The Marilyn Issue

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for a cinema student's analysis of current events.

Sep 28, 2022

If you have no interest in Marilyn Monroe or the film Blonde please feel free to close this tab, delete this email, and have a lovely evening.

If you’re planning to watch Blonde and want to know absolutely nothing about it, go off, watch it, and see if you feel like coming back later.

Otherwise…

Ugh.

A lot of people are talking about Marilyn again.

Andrew Dominik’s nearly three-hour fictionalized bio-pic premiered at TIFF on September 8th and began its limited theatrical release on the 16th. It’ll be widely available tomorrow on Netflix. I wanted to release this piece before that, without seeing the film, because I can’t promise I’ll be able to get through it.

After an enthusiastic day of ranting and an exciting day of research, there were so many reasons I did not want to pick this piece back up. So much has been written about Marilyn, about Blonde, about how there’s too much written about both. What new idea can I say?

I also asked, “how can I talk about a film I haven’t seen? How can I be sure of my opinion on it until I’ve experienced it?” But after diving deep into the rabbit hole of reviews like “'Blonde,' the new Marilyn Monroe biopic, is an exercise in exploitation, not empathy”1 and the more simply titled “Blonde Wants to Hurt You,”2 I wondered if the emotional pain would be worth certainty. I once sat through a two-hour film while having a panic attack, because I felt I owed it to the canon of cinema and was too embarrassed to leave the theater. Life’s too short.

Most reviews found the film an insult to the actress’s legacy. All have nothing but admiration for Ana Di Armis’s stellar performance (I have no doubts she’s incredible, and I fault her for none of the following). But Richard Brody’s byline summarizes everything I feared and expected:

“The film has a single idea—that Monroe was a victim—and is happy to victimize her, over and over.”3

I don’t need to see the film to imagine what that looks like.

Marilyn Monroe’s legacy has been poked, prodded, raked over the coals, and exploited for over half a century. It seems as though little has changed from the release of Norman Mailer's heavily critiqued 1973 biography, which included Mailer’s inventions about Monroe’s interiority.4 Writers can’t seem to curb their impulse to shove words into her mouth, and it seems this film will follow the tendency to harp on only the most tragic aspects of her life.

In her recent Vogue piece, “What Marilyn Means to Me," Lena Dunham describes how she came to relate to Marilyn (through Mailer's book of course) after learning about her struggles with endometriosis. What struck me most is how she all too enthusiastically adds the preface, “As a young woman, I didn’t much care about her.”5

Of course not. Because what self-respecting modern woman wants to admit she grew up idolizing the personification of everything wrong with the way women are sexualized and treated?

Me, I guess.

I know I’m far from the only one, but I don’t see that said enough.

I will happily admit I have always loved Marilyn Monroe, even as that love has shifted and evolved with age. There were times I wore it proudly and allowed it to define me among friends. At other moments, I felt embarrassed and distanced myself from her image as much as I could. I didn’t love her because I learned a new tragic piece of her history, because my perspective changed, or because an intellectual discussion sparked me to view her as a cultural subject. I loved Marilyn as a second grader when I wore out copies of Some Like It Hot and How to Marry a Millionaire simply because I thought they were funny and she was fabulous. I still think that now.

The love for Marilyn that I’ve carried most of my life is the reason Blonde’s shortcomings feel personal. A male adapted/directed, violent, and borderline pornographic portrayal is the last story I want to see about my childhood hero. The age-old story of an objectified, victimized, gorgeous, naive girl in need of a father, told through the most graphic, gratuitous type of entertainment. She’s as hopeless as the perspective is nihilistic. She’s the broken helpless sex symbol the world branded her as. She’s doomed.

For now, I can’t say with certainty if the filmmaker succeeds in condemning this treatment of Marilyn. I suspect he might also be getting off on it. But I’ll leave that up to you.

If what I’ve written above does ring true of Blonde then it commits the sin of saying absolutely nothing new. We know that story. The one of the abused, ill-fated starlet and what became of her. Better writers than I have laid it all out. In her final interview, Marilyn concluded the conversation by asking “please don’t make me a joke.”6 While some have honored that request and others haven’t, I doubt being made a victim is what she had in mind.

If she’s not a joke, not a victim, and not going anywhere, then what are we to do with Marilyn? Lisa Cohen7 described the issue in her article "The Horizontal Walk: Marilyn Monroe, CinemaScope, and Sexuality" by saying:

“Marilyn Monroe has: too much written about her - too much sex about her. There was too much breath in her voice and too many drugs in her body. Too much vulnerability, too much trouble, too much exposure. She read too many books, she had too many abortions, she put too much bleach on her hair, she had too much interest in acting, too much willingness to undress, too much talent… too awkward too undulating too intelligent too pathetic too diligent too lonely too lazy too funny - too, too much.”

I wonder how anyone is meant to avoid being “too much.”

This is how she has become a cautionary tale for anyone who fears being stuck in the box of gendered stereotypes, or being “too much” when we dare to resist. Identifying with and adoring Marilyn opens you up to the same criticism. That you might be doomed to the kind of legacy where your demons and failures always seem to overshadow your successes. I still distinctly remember the shame my second-grade self felt when a well-meaning but ill-advised adult insisted, “You know how she died right?”

I did. Therefore, I felt wrong wanting to be like any part of her.

Marilyn is gone. As much as her presence lingers in our lives, there’s nothing more Hollywood can do to her. It’s not her that’s hurt by the exploitation of her memory. It’s everyone that’s been conditioned or grown to admire her.

Abuse will always be inescapably wrapped up in the legacy of classic Hollywood. Modern audiences are the ones who decide what we do with that history. Does Louis B. Mayer’s harassment of Judy Garland negate her iconic performance as Dorothy Gale? Rita Hayworth was bullied and mistreated by Columbia Pictures President Harry Cohn for refusing sexual favors at the time of her most beloved releases.8 Should we include a disclaimer ahead of her filmography? Tatum O’Neal’s suffering at the hands of her father after her success in Paper Moon is forever tied to her masterful Oscar-winning performance.9 My professor spent hours recounting these cruelties along with countless others while studying the postwar Hollywood movement. But remembering the pain these actresses were forced to endure is different than defining them by it.

And this is to say nothing of all the horror stories that have come out of Hollywood over the past five years.

The best piece of writing I’ve ever read on what it means to be defined by the most horrific thing that’s ever happened to you has nothing to do with Marilyn, Hollywood, or even entertainment. In her memoir Know My Name, Chanel Miller reclaims her public identity after being namelessly dragged through a two-year media circus as the unknown woman assaulted by Brock Turner on Stanford’s campus. She recounts the toll the assault and trial took on her life as well as the family, art, and relationships that helped her recover from the trauma. In one of the most moving quotes from the book, Miller explains:

“I did not come into existence when he harmed me. She found her voice! I had a voice, he stripped it, left me groping around blind for a bit, but I always had it. I just used it like I never had to use it before. I do not owe him my success, becoming, he did not create me. The only credit Brock can take is for assaulting me, and he could never even admit to that.”10

So why do we give the men who abused and mistreated Marilyn all the credit for creating her? Why do we let their actions determine her story?

I can’t say how Marilyn felt, what she lacked, or how she saw herself with any certainty. But like many stars that were taken advantage of, abused, and manipulated, she made great art. It remains the only part of her legacy she’s had an active role in. On the set of her final film, Marilyn reportedly said to James Goode,

“Goethe says a career is developed in public but talent is developed in private, or silence. It’s true for the actor. To really say what’s in my heart, I’d rather show than to say. Even though I want people to understand, I’d much rather they understand on the screen. If I don’t do that, I’m on the wrong track or in the wrong profession.”11

It’s common knowledge that Marilyn was incredibly devoted to her craft. She spent years studying with Lee Strasberg and was heavily dependent on her acting coach Natasha Lytess.12 Marilyn had the foresight to create her own production company, granting her higher pay and greater control of her projects long before the practice was the industry status quo. Scholars like Richard Dyer argue she played parts contrary to how they were written. While directors put the male gaze front and center, she found ways of infusing humor and nuance into her dumb blondes, showgirls, and objects of affection like “The Girl” in A Seven Year Itch.13

In my research, I found Marilyn characterized as both “natural” and an artificial paragon of feminity. When Some Like It Hot was released a Newsweek reviewer wrote, "[Marilyn] is, as usual, an extremely effective female impersonator, herself.”14 Defined early on by her nude pin-up photos (which she never apologized for), Marilyn represented for many an openness about sex and even female desire. She fed into the persona, making herself the butt of jokes in front of GIs and going through multiple rounds of plastic surgery.15 Many wonder what might have happened if Marilyn had more chances to show her talent, such as in the role Truman Capote wrote for her in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. What would have happened if Holly Golightly lacked the refinement and restraint of Audrey Hepburn’s persona? Censors did not want to find out. Their casting choice intentionally offset the less glamourous truths at the heart of Capote’s story that might have been more pronounced with Marilyn as the lead.16

Rather than mourning what could have been, let’s instead turn to Some Like It Hot to see the culmination of Marilyn’s persona and career. In the character of Sugar Kane, Marilyn gets to be the pursuer for once. Yes, she’s still a ditzy singer, decked out in low-cut dresses, but Sugar’s sexuality is never demonized. In fact, her sexual tension with the men while they’re in drag implies queerness and sexual fluidity that rarely passed the censors in 1959.17 Her history of useless saxophone players doesn't count against her character, and she is not tamed or contained by marriage by the end of the film. The gender-bending comedy instead puts its male leads in the place of an objectified woman, forcing them to understand how it feels. By the end of the film, Tony Curtis’s Joe18 has come to know Sugar as both a lover and a friend and gained respect for her because of it.

In her dissertation “Marilyn Monroe’s Star Canon: Postwar American Culture and the Semiotics of Stardom,” Amanda Konkle writes of the ending:

“As she chases Josephine, Sugar reveals that she is not ‘through with love’ entirely, but rather through with love based on deceptive behaviors and double standards. She and Joe ride off into the sunset, unmarried and never having discussed marriage, beginning a relationship built upon honesty about their pasts.”19

When I came across that quote, my heart melted.

The scene marks a beautiful ending to a hilarious film, only made possible by her performance.20 That performance still makes me laugh and breaks my heart every time I see it. On my first day in film school, my professor ended a dramatic speech on the power of movies by imitating Sugar Kane's third-act refrain "I'm Through With Love." It stuck with me as proof that her performance made as big an impression on someone else's soul as it did mine.

So again I’ll repeat Marilyn’s words: “Even though I want people to understand, I’d much rather they understand on the screen.”

And hope there’s still a chance that the work will be what we remember her by.

Outfit for This Essay:

I know this isn’t the usual newsletter fare, but I didn’t want to deprive you all of an outfit.

The only full-body photo of my poor man’s Marilyn Monroe Halloween costume. I’m pictured here with the other half of my costume late enough into the night that my hair has fallen flat.

Recommendations for This Essay:

Some Like It Hot. Still among my top five favorite movies of all time.
Rounding out my top three from Marilyn’s filmography: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and All About Eve (which is just a great movie even though she’s barely in it).
Honorable Mentions: How to Marry a Millionaire, The Seven Year Itch, Bus Stop, and Niagara.

Non-Marilyn Recommendations:

Know My Name by Chanel Miller! A true powerhouse of a book. If you only read one book about sexual assault, rape culture, and the justice system in America it should be this one, but it’s also so much more than all that.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos! This book is my favorite of the golddigger narratives from the 30s and an absolute delight!
Paper Moon.
Revisiting The Wizard of Oz.
Googling the dress from Gilda. I could stare at it for six hours.
Checking out Capote’s version of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. You just have to trust me - it’s better than the film.

And Finally:

After an initial draft of this piece, I realized there was no way I could write about Marilyn without looking into the scholarship that surrounds her. If I didn’t do my due diligence, I’d be just as bad as every writer I’m critiquing and every biographer who has lifted themselves up through her image. So here it is… to all my past librarians, I hope I’ve made you proud!

Works Consulted

Brody, Richard. “‘Blonde’ Is ‘The Passion of the Christ’ for Marilyn Monroe.” The New Yorker, Condé Nast, (20 Sept 2022).

Chang, Justin. “‘Blonde,’ the New Marilyn Monroe Biopic, Is an Exercise in Exploitation, Not Empathy.” NPR, NPR, (23 Sept 2022)

Cohen, Lisa. "The Horizontal Walk: Marilyn Monroe, CinemaScope, and Sexuality." The Yale Journal of Criticism, vol. 11, no. 1 (Spring, 1998): 259-288.

Cohan, Steve. “‘This Industry Lives on Gossip and Scandal:’ Female Star Narratives and the Marilyn Monroe Biopic.” Celebrity Studies, vol. 8, no. 4 (30 Aug 2017): 527-543.

Dixon, Wheeler Winston. The Death of Moguls: The End of Classical Hollywood. Rutgers University Press, (2012).

Dunham, Lena. “What Marilyn Monroe Means to Me.” Vogue, Condé Nast, (30 Aug 2022).

Dyer, Richard. Heavenly Bodies. Macmillan Education, (2006).

Eaton, Oline. “‘Watergate-Ing’ Norman Mailer’s Marilyn: Life Writing in Cultural Context.” Life Writing, vol. 16, no. 2 (2019): 261–277.

Ebiri, Bilge. “Blonde Wants to Hurt You.” Vulture, Vox Media, (8 Sept 2022).

Konkle, Amanda, "Marilyn Monroe’s Star Canon: Postwar American Culture and the Semiotics of Stardom.” Theses and Dissertations--English, vol. 28 (2016).

Miller, Chanel. Know My Name. Viking Press, (2019).

Phillips, Stone. “Tatum O'Neal Shares Survival Story.” NBC News, NBC Universal, (15 Oct 2004).

I know not all of that is correctly formatted, but Substack and I have our limits. If any librarian viewing this has corrections for me please feel free to leave them in the comments.

Chang, Justin. “‘Blonde,’ the New Marilyn Monroe Biopic, Is an Exercise in Exploitation, Not Empathy.”

Ebiri, Bilge. “Blonde Wants to Hurt You.”

Brody, Richard. “‘Blonde’ Is ‘The Passion of the Christ’ for Marilyn Monroe.”

Eaton, Oline. “‘Watergate-ing’ Norman Mailer’s Marilyn: Life Writing in Cultural Context.”

Here’s hoping Dunham went out and bought a second or third biography.