Mount Holyoke College - in Art and Media

In Art and Media

Mount Holyoke is referenced in works of theater, film, and popular culture. Wendy Wasserstein's 1977 play, Uncommon Women and Others, is based upon Wasserstein's experiences at Mount Holyoke of the early 1970s. The play explores the lives of the fictional characters Carter, Holly, Kate, Leilah, Rita, Muffet, Samantha, and Susie.

Two feature films reference Mount Holyoke of the 1960s. The first is the 1987 film Dirty Dancing which is set at a summer resort in the Catskills in the summer of 1963. The protagonist Frances "Baby" Houseman (named after Mount Holyoke graduate Frances Perkins) plans to attend Mount Holyoke in the fall to study economics of underdeveloped countries and then to later enter the Peace Corps. The second is the 1978 film National Lampoon's Animal House which is set in 1962. It satirizes a common practice up until the mid-1970s, when women attending Seven Sister colleges were connected with or to students at Ivy League schools. In the film, fraternity brothers from Delta house of the fictional Faber College (based on Dartmouth College) take a road trip to the fictional Emily Dickinson College (Mount Holyoke College)--in real life, Mount Holyoke and Dartmouth are unofficial brother-sister schools.

Mount Holyoke was mentioned more recently in the 2002 film National Lampoon's Van Wilder, when the title character gives a half-time pep talk to his school basketball team, offering them a party with Mount Holyoke students should the team win.

The Mount Holyoke amphitheater was also featured in an episode of the Comedy Central sitcom Stella during a graduation ceremony in the episode "Paper Route".

Mount Holyoke also featured in "I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can", an episode of The Simpsons: "The Seven Sisters were immortalized in popular culture in a 2003 episode of The Simpsons. Having won local and state spelling bees, Lisa Simpson advances to the national finals. However, the moderator, concerned about the contest’s low television ratings, offers Lisa free tuition ('and a hot plate') at the Seven Sisters college of her choice if she will allow a more popular contestant (who happens to be a boy) to win. Lisa refuses, but has a dream in which students from each of the Seven Sisters appear to her." The Mount Holyoke student in Lisa's dream invites Lisa to "Come party with me!" before passing out drunk.

Additional characters in popular culture include "Emily" from the television series Empty Nest, "Donna," from the television series Judging Amy, "Judy Maxwell," from the film, What's Up, Doc?, "Brooke," from The L Word, Season 4, "Catherine," the serial bride in the film noir release, Black Widow and "Helen Bishop", the divorcee neighbor from Mad Men.

In the episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent "Consumed", the husband of suspect Beth Landau (Karen Sillas) states in reference to the 3 murders she was accused of, "How could she do that? She went to Holyoke for Gods sake!"

In the first episode of season 4, the television show the L Word referenced Mount Holyoke as the college the daughter of Max/Moira's boss attends.

References to Mount Holyoke also occur in other works. Mount Holyoke was mentioned in television series, House, in the second episode from Season 4, "The Right Stuff." In David Liss's 2006 novel, The Ethical Assassin, Chitra—the love interest of the protagonist Lem Altick—is saving money so that she may attend Mount Holyoke. Alan Arkin, the father of the bride in the 1979 film The In-Laws, mutters when he sees the squalor-filled office of Peter Falk (the father of the groom), "Four years at Mount Holyoke so she could marry into this." Mount Holyoke is mentioned frequently in Neil Simon's play, Broadway Bound. Recently, Mt. Holyoke was mentioned as one of Julie Taylor's college options on the TV show Friday Night Lights.

In the film The Whisperer in Darkness, Mount Holyoke was used to represent H. P. Lovecraft's fictional Miskatonic University.