Hollywood Bombshells
Did Marilyn Monroe express feminist sentiments in her lifetime?
Here are a few famous quotes:
“I have too many fantasies to be a housewife…. I guess I am a fantasy.”
“Some people have been unkind. If I say I want to grow as an actress, they look at my figure. If I say I want to develop, to learn my craft, they laugh. Somehow they don’t expect me to be serious about my work.”
“In Hollywood a girl’s virtue is much less important than her hairdo. You’re judged by how you look, not by what you are. Hollywood’s a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty.”
Pretty insightful quotes. Is it because of these sorts of quotes that many feminists, such as Gloria Steinem, have been attracted to Monroe as a sort of feminist figure (or perhaps just a symbol of oppression)? What do you think? Why does Monroe, despite her status as a sex symbol, appeal to some feminists more so than other bombshells?
Marilyn is an interesting figure. If you read about her life, it becomes clear that she clearly understood that she was the hottest sex symbol in a man’s world. But from the quotes you mentioned and other things that she has said, it seems that she didn’t really like that “sex symbol” status. She would have preferred to be taken as a serious actor. She took acting lessons after she had become famous as the blonde bombshell. And that I think was because she wanted to show her versatility in her craft. So she definitely wanted to be seen as being more than just a sex symbol. That can be interpreted in feminist terms, although did Marilyn do that due to feminist reasons, one cannot be totally sure.
She was very well read. Many people who knew her say that most of the times they would see Marilyn reading. Did she read feminist works? We don’t know. It might be interesting to find out what books were in her collection.
She was generally type casted as the dumb blonde, but if you watch a movie like “The Misfits”, you see how good an actor Marilyn actually was.
So to answer your question, I think the reason some feminist writers find Marilyn interesting is because she is clearly a symbol of oppression. You see in her a struggle to survive in a man’s world. She did the nude calendar photoshoot, when she was Norma Jean because she was running low on money. After she became famous, she struggled to be famous as a person and not a symbol. And she died because of her involvement with the most powerful man in America at the time, JFK.
So yes, you see her struggling with oppression but she didn’t really talk about it in openly feminist terms.
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