As the 50th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's death approaches, Lois Banner argues in this extract from her new book that the star – complex and powerful – had many qualities associated with the women's movement
In one of the most famous photos of the 20th century, Marilyn Monroe stands on a subway grate, trying to hold her skirt down as a gust of wind blows it up, exposing her underpants. The photo was taken in New York on 15 September, 1954, in a photoshoot during the filming of The Seven Year Itch.
Marilyn is a vision in white, suggesting innocence and purity. Yet she exudes sexuality and transcends it; poses for the male gaze and confronts it. The photoshoot was a publicity stunt, one of the greatest in the history of film. Its time and location were published in New York newspapers; it attracted a crowd of 100 male photographers and 1,500 male spectators, even...
In one of the most famous photos of the 20th century, Marilyn Monroe stands on a subway grate, trying to hold her skirt down as a gust of wind blows it up, exposing her underpants. The photo was taken in New York on 15 September, 1954, in a photoshoot during the filming of The Seven Year Itch.
Marilyn is a vision in white, suggesting innocence and purity. Yet she exudes sexuality and transcends it; poses for the male gaze and confronts it. The photoshoot was a publicity stunt, one of the greatest in the history of film. Its time and location were published in New York newspapers; it attracted a crowd of 100 male photographers and 1,500 male spectators, even...
- 7/21/2012
- by Lois Banner
- The Guardian - Film News
My Week with Marilyn envelops the star in a chaste aura. This desire to desexualise goes back to Arthur Miller
It is not entirely the fault of the recent movie My Week with Marilyn – about Monroe's disastrous attempt to make The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier – that it is devoid of sex, which is something like depicting the life of Napoleon without mentioning that he was French. Monroe might have been one of the most sexual beings who ever lived, but the portrayals of her, even by disillusioned observers, sooner or later descend into a sanitised ideal.
The sex is overtaken by sentimental treacle, or heroic fantasy, or defensive over-analysis. In his book on Monroe, Norman Mailer, for all his worldly candour, concluded that "she was our angel, the sweet angel of sex, and the sugar of sex came up from her like a resonance of sound in...
It is not entirely the fault of the recent movie My Week with Marilyn – about Monroe's disastrous attempt to make The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier – that it is devoid of sex, which is something like depicting the life of Napoleon without mentioning that he was French. Monroe might have been one of the most sexual beings who ever lived, but the portrayals of her, even by disillusioned observers, sooner or later descend into a sanitised ideal.
The sex is overtaken by sentimental treacle, or heroic fantasy, or defensive over-analysis. In his book on Monroe, Norman Mailer, for all his worldly candour, concluded that "she was our angel, the sweet angel of sex, and the sugar of sex came up from her like a resonance of sound in...
- 1/7/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
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