- Hello, my beautiful doves, my name is Mina and
welcome back to my channel. (upbeat music) Given the recent events, the Met Gala, and the fact that I think Christie sold Andy Warhol's portrait of Marilyn Monroe for the affordable cost of $200 million. I thought it would finally
be a good opportunity for me to do a video on Marilyn Monroe. (soft upbeat music) I've only covered one other
star on this channel so far, which was Audrey Hepburn,
which I did like months ago, so if I could redo that video today, it'd probably be a lot more expansive, but I digress. It is what it is. But similarly to the Audrey
Hepburn video for this video, I'm not gonna be delving too much into Marilyn's actual biography and like all the events of her life and focus more on her cultural impact and why people are so
obsessed with her still today. Similarly to Audrey Hepburn, who lived under brutal war
time conditions as a kid, only to become one of Hollywood's
most beloved actresses. Marilyn also had the makings
for Cinderella's story. Born Norma Jeane, Marilyn's
studio publicists initially crafted a story
around her difficult childhood being shuffled from one
unkind foster home to another, to provide a story that made
her a more relatable figure to audiences watching. Before Marilyn had any starring roles, Robert Cahn described her in an article as "a blonde apparition and a
strapless black cocktail gown, "a little breathless as
if she were Cinderella, "just stepped from a pumpkin coach." Many of Marilyn's films also
reinforce the Cinderella trope with her fictional counterparts, starting out as a lost
innocent girl who ends up with a wealthy love match by the end. So there's a lot to unpack for this video, so let's just dive right in. (soft upbeat music) Marilyn Monroe continues to
be one of the highest earning dead celebrities for years now, which is of course a morbid and kind of inappropriate
industry to begin with. According to Forbes last
year, the total earnings for the 13 best compensated
dead celebrities was $1 billion. The reason is when Marilyn died in 1962, she died with a net worth of $800,000, which is like roughly
like $7.5 million today. But because of her lavish
spending and generous donations, when her estate was settled, her net worth was actually like $370,000. In her Will she divided her money between her personal secretary, a few of her close
friends, her half sister, and also left a hefty
trust for her mother. The important part here is that she gave her
acting coach Lee Strasberg, 75% of her intellectual property rights and 25% to her therapist,
Dr. Marianne Kris. When Strasberg passed away in 1982, his share passed on a
second wife Anna Mizrahi, who I'm not sure ever met Marilyn because she married Lee in 1967. Afterwards, Anna signed deals
that allowed Marilyn's name and face to be plastered on all
kinds of different products. And then in 2011, she sold her stake to authentic brands
group for $20-30 million. Also in 1999, Christie's sold some of Marilyn's
belongings for 13.5 million among these her driver's
license sold for $145,000, and a few photos of her
dog Maf went for $222,500 because these money hungry corporate heads who virtually have like no
attachment to the real Marilyn, are the ones making the decisions, for where to put Marilyn's face and name, it's no surprise that her face is literally just like plastered on every kind of product
from like Absolute Vodka to Mercedes-Benz like yada yada yada. And because her face is
like literally everywhere that also leads to this longstanding, cultural fascination for her. Also worth noting that most
of these photos of her, are the same famous ones, her
standing over the subway grate in her white dress, her publicity photo
for the movie, Niagara, which is the same photo
that Andy Warhol used in her collage. I literally remember
learning about Marilyn Monroe before I even watched any
Marilyn Monroe movies. I knew about the subway grate
scene before I ever watched The Seven Year Itch, which is where the subway scene is from. And because her images are
disseminated so widely, and so carelessly Marilyn has become, like an ever glamorous image, virtually a brand in
our popular imagination. According to Virginia Postrel in her book, "The Power of Glamor" "promotional photos
turned ephemeral scenes "into permanent stills. "We remember many of the
most famous movie scenes, "not from seeing them
flashing by on the screen, "but from the repetition
as printed photographs, "such images, lift scenes
out of the narrative flow, "intensifying their grace "and with it, their glamor
like wedding portraits "or vacation postcards, "the photos preserve
transient experiences, "distilling them into ideal moments." (soft upbeat music) Even though when we think
of the sexual revolution, we think of the sixties and seventies, Richard Dyer notes in his book, "Heavenly Bodies" "sex was seen as perhaps "the most important thing
in life in fifties America." He deduced this because there
were two Kinsey reports, one on men that was
published in 1948, I believe. And then the one on women
which was published in 1953, anyone unfamiliar with
the Kinsey reports, Kinsey's research championed the normalization of sexual
and diversity and fluidity and his books were so popular
and controversial at the time that the New York times even dubbed him, "The Father of the Sexual
Revolution" in 1997, also in the 50s Confidential
Magazine and Playboy released their 1st issues, Betty Friedan notes in "The
Feminine Mystique" that "from 1950 to 1960, "the interest of men in
the details of intercourse "paled before the avidity of women, "both as depicted in these
media and as its audience." Part of the reason is that
movies in the 50s were competing with a lot of like independent, leisurely home based activities
like television, reading and home based sports. So one of the things that
Hollywood tried to do to set movies apart was to experiment with some more provocative material that would not be appropriate
to air on television. Of course, the widespread
availability of pornography didn't happen until much later. And then the Hays code was
still in effect into the 1960s, but Hollywood was definitely starting to loosen its production code. And Marilyn Monroe either
intentionally or unintentionally was a pioneer of this Hollywood shift. Sarah Churchwell writes in her book, "The Many Lives of Marilyn" "part of the reason Marilyn
became so identified "with a static concept of sexuality "is that she began her career as a pinup. "A pinup sold a coy sanitized image "of the sexually available woman." Most famously she modeled
nude during one photo session with Tom Kelly in 1948, when she was struggling to
make ends meet in Hollywood, she made $50 from the photo, which is known as Golden Dreams, and the negatives were sold
to a company making calendars. In March, 1952 it became
a major news story that Marilyn had posed nude
for a calendar company. But at the time relatively few people, actually got ahold of these
calendars and saw these photos. So in 1953, Hugh Hefner
bought the negatives from the calendar company and used the photos to
promote his new issue of his new magazine Playboy. He bought the negatives for
only $500 and he made millions of course from Playboy,
never having paid Marilyn, any cent of the profits. - [Narrator] Oh brother, this guy stinks. - Marilyn tried to save face at the time choosing like guiltlessness when interrogated by the press. In an interview with Alene Mosby, Monroe said that, "she'd done the photo "because she needed the money "that Kelly's wife was
present at the time. "And besides I'm not ashamed of it, "I've done nothing wrong." Time magazine wrote up the whole affair, Marilyn believes in doing
what comes naturally. Unfortunately, all this
like laissez fair behavior, led to this like societal belief that Marilyn was like
inherently a very sexual person, which is like a totally fine thing now. But in the 1950s, society
was like a lot more Puritan, and therefore like her sexuality
was like sensationalized and it was used an
excuse to ogle at her body and diminish her acting abilities. In 1956, Monroe had her
only cover of Time Magazine, which included a long
feature length profile. The writer noted, "Marilyn
Monroe hip flipping lip-twitching "frolicsomely simply sensual figure "is the latest curve on
the path of erotic progress "that has led Hollywood
from the slithering vamp "to the good nature tramp." In Coronet, Grady Johnson calls her a, "luscious blonde with the
tree-ripened sex appeal "and a full-lip, full-breasted girl "who has hitched a sex wagon "to Hollywood's fastest climbing star, "going as far as to state "that she is developing a
singularly unnecessary skill "as an actress." The view that Marilyn was not an actress, but a model was very popular. Laurence Olivier who directed and starred in The Prince and The Showgirl with Marilyn Monroe said this of Marilyn. - Inside somewhere rather,
she doesn't want to act. She wants to show herself. That's another thing. She is a model by accident
or by a villainy of nature, forced to be an actress. That's the answer to her. - So 1st of all, Marilyn Monroe made The Prince in the Showgirl after she studied Method acting with Lee Strasberg at the Actors studio. And for anyone who doesn't
know who Lee Strasberg is, he's like the father of Method acting. He's trained a lot of
people like Al Pacino and like et cetera like, he's like well known in the acting space. And while I don't defend the fact that she struggled
memorizing her lines and that she often showed up
late when watching this movie, anyone can see that she
does a way better job than Laurence in terms of comedic acting. So I don't really know
what he's talking about. Another important thing to note when it comes to Marilyn's appeal is that in the mid 20th century, white women were viewed as
like the prize possession of the white men, which is
why in a lot of old movies, there's this constant theme
of like white men protecting their white women. Probably the most racist and most offensive disturbing example is The Birth of a Nation, which was a movie that
was released in the 1910s and glorifies the KKK. Dyer also argues that blonde hair, was frequently associated with
wealth and platinum blonde, which Marilyn was for a time
visually rhymed with silver or gold dress and jewelry. Blondness is generally
racially unambiguous because not a lot of people
of color have blonde hair, like it's pretty much like
associated with whiteness. And in something that's important to note is like during the 1950s, like
interracial, like marriage, I think was still illegal
in a lot of states and a lot of Hollywood movies and plays, like centered on this like
scandal of being mixed race. Take for instance the 1957
movie Raintree County, which stars Elizabeth Taylor, who is a prominent brunette
actress of the time. And her character in the movie: There's like a moment where she goes crazy because she thinks she
might have a Black mother or another example is the
1959 remake Imitation of Life, which features the stories of two girls, the white brunette, Susan Conner, who plays a white passing Black girl Susie and the blonde Sandra Dee who plays the white girl, Annie. In the movie, Susie deals
with internalized racism and constantly attempts
to deny her Blackness. Dyer recalls how Marilyn's blondness and subsequent whiteness
is often emphasized in a lot of her movie roles. - Look at her gleaming there.
- So pale and white. (soft upbeat music) - [Mina] So Richard Dyer
refers to Marilyn's archetype as "The Girl" which he describes succinctly as being defined solely by
age, gender and sexual appeal. He elaborates, "she's knitted
into the fabric of the film "through point-of-view shots
located in male characters, "even in the later films
and virtually always "in the earlier ones, "she is set up as an object
of male sexual gaze." Her character in The Seven
Year Itch is probably the most representative of this trope because in the movie Marilyn's character, doesn't actually have
a name she's portrayed as this innocently desirable girl, who's made the butt of lots of jokes. And the movie even pushes the idea that Marilyn is literally her character, because one of the jokes is
when the main character Richard is wondering who his upstairs neighbor is, and he says, sarcastically. - Maybe it's Marilyn Monroe. - Marilyn's characters tend
to embody both the sexual and the naive. - Are you sure you wanna
waste your champagne, now that you know that I'm married? - I think it's wonderful
that you're married, I think it's just delicate. I mean, I wouldn't be lying on the floor in the middle of the night in some man's apartment
drinking champagne, if he wasn't married. - That's a very interesting
line of reasoning. - [Mina] And unlike
other Hollywood actresses who were cast in a sexual light, Marilyn was never an
ordinary girl-next door-type, her sex appeal was almost
always exaggerated, and she brought humor and lightness to the majority of her roles. Another good example of this archetype is in the movie that I referenced before, which is "The Prince and the Showgirl." In it there's a scene
where Laurence Olivier, who plays the regent
makes this poetic speech. -I have never known what it is
to love or be loved It is like the legend of
the sleeping princess. Only here it is the prince who sleeps and the awaits the kiss of
the beautiful young maiden that will bring him back to life. - You mean, you want me to kiss you? - You are so literal. - Marilyn is actually like
a great comedy actress, like she's very funny. - Isn't it silly though? - What is it, stigmatism? - No, just blind is a bat. - Me too. - Oh, really? Then why aren't you wearing glasses? - And I don't think people
appreciate this enough because I don't know why comedy is viewed as this like lesser, less serious film medium in
the film commentary space. But I think it's because it's really hard to make a good comedy because a lot of actors
are really bad at comedy because comedy requires
you to have really precise and really good frankly good line delivery and comedic timing and facial expressions. There's a lot that goes into it that a lot of people don't appreciate. Marilyn's specific brand of comedy was based on wide eyed
literalism non-sequitur and misinterpretation. And this is like the type of comedy that she had in real life as well. For example, in 1952
quoted in Time Magazine, when asked if she had anything on during the nude photo shoot, she said, "I had the radio on." Sarah Churchwell writes, "the literalness became part
of her comic persona on screen "and off, helping to blur the
boundaries between the two." And this blurring was a problem because critics started to think that Marilyn was just playing herself in a lot of these movies. One reviewer said, "like a flower, "Marilyn has always been at
her best simply by being." And while Marilyn may
not have had the range or may not have had the
opportunity to develop a range. I think just casting off her
acting ability by saying, oh, she's just playing herself
is incredibly reductive. The truth is Marilyn was
acting her whole life. The persona of Marilyn Monroe, was something that she crafted herself and something that she had to upkeep, during any kind of like public appearance. And while she's probably
the most famous case of someone adopting a persona, she's definitely not the only one. As I mentioned in my Audrey Hepburn video, Audrey was known for playing these quirky down to earth
girl, next door types, which is evidently why she was cast in Breakfast at Tiffany's despite
the writer of the story, Truman Capote saying he
wanted Marilyn for the role. Studios at the time were concerned that the movie would be too raunchy if they casted Marilyn as Holly Golightly, because in the book, Holly Golightly is a call girl. So they decided to cast Audrey to make the movie more censor friendly, which is kind of ridiculous because Audrey still
like plays a call girl. But because Audrey had this reputation of being just like this very
classy, very elegant lady, they felt like by casting her, it would balance out some of
the more sexual undertones of the script. And they also like rewrote a
lot of scenes in the script. So I will say though that, I think like even though
Audrey Hepburn was known for these specific character traits and that she was casted in
a lot of very similar roles, she wasn't so tied to an offscreen persona as Marilyn Monroe was, but in general, stars of the studio era were pushed into these archetypes so that companies could capitalize on their previous successes. Like if we think about it imagining that a celebrity is like
the same exact person as the character they play, leads to these parasocial relationships because audiences think they
know this person based on what they see in the movie theater. This is all to say that I
don't think Marilyn Monroe should be undermined at all
in terms of acting ability, because she was basically
like forced to play this character, both
onscreen and offscreen, which takes a lot of talent and labor. In sum, Conkle writes: "Contrary to the belief that
this meant she couldn't act then Monroe gave a performance
so convincing in all realms of her public existence, that her ability to maintain
this type in her film roles was believed to be not
a performance at all." In the latter half of her career, Marilyn actually tried to break away from this archetype famously
she moved to New York. She left Hollywood in
protest against Fox studio because she believed one, that she was not getting the
roles she wanted to play, and two, because they were underpaying her in relation to how much money she was making them as a rising star. While in New York, she started training with Lee Strasberg at the Actors studio. Once again, Strasberg is
infamous for championing the method acting technique, which is a whole can of worms that I don't really
wanna open in this video. I'm personally against method acting because I feel like it's very dangerous and like kind of unhealthy because it's basically like pulling from your own traumatic experiences to create like authentic
emotions, and I don't know, it just like doesn't seem that great. But with that said, it
was definitely a style that was growing credibility
in mainstream society. Thanks to successful method
actors like Marlon Brando and James Dean. Then in December 1955, she negotiated a new
contract with her studio that gave her a better pay rate, required her to make only
four instead of 14 movies in the next seven years, as well as the ability to approve
the directors of the films and to act in outside pictures, including those for her
own production company, Marilyn Monroe Productions. Unfortunately she still
didn't get the kind of freedom she wanted in choosing the
types of roles to play. So even though I think
her acting is better in the latter 1/2 of her career, she was still forced into
this "the girl" archetype. In saying that though, I do
think that her performances, her new performances were interesting because they kind of offered
this like meta commentary on how Marilyn was
forced into these roles. So if that doesn't make any sense, but let me try to clarify that for you, Laura movie writes, "If Monroe was going to continue
to receive sex pot roles, "she could nevertheless
use her method training "to imbue her performances "with commentary on what it means "to be viewed continually as a sex pot." For instance, in The
Prince in the Showgirl, which was produced by
Marilyn Monroe productions, centers its character Elsie,
who is like many of Marilyn's, other characters a showgirl. There's one scene that really
stands out to me though, which is one The Regent is ignoring Elsie to make phone calls and the
camera focuses on Elsie, Who's entertaining herself. - Ah, miss Marina, won't you have some champagne. Oh, I don't know, your grand ducal, you really think I ought? Well, maybe just just a sip, maybe-- - Elsie's private performance here is essentially her switching
on this like sexpot persona. And when we watch the scene, we can see that the whole
persona is something that Elsie and therefore Marilyn
Monroe can turn off and on whenever she pleases. Misfits is another movie
that really stands out from the Marilyn Monroe film cannon, mainly because it is the only movie where the role was written in response to her plea for a new acting challenge, the screenplay was written
by her then husband, Arthur Miller. - What makes you so sad? I think you're the
saddest girl I ever met. - Marilyn's character
in the film is Roslyn who is currently in Reno
to get a quick divorce. She decides to help these two cowboys, she meets redecorate one of their homes. There's one scene where
she's showing Guido one of the Cowboys, the work
she's done for his place, and he opens a closet door that has a bunch of old pinup photos of the real Marilyn Monroe. She promptly closes the door saying, oh, don't look at those they're nothing. Guido insists on opening the door again, and she again keeps closing the door. When I watch this, I read this as Marilyn
trying desperately to move on from this persona,
she's become famous for, to leave it in the past, as she pursues more serious acting roles. I also view it as the real experience of her nude photos being
made centerfolds in Playboy, without her consent. I think this is probably
Marilyn's best role in terms of highlighting
her acting capabilities. The subtle facial expressions
she does are extremely natural and show the profound sadness that undercuts her
character's circumstances. Of course, these movies
are not without criticism. Richard Dyer notes that
Roslyn still has no biography and is reduced to a divorcee that still hinges on Marilyn's
naive sexual persona. And she's still made the object of the male gaze on multiple occasions. And in The Prince and the Showgirl, one of the first sequences is Marilyn's boob
falling out of her dress. So even though there is this
underlying meta commentary, there's still this insistence
on displaying Marilyn's body and having her perform adjacent roles to a character she's already known for. (piano music) Photographer Richard Avedon, who worked with Marilyn in real life, once said of her, "there was no such
person as Marilyn Monroe, "Marilyn Monroe was an invention of hers. "A genius invention that she created, "like an author creates a character." There's actually quite a
lot of testimonials noting the difference between
like the real Marilyn and the Marilyn that was
viewed by the public. Another photographer Philippe
Halsman wrote in Life Magazine in 1952, about his
experience with Marilyn, "I found Marilyn anything but
stupid with amazing frankness "and a good sense of humor
and her company stimulating, "even in a spiritual way. "The trait, which struck me
most was a general benevolence, "an absolute absence of envy and jealousy, "which in an actress was astonishing." These inconsistencies
between persona Marilyn and real Marilyn came even
more into late after her death. But unfortunately when it comes to anyone who dies under uncertain circumstances, whose real life was rendered unknowable by the majority of us and who was no longer around to verify or deny any testimonials that
came out after their death, it is no surprise that her
subsequent biographies, have relied on a high
degree of fictionalization and speculation. For instance, Marilyn did
have a drug abuse problem, but there's conflict over
how she obtained the drugs in the first place. In
Norma Jean and Marilyn, she gets them from Ted Lewis, in Blonde, one of her lovers,
Cass, introduces her to pills, in The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe, Johnny Hyde gives her
drugs to calm her down on the set of All About Eve. But these fictionalizations
or speculations are really like disrespectful to me because Marilyn was a real person and I feel like they just
like botch her legacy, but I understand why they do it. Like I think it's wrong, but I understand why filmmakers
and writers feel like they have to fill in these blanks because there is just
so much modern interest in who she is and who, or who she was. And people just want answers to questions. And once again, a lot of the interest that is garnered for her is because her image is
literally plastered everywhere. Steven Cohen analyzes
several Marilyn biopics in his article and notes, "the gossip about her affairs abortions "and impossible or
impossible assassination "reinforces her immortality too, "because their truthfulness
is always disputable "and debatable giving her life story "its sense of ongoing currency." There are definitely parts of her story that are true and tragic. Like the fact that her
mother did have schizophrenia and couldn't take care of her, which put Marilyn in
numerous foster homes. The fact that Marilyn had
three unsuccessful marriages, the fact that she had trouble conceiving and had endometriosis, the fact that she had mental illnesses, the fact that she was
basically bullied and exploited by the Hollywood machine and the fact that she died
early at the age of 36. Conkle also notes that
Marilyn's persona reflects the story of a woman who
was the "damaged famous". The damage of fame includes
mental health problems, addictions and bankruptcy, which evidently draws people
closer to the injured celebrity. Thus, Marilyn's series of
struggles endeared others to her. People love to see themselves represented in celebrity narratives, because I feel like people
like to have someone to fixate their issues
around like they want someone to start the conversation for
them when it comes to things that they're internally dealing with. During Marilyn's life, her inability to have a baby
was a frequent conversation among fan magazines. One Photoplay article
imagined Marilyn saying, which I feel like is just
totally inappropriate but anyways, the article said,
"someday, when I grew up, "I'm going to have a little girl of my own "and I'm never going to
leave her, never, never." Marilyn was essentially
a vehicle for these women to talk about their issues when it came to like reproductive health and childbearing. As of very recently,
we've seen Kim Kardashian, dawning two of Maryland's actual dresses. We've seen numerous depictions of Marilyn Monroe in pop culture, whether that be a recreation of gentleman, preferred blonde sequence or
recreation of her photo shoots. Earlier this year, another Marilyn Monroe
documentary came out, attempting to reframe her narrative as empowering to reflect
her cultural tendency to girl bossify everyone and everything. Marilyn's relevance seems
to be ever consistent. - To see a woman that is so
in charge of her sexuality as extremely empowering. this woman is so comfortable in her skin, she was rolling the dice with
her career in very real terms. - Generally, I think all of this reframing
to make Marilyn like the, the representation of a
movement to push an agenda is a disservice and
disrespectful to who she was, which is a woman in the 1950s, dealing with problems of the 1950s. But at the same time, I think projecting onto Marylyn on a personal level is okay, because that's just like
what celebrities are, their figureheads for
people to project onto and to help make sense of their own lives. It's just about learning
how to navigate those things without being disrespectful or like tarnishing the
legacy of a real human being. Anyways, thank you so much for tuning in this is the end of the video. Please let me know in the comments, what you think about Marilyn Monroe and what you think about recent events concerning Marilyn Monroe. I dunno when I'll do another
old Hollywood themed video, but I would love to hear any suggestions for any other figureheads or old Hollywood esque videos
you would like to see from me. And yeah, thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you have a lovely rest of your day and I'll see you next time, bye.
