American family values and beliefs have changed over the past hundred years. There are various types of families nowadays, such as married couples with or without children, single parents, or stepparents with children, homosexual partners with adopted children, etc. There are three different time periods and three movements that illustrate the changes in American family values and beliefs. According to Lim and Smalzer (2008), “Sociologist Barbara Dafoe Whitehead labeled these three periods the period of Traditional Familism, the period of Individualism, and the period of The New Familism” (p.184). The three social and political movements in the second period, the period of Individualism, respectively are The Sexual Revolution, The Women’s Liberation, and The Anti-War Movement. In Mona Lisa Smile, these three periods and movements are characterized in the behavior and language of the actresses.
The first time period is Traditional Familism, which lasted for twenty years from the mid-1940’s to the mid-1960’s. It is a period after World War II. Lim and Smalzer (2008) considered that the predominant configuration of this traditional period is, “A married couple with children” (p.184). They also concluded, “three characteristics stand out in this period: conformity to social norms, greater male domination of the family than in the later periods, and clear-cut gender roles”(p.184). It suggests that the division of family roles is clear-cut, which husband and wife being charged with specific responsibilities. According to Lim and Smalzer (2008), divorce rates were low, but meanwhile birth rates were high during this time. Wetzel (1990) said childbearing “reach a peak of 25.3 per 1000 in 1957 at the apex of the baby boom” (p.8). In the meantime, he mentioned that divorce was uncommon, affecting less than one percent of the at-risk population. Nancy represents traditional