Julia Does Wellesley
IMBER, JONATHAN B.
Julia Does Wellesley Hollywood meets higher ed. BY JONATHAN B. IMBER For most of the 1990s, the "Hillary Factor" helped boost recruitment of students at Wellesley College, alma mater of the...
...The excitement was pervasive...
...Just last week, in a letter to the campus newspaper that dripped with contempt for Roberts's "contribution to the cinematic art," a professor voiced the anguished question: "Does Wellesley rank high because its graduates get soul-destroying but high-paying jobs or because it teaches them soul-making's use-value against the allure of high paying sell-outs and space-polluting robocars...
...and the Office for Public Information worked overtime to keep campus and outside world abreast of the sometimes confusing responsibilities of hosting a giant movie production in a sensitive environment...
...librarians scoured the archives for information about the authentic Wellesley of fifty years ago...
...On campus, at least, the commotion is teaching history, bringing students to realize how different things are from what they were fifty years ago, even if the assumption in the air is that the change was wrought less by the civil rights revolution and the globalization of American higher education than by two decades' multicultural mantras and the attendant ideology of so-called diversity...
...Notice of the impending arrival of Roberts and company touched off a ruckus that still has not subsided...
...Central casting, meanwhile, has done its part to recruit present-day Wellesley students suitable for portraying their counterparts in the era of girdles and curls...
...The faculty almost to a person are liberal Democrats, if not Naderite greens (or, worse, people like the professor who pines for the day when an "African-American anarcho-feminist director" can make a film on campus...
...Impeachment may have dampened the appeal, but not for long: Last year at the gala celebration of the college's 125th anniversary, Hillary (1969) and Madeleine Albright (1959) were the stars...
...Not everyone was amused...
...Students lined up for an entire day, and many of them made the cut...
...Do we think all students are so blind and busy as not to see through the farce...
...Women who were cast were described as "privileged," while those who were not— some of whom got to work behind the scenes—were reminded of their "marginal status...
...Wouldn't it be nice if the Julia Factor turned out to be the flourish that ushered in a new determination among Wellesley women not to be typecast by political sentiment any more than by figure or face...
...Because the casting crew wanted only women who looked the part of 1953 Wellesley girls, some voices alleged discrimination against those who didn't fit the profile...
...Campus police posted detailed bulletins daily about where faculty and staff could park...
...I say "so-called diversity" because, while the student body of 2002 is less than half white, political diversity remains unknown among the teaching corps...
...He is editor-in-chief of Society...
...In Jonathan B. Imber is Class of 1949 Professor in Ethics and Professor of Sociology at Welles-ley College...
...late September and early October, the filming of Mona Lisa Smile began on Wellesley's lovely campus...
...A demand was heard for a disclaimer to appear at the beginning of the film, to wit: What you are about to see bears no resemblance to the Wellesley College of today...
...The screenplay, which some liken to Dead Poets Society, has Julia Roberts arriving at Wellesley in 1953 to teach art history, and recounts the coming of age of several students...
...Roberts herself exudes both femininity and confidence, a kind of post-feminist feminism that even allows for humor...
...Yet political celebrity now stands to be eclipsed by Hollywood glamour...
...BY JONATHAN B. IMBER For most of the 1990s, the "Hillary Factor" helped boost recruitment of students at Wellesley College, alma mater of the high-achieving first lady...
...Some found fault with the whole concept of allowing Hollywood to ravish Welles-ley: The school was being co-opted, and it was giving in to commercialism and grubbing for "Julia-dollars" while underpaying its own support staff...
...So did some faculty members young enough to pass as students...
...A challenge facing Roberts, co-producer of the film, is to avoid putting 1960s feminism into 1950s heads...
...There was a minor explosion of postings on the campus electronic conference system...
...One way of looking at the change, of course, is to see it as a cause for satisfaction—even to imagine that Julia Roberts's gift to Wellesley might be that when her film arrives in movie theaters around the globe, the college will be celebrated for how far it has come...
...For those less versed in the politics of oppression, there was outrage at the simpler level of the politics of representation: The college was conspiring in the crass stereotyping of Wellesley women...
Vol. 8 • October 2002 • No. 7
