Introduction

Cinema is a medium for narrating tales and representing reality. Thomas Elsaesser and Warren Buckland in Studying Contemporary American Film consider cinema “an extraordinary entertainment medium, a superb story-telling machine, it also imparts a kind of presence and immediacy to the world unparalleled elsewhere” (Elzaesser and Buckland, 2003, p.12). According to Elsaesser and Buckland, cinema acts as a magical mirror that can replace and distract its audience from a real-world to a virtual one. It is a spectacle that can make the audience think, reflect, and act instantly. However, for cinephiles cinema is more than an art, it is their life and passion.

The Mona Lisa Smile and Dead Poets Society were two Hollywood films that thrilled audiences across the globe. The objectives of these films appear to be more than just business and entertainment. Such films can even be considered as representations of history. The two films can be termed ‘Period’ films that discussed social, political, and economic aspects involved in the higher education principles of the United States of America during the 1950s.

Education is considered one of the primary rights of a citizen in almost all democratic nations. It is believed to serve two purposes; it can arm us against possible dangers in life and at the same time help individuals make wise decisions at crucial points of their lives. However, the right kind of education is still a debatable topic in the field of academics.

American people describe America of the 1950s as a period that saw a crusade against subversion. People were expected to remain loyal to the capitalist ideologies propagated by the authorities and anyone who refused the popular beliefs of the time was monitored and their names appeared on the “blacklist” (Brinkley, 2009, p.718). Thus policing was visible in all spheres of life, social, domestic, entertainment, education, literature, and politics. The political agenda that existed in America began to affect other domains of life too, especially education. There are several narratives based on America and its educational strategies during the Cold War period. Some favoured the new educational policies implemented by the American government while others questioned the integrity of such educational strategies. Dead Poets Society (1989) and Mona Lisa Smile (2003) are two Hollywood films based on American education of the 1950s.

Mona Lisa Smile, directed by Mike Newell, was released in 2003 by Revolution Studios and Columbia Pictures along with Red Om Productions. Mike Newell is an acclaimed director known for movies like Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) and Four Weddings and A Funeral (1994). Mona Lisa Smile (2003) is a movie set in 1950s America, soon after the World Wars, during the period of the Cold War. It pictures the tale of a group of girls and their instructor Katherine Watson enacted by Julia Roberts, an American actress who established her position in Hollywood with Pretty Woman (1990). The lead character Katherine in Mona Lisa Smile, is the newly appointed Art History Professor at Wellesley College for women. Roberts’ performance as Katherine Watson is remarkable and quite realistic so that as viewers we often relate to her character and her thoughts. The instructor Katherine is seen inspiring her students to learn art from a different perspective. Watson is an instructor who educated her students to commence on a journey of challenging their minds so that they could have a different understanding of life.

Rachel Roberts in her review of Mona Lisa Smile in the Film Education explains the theme of the film thus: “The freedom that Katherine gives her students is the chance to break out of the expected template that the girls have for their lives” (Roberts, 2004, p.7).

Dead Poets Society released in 1989 also tells the tale of 1950s American preparatory school students. The film was directed by the legendary directors Peter Weir and Robin Williams, the veteran American actor, and comedian played the lead role of the English teacher named John Keating. The film is set in 1959 America, in a fictional boarding school named Welton Academy. Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke, Dykan Kussman, and Kevin Cooney who are popular American actors, established their careers through this film. Dead Poets Society tells the tale of a group of teenage boys in a boys’ boarding school which is elite and conservative, remarks Syndey Purpora in The Spectator. The paper observes the two films selected as representations of higher education in the United States of America during the ‘Fifties’. The paper proposes the argument that the education presented in the two films deterritorializes the learners to a different state of being and that the rhizomatic learning ambiance helped the learners to reterritorialize themselves to a new state that allows them to explore more about themselves.

Literature review

Films about education have always been fascinating and captivating. Numerous Hollywood documentaries and films about education portray education as a crucial facet of our existence. When we watch movies about teaching, and learning, as an audience we limit our focus to drama and emotion. Nonetheless, these films convey crucial messages to the audience regarding the purpose of education.

The story of a mathematical genius named Will Hunting and his therapist Dr Sean was portrayed in the 1997 American film Good Will Hunting. Dr Sean, enacted by the veteran actor, and comedian Robin Williams. Dr Sean is more of a mentor than a therapist for Hunting. Dr. Sean helps Hunting by encouraging him to explore the beauty of life and thus overcome his trauma. In the American film Freedom Writers (2007), Erin Gruwell, a teacher, enrolls at Woodrow Wilson High School. The movie is set in California in 1994. The racism-fueled rivalry among Erin’s students makes it challenging for her to oversee their behavior. However, the movie ends with her students becoming individuals with broad perspectives about life. The 1997 American film Tuesdays with Morrie is based on Mitch Albom’s memoir Tuesdays with Morrie. The movie featured Albom’s reunion with his elderly, sick professor, Morrie Schwartz. The weekly visits of Albom to meet his dying Professor transform him altogether as he is made to reflect his actions. Albom learns more about life and learns several affective values from his discussions with Morrie.

“The Nietzschean Free Spirit in Dead Poets Society and Harold and Maude” is an article written in 2009 by William C Pamerleau which identified Nietzsche’s free spirit in the films Dead Poets Society (1989) and Harold and Maude (1971).“O Captain, My Captain! Robin Williams and Transformative Learning in Dead Poets Society, Good Will Hunting and Patch Adams” is an article by Penny Spirou written in 2016 that explores the films as visual texts that discussed teacher student relationship, questioned established educational practices and understood education as a transformative process. Eugene W Holland in Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus: A Reader’s Guide (2013) provides an introduction to Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus. Holland concisely provides an overview and explanation of the terminologies to ease the complexity of the text. “Rhizomatic Writing and Pedagogy” by Chloe Humphreys discusses a new philosophy of education inspired by Deleuze and Guatarri’s idea of rhizome and Heidegger’s idea of the unknown. Humphreys notes that according to Deleuze and Guattari, the process of rhizomatic learning is similar to the process of learning swimming; the learners need to deterritorialize their bodies from the present state to learn swimming. It’s a kind of learning that transports us beyond our familiar surroundings, akin to discovering our inner selves. According to Humphreys, it’s a kind of instruction that lets both teachers and students explore new territory.

Numerous film reviewers and enthusiasts have conducted scholarly analyses of the various forms of teaching that have been depicted in movies. Using the term “deterritorialization”, which was made popular by Deleuze and Guattari, this research paper looks at the movies Mona Lisa Smile (2003) and Dead Poets Society (1989) as examples of an educational approach that involved teaching concepts that helped the students in the movie change into individuals with a different perspective on life. This research paper also attempts to analyse the changes in the students in Mona Lisa Smile and Dead Poets Society as they get transformed into a new state of self through the deterritorialization of ideas in a rhizomatic learning environment.

Methodology

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, the post-modern philosophers, provided their writings with an open-ended structure, unlike traditional theoretical writings. Charles J. Stivale in the Introduction to Gilles Deleuze: Key Concepts describes Deleuze’s works and concepts as a product of friendship. It is his association with Felix Guattari that resulted in the production of texts like Capitalism and Schizophrenia. The philosophical thoughts of Deleuze and the psychological insights of Guattari became the source of their texts. To explain their philosophical analysis of social space and human subjectivity they invented terms like territorialization, deterritorialization, and reterritorialization. A Thousand Plateaus was written by Deleuze and Guattari as the second volume of Capitalism and Schizophrenia published in 1972. Eugene W Holland describes their association thus “extraordinarily fertile collaboration that produced some of the most astonishing and important works of philosophy in the 20th century” (Holland, 2013, p. 2).

Deleuze and Guattari described their philosophy of life using the metaphor of rhizome. Territorialization, deterritorialization, and reterritorialization are terms that initiate Deleuze and Guattari’s discussion of the rhizome. According to Deleuze and Guattari, making new connections and existing in heterogeneity form the initial steps of becoming rhizomes. Deleuze and Guattari described a rhizome as cartographic and heterogenous and hence find its way to grow independently without following any particular pattern and that too in a non-hierarchical manner. Hence rhizomatic approach guarantees and encourages changes in society which is a crucial aspect for progress. The kind of education filmed in Dead Poets Society and Mona Lisa Smile confers such status for learners to develop, change, and establish individual spaces to explore by deterritorializing the learners from rigid educational practices. The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms explains the features of rhizome thus:

[I]it does not follow established narrative principles, it does not proceed ineluctably along pre-established lines towards predetermined goals. Instead, it proceeds by way of leaps between different, seemingly incommensurable, parts of the system; it is chaotic and metamorphic, forging temporary … as new pathways are mapped and new connections forged (2006, p.206).

In A Thousand Plateaus, while describing their philosophy of rhizome, Deleuze and Guattari discussed a dynamic approach to thinking through deterritorialization and destratification. Deterritorialization in the philosophical context can be delineated as a shift from one existing territory or line of thought to another. They encouraged individuals to explore new lines of thought and map new territories of action. Rhizomatic learning is a democratic way of learning, a method in which the learner is helped to deterritorialize the boundaries created by society, culture, curriculum, family, institutions, and power. This idea is filmed perfectly in Mona Lisa Smile and Dead Poets Society. This research paper attempts to look at these films as representations of an education that insists a rejection of rigid learning techniques and constant learning outcomes. The paper also examines the scenes in the films that pictured an education that encouraged the learners to seek their identity beyond what was drawn for them. This study, using the concept of deterritorialization reinvestigates the rigidities that existed in the higher educational principles in the United States during the ‘Fifties’. In the films Mona Lisa Smile (2003) and Dead Poets Society (1989), we can observe the students deterritorializing themselves from their existing templates of thought by rethinking the subjects they wanted to learn and the profession they wanted to pursue.

Deterritorialization

The term territorialization can be described as the process in which social, cultural, and political networks of power define spaces and bodies. Deterritorialization and reterritorialization are associated terms that refer to the processes in which ideas and concepts are erased and reconstructed in social spaces (Stivale, 2005, p.122). Deterritorialization is thus the dissolution of social, cultural, political, and economic boundaries that determine human subjectivity. The concept of deterritorialization might appear revolutionary for staunch believers of conformity and discipline but in reality, it is neither revolutionary nor deviant, it is very organic; a process of natural transformation. However, our society is prejudiced over concepts like right and wrong hence the idea of deterritorialization might appear subversive. Deterritorialization is a change from all sorts of concretizations in social, cultural, and political aspects. It refers to an escape from the metaphorical boundaries created by the existing social structures.

Deterritorialization as a process results in the subject’s transformation of a particular plane of thought to another. Deleuze and Guattari used this term to explain the process of shifting ideologically from one concept to another. They used the term to refer to the fluid dissipated schizophrenic nature of human subjectivity. Deterritorialization is followed by reterritorialization. The two processes are inevitable in our lives because they ensure the endless process of signification. Deleuze and Guattari thus initiated the need to abandon conventional ways of looking at human subjectivity as a unified whole. Deterritorialization is a process of transformation that results in the undoing of several things practiced and learned. They used the term to refer to the emancipation of selves to a “schizophrenic” (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, p.173) space from a pre-organized territory. Deterritorialization of rigid ideals begets heterogeneity of thoughts and the realization of the interconnected nature of life.

Mona Lisa Smile and Dead Poets Society

Dead Poets Society (1989) is an American film that addresses the story of a group of teenage boys of the ‘Fifties’ who studied in a prestigious all male preparatory school in America named Welton Academy. The four keywords that resonated in Welton were Tradition, Honour, Discipline, and Excellence. Anyone who did not succumb to the four principles of the institution was watched over. John Keating, the English teacher attempted to lead his students to see life differently. He urges his students to be original and creative and thereby enjoy the freedom of life. His first lecture with his students leaves the students shocked because they were not used to a class outside classrooms and textbooks. Keating encourages his students to seize the day and he whispers carpe diem to them. The boys were left in awe because they were only used to scholarly lectures that prepared them to learn and do well in exams. For the first time, they get exposed to an alternative mode of teaching. Keating’s intention was, however, to educate his students with the reality that textbooks can sometimes limit one’s potential. His lectures were mostly about thinking independently and developing one’s skills beyond what is predetermined by society and culture. The movie is set in 1959, a time when there was societal stress on individuals to take up science subjects. This societal stress was partly political since the American government wanted to prove that they were the best in Science and Astronomy. There is, in fact, a lecture by Keating regarding this aspect where he teaches his students about the need to consider Arts and Humanities too as essential subjects in our lives: “…We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. … Medicine, law, business, engineering: these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry beauty romance love –these are what we stay alive for” (Weir, 1989, 0:25:39-0:26:00). This rising interest in Science was the result of the Cold War with Russia; the United States of America wanted to prove that they were competent in scientific discoveries and space expeditions. American government feared that Communism might break out in America and hence the government developed conservative policies to be implemented in all walks of life. The phrase Red Scare developed during this decade and was used to refer to America’s fear of Communism during the post-war era. Any form of subversive attempts in education, academics, jobs, and the military was reviewed and questioned by authorities. The government thus controlled society and culture by propagating the concept of the American Dream.

In the opening scene of Dead Poets Society Mr. Nolan, the Director of Welton Academy announces proudly that a former student of Welton Academy getting admission in the Ivy League for their graduation degree was an achievement for Welton. Humanities were meant for women and men were expected to learn Science and become doctors, engineers, lawyers, bankers, etc. This notion resonated in Welton Academy too. Hence learning drama or art was not considered prestigious. The decade also saw the rise of the wealthy middle class and their authoritarian views regarding subjects ideal for men and women. Neil Perry, Mr Keating’s brilliant student, had societal pressure to take Science subjects to become a doctor in the future. To fulfil his parents’ dreams Neil sacrificed his talents and interests or in Deleuzean terms, he could not grow rhizomatically. His conversation with his father states the mindset of a middle-class American family. His territory was defined by his parents, society, and even the politics of the time that propagated the ideology of learning Science to become successful in life. Mr Perry and Neil have such a conversation at the beginning of the film:

PERRY. You are taking too many extracurricular activities this semester and I have decided that you should drop the school annual.

…NEIL. But Father I Can’t. It wouldn’t be fair

….

PERRY. After you have finished your medical school and you’re on your own then you can do as you damn well please…. do as what I tell you. Is that clear?…You know how much this means to your mother don’t you? (Weir, 1989, 0:07:56-0:08:37).

Indeed Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of rhizome with unidentifiable margins is what is suggested through Keating’s concept of education. “Always follow the rhizome by rupture; lengthen, prolong, and relay the line of flight; make it vary until you have produced the most abstract and tortuous of lines of new dimensions and broken directions” (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, p.11). This philosophy of Deleuze is indeed what Keating presented using the Latin aphorism carpe diem meaning seize the day. His students felt motivated by the phrase and they ended up deciding to do things that they wanted to do. The boys shifted their idea of life from being submissive, obedient, and disciplined to ideas like enjoying life to the fullest and exploring chaotic spaces within themselves. Neil inspired by Keating’s classes revives the Dead Poets Society, a secret group of students who loved poetry. Keating was a former student of Welton Academy and was a part of the Dead Poets Society. The students find the concept of the Dead Poets Society so revolutionary and interesting that they secretly arrange club meetings at night and enjoy reciting poems, dancing, and clapping as they wish. They are no longer the disciplined students of Welton Academy; they are a group of teenagers who pursued their passion for poetry by actually reading poems of their interest rather than writing term papers or assignments. They deterritorialize themselves from the traditional notion of learning poetry by looking into rhyme, metre, etc. They reterritorialized their ideas regarding what poetry is and how it should be composed.

Welton has strict patterns of learning and strict codes of teaching. These were the features of all American educational institutions of the time. This was also part of the politics of the time because America wanted to restore its perfect society. Any form of diversion was strictly monitored and called for an explanation. Despite getting a warning from the authorities Keating continued unorthodox teaching methods with his students to teach them English. His classes encouraged the students to shift their planes of thought about reading poetry to different lines of thought. Their mode of analysing poetry changed, they were able to deterritorialize their minds to new ways of reading and enjoying poetry. The assignments that Keating asked his students to do were different. He expected his students to develop unconventional and spontaneous thoughts that were truly their own “We are not laying pipe…Armies of academics going forward measuring poetry. No! We will not have that here… Now my class you will learn to think or yourselves again” (Weir, 1989, 0:24:42-0:24:49).

Katherine Watson in Mona Lisa Smile (2003) was practising rhizomatic education as a part of her intention to deterritorialize her students from social, economic, cultural, and political barriers that created restricted territories of learning for her exceptionally talented students. Thus the deterritorialization began for the students in the film as soon as Katherine recognised her students’ true potential. Realising her students’ potential, she decides not to teach from the textbook and instead insists that they think independently. She exposes them to exciting contemporary art “…telling them that they are not required to like it; just consider” (Newell, 2003, 5:0:0). Here as we go through Roberts’ words it is transparent that Katherine employed a kind of pedagogy that did not aim for consistency or a boundary. Thus it is setting free minds to spaces not restricted by any barriers. In other words, she intended a deterritorialization of ideas implanted in the psyche of the students.

Katherine attempted to deterritorialize her students from a space that marred their rhizomatic selves. As far as the learners in Mona Lisa Smile are concerned they are raised in a society that viewed young women as potential housewives, a specific feature of the decade. In the film, we observe episodes dealing with how women were trained to become good housewives so that they could be a support to their earning husbands.

She decided to help her students and implored them to seek the truth beyond what society, politics, and culture had taught them to see or precisely what they did not teach them. Katherine as a part of deterritorializing her students from the ideologies entrenched decides to extend her classes beyond what was prescribed. She wanted to help them do away with hierarchy and binaries. Numerous factors like marriage, love, job, family, social status, finance, art, and contraception are discussed in the film. Katherine tries to deterritorialize her students from traditional notions related to these factors. She constantly talks about the need to have an independent voice, a path that is unhindered by restricting forces. She manages to convince the girls to at least consider thinking about alternatives rather than just tracing. As the film is about to end Betty quotes her teacher’s letter and then passionately narrates her last editorial for that year in Wellesley Newsletter:

Dear Betty, I came to Wellesley because I wanted to make a difference. But to change for others is to lie to yourself. My teacher… Katherine Watson… lived by her own definition …and would not compromise that. Not even for Wellesley. I dedicate this…to an extraordinary woman… who lived by example… and compelled us all to see the world through new eyes. By the time you read this she ̳ll be sailing to Europe… where I know…she will find new walls to break down… and new ideas to replace them with….an aimless wanderer. But not all who wander are aimless. Especially those who seek truth beyond tradition …beyond definition…beyond the image (Newell, 2003, 1:50:21-1:51:47).

As the film begins we find the enthusiastic Katherine waiting eagerly to meet her students. Furthermore, she learns that her students are excellent with lessons from their textbooks. Meanwhile, she realises that their perspectives regarding several aspects of life are quite totalitarian and they lack open-ended perspectives. Katherine decides that her students require a reconceptualisation and thus educates them and thereby helps them to uproot the trees in their minds so that they can grow naturally like rhizomes. As far as the textbooks and lectures are concerned, students at Wellesley College were taught only what was expected of young women. Subjects taught to them were based on societal demands. As young girls, they were pruned to become potential housewives. Katherine initiated the deterritorialization of the concept of art in the minds of her extremely talented students by arranging a discussion on Soutine and his painting named Carcass. Soutine’s works did not fall under the category of art according to those who defined art during his time. His paintings were not ordinary; they were exceptional creations that made people pursue their actions. They were not considered as art by the traditionalists but as a piece of art, they should have been considered. Here the audience observes how Katherine educates her students, instilling the need to deterritorialize social stereotypes with regard to what art is, who determines good art, and who defines art. She enlightens her students to think on their own, to create their territories and to redefine their boundaries, set by society. Textbooks cannot completely educate learners; education occurs when people think and set their own standards.

BETTY. What is it?

KATHERINE. You tell me? Carcass by Soutine.1925…Come on ladies. There’s no wrong answer. There’s also no textbook telling you what to think. It is not that easy, isn’t it?

BETTY….There are standards, technique, composition, colour, even subject. So if you are suggesting that rotted side of meat is art…much less good art, then what are we going to learn?

KATHERINE. Just that. You have outlined our new syllabus, Betty. Thank you. What is art? What makes it good or bad? And who decides?…

KATHERINE. Just look at it again. Look beyond the paint. Let us try to open our minds to a new idea (Newell, 2003, 0:15:54-0:18:16).

This conversation between Katherine and her students disseminated the message that education can help people see beyond what is already established by social forces. The students are aided to deterritorialize themselves from such social norms regarding art and are also made to consider other forms of art that do not fall under mainstream art. The students are made to realise that there can be alternatives to existing aspects of life and stereotypical thinking limits our possibilities to explore. Katherine indeed tries to deterritorialize her students on what is the purpose of education and why it should not be hierarchical or homogeneous. As the film progresses, we find the girls becoming inquisitive about their teacher. They wonder why Katherine is staying unmarried even though she is in her thirties. They consider this unusual as a woman of her age should have been married. It is here that we, as an audience, realize that the women of the decade viewed marriage as an inevitable aspect of their social lives. Culturally they were trained to enter wedlock. This became the sole aim in their life; anything more or less was not acceptable to society. Her independent status and thoughts made everyone including her colleagues uncomfortable.

In the Mona Lisa Smile, the lead characters of Betty Warren, Giselle Levy, Joan Brandywn, and Connie Baker take the story forward. The rhizomatic learning ambiance opened new lines of thought for these young women. Betty Warren is someone with rigid thoughts and principles. She is a culturally designed, appropriate young wife. It is through Betty and her life that the viewers realise how society creates boundaries for individuals and expects them to be maintained. She is so intolerant of the use of a contraceptive device by her unmarried friend Giselle that she writes an editorial for the college newsletter which criticizes such tendencies, resulting in the dismissal of the college nurse Amanda Armstrong, another character with progressive thoughts. Betty cannot comprehend why Katherine is encouraging her friend Joan to enrol for law at Yale. She feels that Katherine is misleading Joan from her only aim in life. Katherine’s talk with Joan Brandwyn regarding an assignment pictures how she helps her students to question certain notions rooted in society. She educates her students with the idea that textbook knowledge cannot alone determine a person’s intellect. She encourages her wards to see things differently, beyond what is defined for them to see.

JOAN. You gave me a C

KATHERINE. I’m kind

JOAN. The assignment was to write about Bruegel. I did that.

…

KATHERINE. If I wanted to know what he thought, I’d buy his book (Newell, 2003, 0:32:41-0:33:08).

Here we can observe Katherine educating her students to think independently so that they can develop their own opinions and thereby cross boundaries of meaning and interpretation. Students in Wellesley were trained to follow their textbooks, write exams, and get grades. Katherine encouraged her students to see beyond, to transcend what is assigned, to explore, to expand, and to extend their territories of knowledge.

The politics of the time also played a significant role in propagating the idea of happy American housewives. America wanted to present their country as superior in comparison to Russia, which was ruled by the communists; a place where women and children suffered; their cold war symbolizing the clash between capitalism and communism. The cultural beliefs of the time also propagated the idea that a husband was more important for a young woman than a college degree. Very few minds realized these ideas as part of the Cold War rationale between America and Russia. It is observed that America had the highest marriage rate during this decade owing to the tremendous societal pressure they experienced.

In the 1940s and 1950s the average age at marriage was younger than … in the 1930s….Marriage and parenthood reflected a culture spurred by the Cold War. Public officials and the media urged young men and women to build … families in which the father held a paying job and the mother stayed at home and raised her growing family (Hewitt and Lawson, 2017, p. 511).

Despite the rise of employment opportunities women were ideologically manipulated to take a role in their households and if a woman was not married or engaged by twenty it was regarded as a dangerous situation. When World War II ended many women had to leave their jobs as these were replaced by war-returned soldiers so they were forced to return to their domestic lives as housewives. It was also believed that a woman was responsible for saving a marriage from divorce; she had to see that her husband was comfortable with the marriage. The post-war period thus saw undue stress placed upon women towards marriage and childbearing which resulted in people starting their families at a very young age.

Betty had only aspirations for becoming a housewife but as soon as she realises that she had been limited all these years she deterritorializes herself from the concepts that had been indoctrinated in her psyche. She thinks beyond the limits set for her by family, society, and her psyche. She decides to reterritorialize herself to another space that lets her be herself. It is then that she enquires about Greenwich Village to Katherine; a place where the artist community had a wide presence, and famous as a place for unconventionalities. When we consider American culture during the ‘Fifties’, we notice that men opted for Science subjects and women were restricted to Humanities since society provided only limited career choices for women. The famous Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka case happened in 1954 which resulted in the Supreme Court’s declaration that racial segregation in public schools was against the constitution. This was the political and cultural climate of the time.

The Fifties

Alan Brinkley in Gilder Lehrman’s AP US History Guide describes America of the Fifties as

[I]good times for middle-class white Americans who were content with their era…. homogeneous popular culture that had little patience with divergent views…the fifties seemed haunted because the public culture of the time was … self-congratulatory and so stifling to alternative views(Fifties Society).

The Mona Lisa Smile and Dead Poets Society are both set in 1950s America, popularly known as Fifties; a decade known for conformities and rigidities theoretically speaking in Deleuze’s terms, we can describe America of the 1950s as a space with strict territories where any form of subversion was vehemently opposed and criticised. Rachel Roberts in Film Education records Mona Lisa Smile as a film that ―tells the story of a woman who challenged the minds of the brightest students in the country to open themselves to a different idea and go on a journey they never imagined (Roberts, 2004, p.2). Thus the deterritorialization began for the students in the film as soon as Katherine Watson recognised her students’ true potential. Realising her students’ potential, she decides not to teach from the textbook and instead insists that they think independently.

In Dead Poets Society, Welton is a representation of all the educational institutions of the rigid fifties. Welton has strict patterns of learning and strict codes of teaching. These were the features of all American educational institutions of the time. This was also part of the politics of the time because America wanted to restore its perfect society. Any form of diversion was strictly monitored and called for an explanation. Despite getting a warning from the authorities Keating continued unorthodox teaching methods with his students to teach them English. He did not follow conventional patterns of assignments and classes for teaching English. His classes encouraged the students to shift their planes of thought about reading poetry to different lines of thought. Their mode of analysing poetry changed, they were able to deterritorialize their minds to new ways of reading and enjoying poetry.

Conclusion

Deterritorialization provides schizophrenic freedom to the subject when the subject is ready for a voyage without aiming for a fixed destination. The students in Mona Lisa Smile and Dead Poets Society through the deterritorialization of existing norms and ideologies tried to extend their territories by reterritorializing themselves to a world of heterogeneity. Deterritorialization helped them to challenge existing stabilities and prepared them to embrace multiplicities. Deterritorialization of rigid ideals begets heterogeneity of thoughts and the realisation of the interconnected nature of life. In Mona Lisa Smile it can be observed that society, academics, and power structures position women to certain points of understanding. Their lives have strict points of separation as private and public. Women are indoctrinated with homogeneous ideas regarding academics, career,s and life. Any form of heterogeneity in these matters was called subversive. Dead Poets Society similarly pictured how society, family, and authority viewed Art as subordinate to Science. The film also highlighted how the American society of the Fifties viewed Academics and Art as different entities and not as a connected network that forms an assemblage. Students were indoctrinated with the message that academic excellence alone determined success in their lives. They were also taught to view academic life and their personal interests as separate entities. The interconnected nature of their public and private lives was conveniently suppressed through the mode of education they received from Welton Academy. It is this idea that Keating in Dead Poets Society and Katherine in Mona Lisa Smile attempted to impart to their students.

Deleuze and Guattari had observed in A Thousand Plateaus that “America is a special case but this space was also not immune from domination by trees or search for roots” (1987, p.19). This argument is validated when we examine America of the ‘Fifties’, a place of superfluous conformities regarding education, gender, subjects, politics, profession etc. Any form of digression was strictly monitored and corrected. The tantrums of the decade are honestly portrayed in Mona Lisa Smile and Dead Poets Society.

As a result of this difference in thinking, analysing, and accepting ideas it can be observed that the students in Mona Lisa Smile were able to transgress the boundaries set by society, politics, and economy. The learners in this film are seen challenging existing norms by flaunting their desires in confidence. Their transformation is significant because being college students and individuals who had a conditioned education the deterritorialization of already existing ideas was not a single step; it was a process. The students in Mona Lisa Smile redefined the physical and mental spaces they lived in. On the other hand, students in the Dead Poets Society, though they received an education with rhizomatic principles, could not change their fields of activity. The boys in Dead Poets Society being preparatory school students were made to think in a particular pattern and had limitations hence they remained in stasis. Nonetheless, the girls in Mona Lisa Smile changed into new people with the ability to think critically and apply real knowledge, which enabled them to make decisions for themselves and confront others who suppressed their interests. Compared to the students in Dead Poets Society, who adhered to the uniform norms imposed by society and education, the students in Mona Lisa Smile were more self-assured because they were in college and had the potential to be more independent. Even after receiving an education that prompted them to think on their own the boys in Dead Poets Society could not exercise their critical thinking skills as they were dominated by their school authorities who tried to draw boundaries for their knowledge. They succumbed to political, social, and cultural conditioning as they were still in school with economic dependence. Mona Lisa Smile and Dead Poets Society puts forth a question to the audience, Can we call anything life if it doesn’t change? Being static without experiencing change is not life. The films argued for an education in a society that did not train students to imitate but one that made students think and question and thereby find the unknown within themselves.