The Meaning of Marylin

True story: Eons ago I had a roommate who decked our whole apartment living area in Marylin Monroe garb --- framed photos, decorative boxes, throw pillows and blankets --- and yet, when you asked her what her favorite Marylin movie* was, she'd draw a blank, blinking stare. Clueless, not conflicted: she had never seen a Marylin Monroe film. In fact, she didn't know much about Marylin beyond the superficial (pretty, white, blonde, and famous). This surface level adulation, the association with my roommate (who was terribleawful in other ways) and her decorative tackiness, along with the onslaught of Marylin's legendary image as THE pinnacle of glamour above all led to me being turned off by the idolization of Marylin Monroe, and even Marylin: The Person to some extent. 

Yeah, I know, Kim there's people that are dying...

For someone who believes variety is the spice of life, the imagery of Marylin while dazzling and iconic, did seem somewhat...typical and too white beauty-centric for me to immerse in --- this knowing she wasn't the only vibrant, glamorous and talented personality to come out of the golden ages of Hollywood history. As a Black woman, I looked to a different, often ignored spectrum as I preferred to celebrate Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll, Diana Sands, Marpessa Dawn, and Dorothy Dandridge (whose life and death have eerie similarities to Marylin...). Women who did the most with the slither of spotlight they were warranted. Women who were also beautiful and talented, and bonus, 'looked' more like me --- their representation mattered more, honestly.

So why did I read a book about Marylin after all this judgement and pettiness? Well, because a) I love diving into a good Hollywood biography/memoir, b) Quarantine binge watching led me to view Lifetime's mini-series The Secret Life of Marylin Monroe, and I felt a lot was missing and wildly fictionalized (I mean, it was on Lifetime...), and c) I wanted to give Marylin --- the woman and the enigma --- a chance to re-introduce herself. 

Let me clarify: I don't dislike Marylin Monroe. Even with the oversaturation of her image, it is without fallacy. She was a beautiful, captivating icon for the ages. Her cotton candied blonde bombshell image, white skirt blown up by hot subway air still haunts and arouses 58 years after her death, remaining a constant in replication, whether to push many a product, personify Hollywood hierarchy or is emulated to imitation from fashion editorials to drag shows. We feel that with Marylin's image around --- if we can slip into it someway --- we're closer to the star spangled fantasy of fame. That if a simple girl named Norma Jean Mortensen could make it, we can too if we just pout our lips, thrust out our busts, and talk breathlessly. Still, nobody has come close to replicating her aura, try as many have. 

Her and James Dean share a similar mythos for their image and tragic short lives, and how they represented this sort of Americana image of youthful success and sexiness, and the tragic pitfalls of it. Unfortunately, Marylin being a woman is scrutinized to a greater degree than James Dean, whose rebellious persona is lauded as ideal masculinity, whilst Marylin is subjected to this "beautiful bimbo blonde" sex object stereotype. It's also why Marylin's misunderstandings are what intrigue me as well, considering how I had my own. 

Marylin was more than just beauty marks, diamonds, mental illness, and the Kennedys, and I wanted to know more beyond the superficial and speculative. I wanted someone to really show me a side to Marylin that I might have overlooked, and misogynistically misunderstood. 

Well, as with a legendary icon, there are lots of sides out there to explore. Zillions upon zillions of books about Marylin exist. Zillions upon zillions of stories, conspiracies and contradictions, observations and opinions about who and what she was also exist. It was difficult to weed through the inaccurate, exploitive, conspiracy riddled, fictitious, and outdated texts to find a book that eschewed such star biography hallmarks, but luckily for me, Charles Casillo's Marylin Monroe: The Private Life of a Public Icon won out as while being a fan, he doesn't stan to where he's skimping on facts and flaws. He offers several viewpoints, none not too flattering or too scathing, making for an informative balance. 

Casillo also avoids framing Marylin's life as "Wikipedia page as a book", where even as linear it is, it's a surprisingly fresh take at her life. The writing is also vibrant and lyrical, never tedious, this even when Casillo is attempting to "armchair analyze" Marylin's thought processes, and give through behind-the-scenes accounts of Marylin's filmography. He places you into the spin of 1950s and 1960s Hollywood and its politics, its dazzle and its difficulties, and how Marylin navigates it to success and tragedy...and it's pretty riveting, thought-provoking stuff. 

Within these pages is what I feel is a truer, multi-faceted representation of Marylin, as Casillo deconstructs the myths, the publicist sheen of goddess perfection, and reveals a woman who was anything but. A woman who was quite unwell, crippled by her self-doubt, her burgeoning mental decline, and haunted by her unstable, nomadic childhood, instances that made her vulnerable and hampered her from reaching her unseen potential. The best and worst place for her was in 1950s Hollywood, where she would find the adulation she sought, but also found that it was an incubator to intensify her inner demons.

It always bothered me that Marylin was often only touted for her beauty*. It being her sole noted "superpower", the aspect that defined her a a person. It wasn't about her performances on film, or her intellectual pursuits of philosophy and politics (It amuses me that my former right-wing roommate was obsessed with a total left-wing liberal. Ha.) It was always about her beauty and body, period, and this I find defeats the purpose of what Marylin actually wanted for herself. Even in her vanity over her voluptuous curves, she seemed determined to be seen past her body and sex appeal, this seen through the production company she established in order to have control over her career and image, and her fraught fights with studios so she could pick roles that would diversify her oeuvre, and show her range. Her tireless need to work on her acting craft proves she wanted to overcome her former cheesecake modeling days, so as to be taken serious and become a high caliber actress on par with Katharine Hepburn or Bette Davis, but sadly she was prisoner to her bombshell image. 

As Casillo succinctly says in the epilogue: "Marylin Monroe died just before the advent of feminism and the blossoming of the civil rights movement. She lived in a generation when people defined and stringently observed. There was very little crossing over lines. She had to find an identity early in her career, and she one "self" that became beloved beyond her wildest imagination, leaving her other selves looking desperately for a way of expression. [...] "Marylin Monroe" confused Hollywood, the media, studio executives, and the public. And in their confusion some of them became angry. Although they didn't really know what they were angry about, it was easier to just view her as a slut who took herself too seriously."

With this, I get why Joyce Carol Oates attempted to magnify the misogyny Marylin endured in her book, 2000's Blonde, as it is the crux of her persona, and position in Hollywood, a place that emphasized a woman's features and fuckability over character and intellect, putting a price tag on an individual instead of acknowledging their true worth. People truly, and unfairly put all their projections on her, fixated her to the wanton image to where if she strayed from it, she was maligned and belittled. Where as men who couldn't have her or found her difficult to control, punished her for it. Women, green-eyed in jealousy, found her a joke, or threw their insecurities on her. Damned if she did, damned if she didn't.

These crossed qualms probably progressed her struggle with her mental health, something that has also been romanticized to a gross degree over the decades, but handled here with practical facts and empathy. Many a moment in Marylin's life was confounded by the fact of a familial history of mental illness, and it overtook her life whenever the pressures of her film career heightened. Mental illness was even more so elusive and treated with even less regard than it is now, and its why Marylin endured an environment ignorant to her health and welfare. Often I would find a moment where I wanted to hug Marylin (this esp. when she went through a truly odious ordeal at a mental health facility), or tell her to not cling to this doctor or marry that man. It was as if I was watching a horror film, pleading Marylin not to go down that dark, gloomy road or open that door as the blood-thirsty killer was behind it, all because I knew what was regrettably going to happen. There is a wonder if Marylin had gotten the care and understanding about her severe depression, had more stability in her romances, and friendships that she'd would've lived longer, been able to thrive in better standing. Who knows? Casillo wonders too:

"Alone, abandoned, and angry, Marylin thought--as she often did in the nighttime--- about where her life was. When her fears and problems looked bigger than her accomplishments and hopes, the world closed in on her--her petite body, her overbleached hair---in her tiny, cluttered rooms, with her mirrors, her makeup, her breast pads, and a wardrobe of brightly colored clothes. What some considered vanities were really just a way of life for her; it was what she knew, what she thought was expected of her. Other Hollywood stars served up illusion too, but they had lasting loves, families, and confidence, things that never materialized for her. By this time Marylin felt all she had to stand on was a fantasy, an illusion that was becoming harder to maintain." 

I do think there were people in her orbit that either didn't understand her (expecting her film persona to be the reality), or had their own agendas to press, and since Marylin was desperate for love, community and the like this made her vulnerable as she opened her doors and arms to a crew of problematic individuals. Honestly? She should've never surrounded herself with so many doctors and psychiatrists, and stayed away from the Strastburg family, the Kennedys and the Lawfords. None of these people, to me, had her best interests whatsoever, or were more so absorbed in their own status to a fault that kept them from really being true towards Marylin. In my opinion, a lot of them played around in her head, to where I think it made her more conflicted and insecure in her thinking than before.

Speaking of the Kennedys, here in this book you won't find thorny conspiracies about the final day, and hours of Marylin's life, and the famous family's connection to it. I know many fans believe there was foul play afoot concerning Marylin's death, and there was a lot of weird coincidences and events leading up to that tragic night that can give someone pause and sew doubt, but what I always suspected was something less convoluted and mysterious. More so that Marylin was simply failed by those around her. Failed by people who weren't directly responsible in putting the pills in her hand to her mouth, but bear some brunt of being too absorbed in the 'magic of Marylin' and their association to it (monetary or otherwise...) to where they didn't want to face the unflattering truths about her and simply ignored warning signs or were too damn busy trying to save their own reputations (see: Peter Lawford who is especially infuriating in this book...) for the sake of Marylin's. It is sexier and appeals to Marylin's glamourous persona to cry "conspiracy!" when the reality is much uglier, even more sinister: that Marylin for how she was beloved by millions, couldn't find one decent competent friendly soul in her orbit to save her from herself.

With Private Life of a Public Icon, I have formed a whole new appreciation and appraisal for Marylin Monroe and the work she put into her legacy and mythos. While I'm not putting up throw pillows or plastering my walls in her image, I come away admiring her for her tenacity to want to resist conformity, and push for an ideal that was considered unheard of at the time, paving a way for many more unconventional women to open that door a little wider. 

While, sadly, her own alter-persona ate her alive, it is where the fascination and lesson lies for me. How you can live in the fantasy for too long before it erodes to the detriment of reality. How love and affection can't be found among fame and fortune. How all the glitter isn't all gold. Its an all too common adage in Hollywood, this where Marylin was never the first or will be the last to fall victim to it, but she is special with how even with all the professional and personal obstacles, her providing the fantasy while sacrificing the truth, she was determined still to not let it be her fate...yet when it so sadly...was. In the end, with all the contradictions, conspiracies and controversies, Casillo is right to say that Marylin "left us what she needed to leave us, leaving us to decide exactly who and what she was." The meaning forever as elusive and expressive as she was.

*= When you ask me what my favorite Marylin movies are, I'll always say Some Like It Hot, Niagara, Don't Bother to Knock, and Gentleman Prefer Blondes :)

*= We can do two things at once here: be critical of women being solely judged and characterized by their looks and get jazzed over Marylin's iconic sense of style. As someone who loves smearing all kinds of colored powders and creams on their face, and has a hair care cabinet that rivals a small drugstore, Marylin's beauty routine is def. #glamgoals. I actually love how simple it is, and feel justified in my love for red lipstick, cleansing bars, and slathering myself in Nivea and Vaseline --- things Marylin swore by. If you have time to kill, YouTuber Laura Jane Atelier has a great rundown of all of Marylin's pampering products that still can be bought today.