Every person on the face of the planet is an individual who is influenced by his or her culture, class, gender, and often race whether for better or for worse. As individuals we comprise cultural groups which behave as forces which shape individual beliefs, preferences, prejudices, and actions. All individuals and cultural groups are influenced by institutions such as schools, law enforcement and the judicial system, and businesses. There is a circular relationship between individuals, cultural groups, and institutions the aspects of the Vega Model. At times, these three structures may either work together or against each other. Often power struggles are prevalent between these aspects of the Vega Model. “Mona Lisa Smile,” “Dead Poets Society,” and “Crash,” are movies which encapsulate the inner workings of individuals, cultural groups, and institutions.
Katherine Watson in “Mona Lisa Smile” is an instructor who moves to New England from California. Her dream has always been to teach Art History at the prestigious, all female Wellesley College. She is an independent, unmarried teacher who has the ability to think for herself and encourages her students to do the same. The setting is 1953 post World War II. All of the students at Wellesley are white females from well to do families. Their culture involves snagging an up and coming successful husband while still attending school. Administrators, faculty, and board members turn a blind eye to the female students missing class and turning in late assignments after they marry. The female students at Wellesley use social pressure to cause other girls to conform to their traditions. Katherine Watson comes in as an individual and challenges this cultural group’s social norms and values. The values are backed up by the institution through enforcing curriculum standards that accommodate the lifestyle of the students as a cultural group.
The Essay on Cultural group
When someone belongs to a particular group, whether it’s an ethnic or cultural group, if he or she believes in it or acts and behaves according to the group’s standards, this is a definition for Cultural identity. It’s not a problem to have a cultural identity; rather, it is great to have one. However, when that person gets confused about which culture he or she should belongs to then it’s a ...
On the first day of class, Katherine is astonished and a bit dismayed when she opens up class with historical art slides and her students can name off the time period, artist, and subject of the art piece. Her students treat as if she is an inferior professor. In addition, Katherine is dealing with pressure from the administration. The administration tells her that they are unhappy with her dissertation regarding the equal value of Modern Art to Renaissance Art. The school is steeped in traditional teaching and believes strongly that Renaissance Art is far superior. In addition, a female, homosexual nurse, Annetta, lives in a boarding house with Katherine. She befriends her and tells her that the faculty, alumni, and their offspring have claws under their white gloves. Her advice is to not allow the students to know they bothered her with their actions.
Katherine adopts a tougher teaching approach with her students and doesn’t back down from them. She begins to see that the students read and regurgitate the material back to her. Her response to this is to begin to require more writing assignments. At first, Katherine is held in suspicion by the students for her lack of conformity and unorthodox teaching style. She deviates from the syllabus which rattles the traditions of the Wellesley students who always have the syllabus in advance. During this time period, Katherine begins to see the potential in a lot of her students. One student, Joan, has thought about law school. She doesn’t fill out the application because she wants to get married and doesn’t believe she can do both. Katherine picks up an application from Yale and gives it to Joan.
In the mean time, Katherine incites the rage of one student, Betty Warren. Betty believes in the sanctity of marriage, and believes it is a Wellesley’s girls right to marry as soon as possible and have children, so her traditions can be passed down. She believes women in the 1950’s need to reclaim their rightful place in the home. Betty feels that the need for women in the workforce ended with
Student Achievement Education Spending School
Equality in School Finance In The Story of the Education Dollar, Odden, Monk, Nakib and Picus describe some basic facts about education spending in the United States to facilitate an understanding of the level and uses of the federal government's policies on education funding. The purpose of the authors' discussion is to argue that public education facilities need to change their focus on the ...
World War II. Betty’s mother is an alumnus who is head over the board at Wellesley and wields a lot of power. Also, Betty writes for the school newspaper and uses it as a forum to keep the faculty “in their place.” On two separate occasions Betty shows that the pen is mightier than the sword by getting Annetta, the nurse, fired from the faculty for giving out contraception. Also, she gets angry at Katherine for confronting her about missing class and assignments, so she writes an article criticizing her for being “subversive towards the institution of marriage.” This action causes Katherine to react by showing slides of common household products geared towards housewives. She does this as an attempt to show the oppression of women, and challenges the students that this will be them if they don’t try to further their educational and career endeavors after marriage.
Katherine continues to teacher her students Modern Art. She challenges them to at least consider it as art even if they cannot appreciate it as such. She takes them to an art studio that has just received a work by Jackson Pollock who was a modern artist in the 1950’s. His work consisted of placing paint splotches on canvas. He was considered very controversial and some people still argue that his work really isn’t art.
Furthermore, Katherine gets involved with Bill a foreign language teacher on staff. It is a well known fact at the college that he had an affair with on of the students, Giselle. Katherine makes Bill promise that he will never get involved with another student again. Giselle is still pining away for Bill, so she makes several attempts to woo him back.
Both Betty and Joan get married. Betty has an elaborate wedding while Joan elopes. Joan’s fiancée lets Katherine know that Joan will not be going to Harvard because they are moving to Philadelphia. Katherine attempts to go to Joan’s house and tell her about all the schools offering law in Philadelphia. Joan informs Katherine she just eloped. Meanwhile, Betty discovers her husband is cheating and wants a divorce. Betty’s mother fights her on the divorce and tells her she must wait it out for one year. The families “decide” that Betty and her husband will stay married. In the end Betty decides to get the divorce and move to New York with Giselle.
The Essay on Characterization in John Steinbeck’s Flight
1. Sophistication- Sherwood Anderson 2. Big Two- Hearted River- Ernest Hemingway 3. Winter Dreams- F. Scott Fitzgerald 4. The Bear- William Faulkner 5. The Catbird Seat- James Thurber 6. The Jilting of Granny Weatherall- Katherine Anne Porter 7. The Devil and Daniel Webster- Stephen Vincent Benet 8. Flight- John Steinbeck 9. Winter Night- Kay Boyle 10. Another April- Jesse Stuart 11. A Worn Path- ...
The President of the college decides to invite Katherine back to teach the following year. However, she puts constraints on the invitation. She wants Katherine to agree to turn her syllabus in prior to the semester. Also, she tells Katherine she cannot be involved romantically with any member of the staff. Katherine decides to not accept the invitation, and decides to travel Europe. As she gets ready to leave her students all present her with paint by number paintings of Van Gogh so she can remember them. At the end the girls ride out on their bikes and follow her to the end of the road at the school. They tell her how much she has meant to them.
The main individual within the Vega Model in “Mona Lisa Smile” is Katherine Watson played by Julia Roberts. Katherine is an individual her uses her beliefs and personal style of teaching to exact change within her cultural group the students and the institution of Wellesley college. She attempts to go against the cultural norms and traditions since she doesn’t believe in them and feels they just hold her students back from their full potential. Throughout “Mona Lisa Smile” there is a tug of war to see who will be in control. All aspects of the Vega Model: Katherine the individual, the students as the cultural group, and Wellesley as the institution pull against one another for power and control. At times, one can witness the various parts working together. The cultural group of the students begins to come around to Katherine’s way of thinking. The institution of Wellesley works with the students to keep them happy by turning a blind eye when they get married and allowing them to cut class. Also, they cater to the students by making sure they have the syllabi early. “Mona Lisa Smile” shows that the Vega Model can move in any configuration of a circular pattern depending upon who is vying for power and who really ends up having the power in the end.
In addition, marriage plays a part as an institution, and the patriarchal rule of the “old boys’ network” is within both Betty and Joan’s marriages. The husbands hold the control over their lives and their futures. Even the wealthy parents are a cultural group which wielded a great deal of power and influence over their children’s lives as well as over the institution thereby gaining power over the individual.
The Essay on The Messiah Stones John Father Jerusalem
The main character in The Messiah Stones is John McGowan. He has a wife names Sarah, a son names Joshua who is eight years old, and Oliver who is six years old. His Dad left him when he was nine years old because he went to Jerusalem for an archeological dig and never saw him again after he left. Because of this he lived with his mother for his whole childhood. John is a family man who loves his ...
“Dead Poets Society” captures the struggle of the individual versus the institution within the Vega Model. John Keating is a poetry professor who comes to Wellton Academy to teach at his alma mater. Wellton Academy is an elite, all white, all male, preparatory school for the well to do. On the first day of class, John captures the attention of his students by taking them out into the hallway. He tells his students to look at the pictures of the alumni in the trophy cases. John points out the fact that someday everyone will die. He teaches them the phrase carpe diem, which is Latin for seize the day. He begins to whisper it in a ghostly voice behind the students as they look at the pictures of the students. The students dismiss this as being weird, yet different than any of their other teachers.
John continues to show his passion for poetry to his students. One day as they are reading the introduction of what poetry is, he instructs the students to tear this out their books. A faculty member walks in while John is in the back room and scolds the students for tearing out the pages. John tells his students that humans write poetry to express passion about several areas of life. He tells them that we exist to each contribute a verse to the powerful play of life. His challenge to his students is what verse will they be?
The students find an annual book dating back to when John was a student at Wellton. In the book they find the Dead Poets Society listed as one of his extra curricular activities. They ask John about the Dead Poets Society since it no longer exists. He tells them it was a Romantic group of people that would recite poetry like it was honey dripping from their tongues. John warns the students that the administrators would not be happy if they knew the students were aware of the Dead Poets Society. The students decide they are going to resurrect the group.
On a regular basis the students begin to sneak out to meet in a cave in the woods for the Dead Poets Society. They start their own rituals and at first they are just very light hearted with the whole thing and just have fun with it. As time goes on, the students begin to take John’s passion for poetry and life lessons to heart. They begin to think about what they truly want out of life and begin to show courage in achieving their goals.
The Term Paper on Mechanical man: John Broadus Watson and the beginnings of behaviorism
All through history, education and philosophy have come out as ever-evolving pieces of disciplines that are not only interlinked, but also drivers of each other. This is because; education involves the process of passing down information from one informant to another person who will receive it. The way the knowledge or piece of information by the recipient or learner and the informant or teacher, ...
John uses several teaching methods to instill enthusiasm in his students. He takes the students outside and has them play ball while reading poetry verses to music. Also, he has the boys march to prove that conformity is a bad thing. Mr. Nolan expresses to John that the boys need discipline and conformity at their age.
One student has a crush on a girl that is dating a friend of the family. He becomes emboldened by the phrase carpe diem and does everything in his power to attract her. She eventually gives in to his advances with reluctance, but he wins her over with his enthusiasm and passion.
Another student, Todd, is very shy and never has much to say. He feels like people don’t really listen to him. He struggles with writing a poem for class to the point that he ends up not writing anything. John brings him in front of the class. He has him give a primitive yell. Then, he has Todd look at a picture of Walt Whitman and describe what he sees. After this he has Todd close his eyes and tell him what he sees now. Through this activity he gets Todd to speak loudly and string together thoughts that become a poem. He tells Todd he knows that he doesn’t believe in himself, but he believes there is something great on the inside of him.
Neil becomes inspired to become an actor. His father has made many sacrifices to send him to Wellton and he insists that Neil is going to be a doctor. Neil has always been the dutiful son, and never challenges his father’s wishes. When Neil tries out for the part in a local play, he gets the lead role. He forges a letter of permission from his father. His father finds out about the letter and comes to confront Neil. Neil’s father insists that he drop the play altogether and he reluctantly agrees. Neil goes to talk to John about the play and how important acting is to him. John advises Neil to show his Dad his passion for acting. Neil goes to talk to his father the next day and his father reluctantly agrees to let him stay involved. He gives a winning performance and at the end he discovers his father is in the back of the theatre. His father tells him he is pulling him out of Wellton and he will be attending military school and will attend Harvard for medical school. Neil becomes so distraught with the situation that he gets the key to his father’s gun cabinet, pulls out his father’s gun, and shoots himself to death.
The Term Paper on Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Every piece of literature created is influenced by the time in which it was written. A particular text is a reflection of the era or period in which it was born. An author is contained within a specific time in history, and his writing becomes the result of the social, economic or political milieu of that time. This is the reason why it is extremely important for a reader to determine the context ...
Mr. Nolan announces that there will be an investigation to see what truly happened to Neil. He urges the students to come forward if they know anything. His threat is that there will be consequences if he finds out who knows something and they don’t come forward. One of the boys admits to being a part of the Dead Poets Society. He puts the blame on John, and the administration uses him as a scapegoat. The students note that schools need to have a scapegoat for these situations to keep them intact.
John is let go because each of the boys were forced to sign a document that placed the blame squarely upon him. As he is gathering his things to leave the school, Todd stands up and absolves John of the guilt. He tells John they were forced to sign the document. Todd along with the other students stood up on their desks and said “Captain my Captain,” which was a quote that John used with them often. They stood on their desks saluting him as he left and the administrator screamed at them to get down. The boys continued to stand and ignored Mr. Nolan.
As in “Mona Lisa Smile,” John is the individual teacher who butts heads with the administration of Wellton Academy the institution. John like Katherine has a very unorthodox teaching style, which is held suspect because both schools are very elite and traditional. The students as the cultural group move from being an advocate for John because of his rich style of teaching, then move away from him to pointing the finger to save themselves, and then back to extolling him for being a wonderful teacher. “Dead Poets Society” does an excellent job of showing how the three parts of the Vega Model: individual, cultural group, and institution often move from being allies to enemies and then back to allies again. Like Mona Lisa smile John is a victim of the institution and he is even more so than Katherine. The common threads between these movies are the struggle of the individual against the institution. Both movies show the cultural group of the students to be moving anywhere along the spectrum from being allies to enemies then back to allies again.
“Crash” is a movie that centers around the theme of racial prejudice and the misunderstanding and misgivings it causes between people on a daily basis. The story centers around a car crash in the beginning. Graham is the main cop that is shown getting into a car crash in the beginning of the movie. His statement is that in other areas of the world people brush up against one another, however in L.A. people crash because they are missing the human touch. Throughout the movie, several stories are taking place at the same time, which eventually leads into many characters being intertwined.
The movie flashes back to the previous day before the crash and shows a Persian man and his daughter arguing with a gun clerk over the purchase of a gun. The owner begins to make fun of the Persian man and launches racial slurs against him. The Persian man is escorted out of the store by a security guard. The owner of the store believes that the man is Arabic instead of Persian and accuses him of being a terrorist. Eventually, the Persian man’s daughter convinces the owner to give her the gun and they leave. They were purchasing the gun to protect their store.
Two young African American men walk out of a restaurant. One of the men is discussing how he feels that he was discriminated against at the restaurant. The other man asks him how can that be since their waitress was African American? Then, the man discusses the fact that even black women have stereotypes for young black males as being lazy and they don’t tip well. The other guy laughs at him and implies that he is feeding into the stereotype by not tipping well.
Then, a well to do white couple walks past the African American males. The man happens to be the District Attorney of Los Angeles. The African American male comments to his friend that the women gave him a discriminatory look, and they should be the ones who feel scared in an all white neighborhood. The two males car jack the District Attorney and his wife.
After the car jacking the district attorney and his wife have an argument at home. The argument is laced with many racial slurs on the part of the wife. She feels they have been wronged because they were white and the males were black. Also, she is suspect of the locksmith who installed new locks on their house. She insists that she will want the locks changed again in the morning. The locksmith who is Hispanic hears her racial slur about him looking like he has prison tattoos. When he gets home his daughter is hiding under the bed. She tells him that she is afraid of bullets. The locksmith tells his daughter that he is giving her a magic cloak to put on for protection.
An African American couple is riding in an SUV down a main highway. The one cop in the police car behind them thinks the woman in the car was performing a lewd act on the man in the car. She had dropped her lipstick and was trying to pick it up. The cop pulls them over and uses excessive force on the man. He proceeds to molest the man’s wife and touch her in an inappropriate manner in front of her husband. The husband feeling powerless apologizes to the cop so he will let them go. This causes an argument between the husband and wife. She feels he didn’t try hard enough to protect her. The younger cop feels the older cop behaved wrongly towards the couple. The younger cop tries to tell the chief of police, who is also African American, that he will not put his career on the line for a noble cause. The younger cop requests to be moved. The chief refuses to move him. He explains that it wouldn’t take much for him to be taken out of his position by people above him, and says he will only move the young cop if he says that he is having a problem with flatulence.
The locksmith goes to the Persian man’s store to fix his lock. He discovers that the lock is not the problem, but the man needs a new door. He advises the man he needs to get a new door. The store owner becomes irate and refuses to pay the locksmith. The locksmith throws the invoice into the garbage and leaves. Shortly after this the store gets broken into. The Persian man is furious with the locksmith when he finds out his insurance will not cover the locksmith due to records kept by the locksmith. He finds the address of the locksmith on the receipt and hunts him down for revenge. When he gets to his house he waits in the car for him to arrive home. The Persian man approaches the locksmith with a gun. Just as he does this the locksmith’s daughter comes running out and jumps into the arms of her dad as the Persian man shoots the fun. The gun goes off but nothing hits the little girl. Later the Persian man extols her as an angel that saved him.
Meanwhile, the two African American males run over a Chinese man. He gets hung up under the SUV they just stole. They take him to an emergency room and dump him outside of the hospital. Eventually one of the young African American males car jack the man whose wife got molested by the cop. Their chase ends with the young cop telling the black man whose wife was molested to put his hands up. The man is bold this time with the cops. The young cop steps in and tells him you don’t want to do this and he tried to protect the man this time, which he does successfully.
Meanwhile, they woman who was molested by the cop gets into a near fatal car crash. Her vehicle is flipped upside down and she is lodged inside. The first cop to arrive on the scent is the one who molested her. She begins to scream, cry, and fight against him. He assures her that he will not hurt her this time and he makes every effort to get her out.
Then, the young cop is told by the crooked cop that after he has been on the force for a few years he will see what’s really on the inside of him. Later that night the young cop comes across one of the African American males who is hitch hiking. They make small talk with each other. The young cop gets upset when the African American male laughs. He was laughing because the cop had a Buddha on his dash and he had one in his pocket. As they guy reaches in his pocket to show the cop he has a Buddha too, the cop shoots him thinking he has a gun. The young cop dumps his body alongside the road and sets his car on fire.
Throughout “Crash” there are several stories going on simultaneously which have a common cultural theme, racism. Each person who feels discriminated against is the individual. The institutions represented are the police force and the judicial system. Due to a lack of understanding between the cultural groups, the individual is left feeling isolated and misunderstood. This leads to a series of violent events that all stemmed from racism. “Crash” did an excellent job of displaying all three characteristics of the Vega Model: the individual, the cultural group, and the institution. The police force was corrupt in its dealing with the public due to the individual prejudices of those who held power within the institution. All of the situations could have been avoided had people given each other the benefit of the doubt.
Although “Crash” didn’t bring into play the element of education, it is very useful in conveying the need for racial acceptance. “Mona Lisa Smile” and “Dead Poets Society” both show the power of schools as institutions and the consequences of challenging the cultural norms of the cultural groups within these institutions. All of the movies caused me to consider my position as a teacher. I want to still be an idealistic teacher who is enough of a realist to keep my feet on the ground. Also, the movies caused me to better understand the inner workings of the Vega Model and how each component can change on a continual basis.
Bibliography
Haggis, Paul (Writer and Director).
(2004).
Crash. [Film]. United States and Germany: Bull’s Eye
Entertainment.
Konner, Lawrence (Writer) and Mark Rosenthal (Writer) and Mike Newell (Director).
(2003).
Mona
Lisa Smile. [Film]. United States: Columbia Pictures Corporation.
Schulman, Tom (Writer) and Weir, Peter (Director).
(1989).
Dead Poets Society. [Film]. United States:
Touchstone Pictures.
