Friday, June 10, 2011

The Idolatry of Marilyn

A new look at the sex goddess. (Via Serge.) I always felt sorry for her, as I do for anyone so intent on self-destruction. To quote:
So that is the real Marilyn Monroe. She wasn’t a “little girl lost” in the least. She was a lascivious, wanton woman who connived to use her body in advancing her career. She enjoyed being an object and manipulated it to her full advantage. She used men as much, or more, than they ever used her.

Whatever one thinks of this practice, immoral or empowering, it is not reflective of a woman “looking for love” in all the wrong places. Marilyn found true love—and she wholeheartedly rejected it in favor of sex and influence. (Read entire article.)
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I never liked Marilyn Monroe, for just those reasons.

Julygirl said...

Even though I was never a fan of MM, I think this is a mean spirited article, as one of the comments indicates. Joe Dimaggio and Arthur Miller 'used' her in their own way and for their own purposes just as much as she used them. The facts and events of her life, and the methods she used to achieve her goals is the very reason people have considered her a lost soul, or a little girl lost. As a young person she did not receive the proper guidance or values to make thoughtful decisions to advance her agenda instead of useing her body to manipulate circumstances.

Alan Phipps said...

I agree with julygirl. All I really took away from this article was that the author hated her. Too much speculation into her motives. And if she was as guilty of manipulation as the author argues, then that only proves how lost she was.

The North Coast said...

I, too, found this article to be very malicious and spiteful, and very much like the vicious pamphlets written about Marie Antoinette by her enemies, and about other prominent women who manage their public appearance badly .

However, Monroe was a very different person, born into vastly different circumstances. I personally consider her to be almost heroic in surviving and rising above the sordid and chaotic conditions of her childhood- passed from one crummy, unstable foster home to another, molested by one foster-mother's boarders and beaten for complaining about it, and taught no decent values or how to comport herself. I'm not surprised that she had substance abuse problems and didn't know how to govern her sexuality- common problems among people who grow up in disorderly, parentless homes; what surprises me is that she succeeded at all and didn't end up in a mental institution.

Yes, she was "conniving", and what successful person is not. Yes, she was promiscuous, but I would hesitate to use a term like "harlot". Yes, she found love and then rejected it, but neither DiMaggio nor Miller was any prize as a husband, and DiMaggio was a wife-beater who had no respect for her aspirations or priorities, resented her growing fame, and became impossible to live with. I don't want to hear how much a man "loves" a woman when he repeatedly slaps her around. You MUST leave a man who treats you in this manner.

She was no angel and no example for a young woman, but she was also a warm, friendly person who totally lacked malice and was extremely loyal and generous to all her friends, women and men alike. She made a genuine, sustained effort to educate herself and develop her intelligence, and she never willingly harmed anyone, which is a great deal more than can be said for many of her detractors in the Hollywood film community.