumpet their success in business and politics, but they must also denigrate motherhood and being a homemaker. That’s the only way they can really feel good about what they’ve given up, I guess.
