CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
PLAYING âMARILYN MONROEâ
A story about Marilyn Monroeâs 1954 performances for the troops in Korea concludes her autobiography, My Story.1 Monroe, as the narrator, says the officer in charge of her Korean tour asked her to change the way she sang the George Gershwin song, âDo It Again,â because her performance was âtoo suggestive.â Although Monroe insists that she âhadnât sung the song with any suggestive meaning,â she agrees to change âdo itâ to âkiss me,â because she sees no point in arguing. She explains, âPeople had a habit of looking at me as if I were some kind of mirror instead of as a person. They didnât see me, they saw their own lewd thoughtsâ (183). With Monroe, this story suggests, sex appeal was wholly conspicuous, even if she intended her performance to be subdued or even classical. Eventually, when the individual formerly known as Norma Jeane Mortenson looked in the mirror, she would see not âherself,â but Marilyn Monroe looking back at her. That she was âsome kind of mirrorâ aptly describes Monroeâs role in postwar culture, for, as I argue throughout this book, Monroeâs star persona united many of the contradictory discourses of the postwar period. Her performances, onscreen and off, despite having been crafted to showcase her status as a sexpot, were more complex in that, at the same time as they acknowledged and resisted the conventions of the sexpot, they also mirrored, or reflected, the concerns and anxieties of many postwar Americans. Monroe played the sexpot role, but she also challenged that role with humor, sensitivity, and cultural relevance.
In fact, the sexpot role Monroe playedâa performance of being consistently and conspicuously desirable and availableâmade Monroeâs engagement with debates about postwar gender roles, female sexual desire, and the labor undertaken by actresses more palatable to audiences and criticsâand thereby also obscured the range of cultural work undertaken by Monroeâs star persona in the postwar period (as well as today). The very sexiness that is part of her persona has made it difficult for many writers to take her seriously as an actress, and yet, playing âMarilyn Monroeâ meant not only being sexy, but also incorporating nuances of vulnerability and humor into her roles. Playing âMarilyn Monroeâ meant not only being sexy, but also reflecting and advancing debates about womenâs roles in marriage and womenâs sexuality. Playing âMarilyn Monroeâ meant not only being sexy, but also taking herself seriously as an actress, even when few others did. Playing âMarilyn Monroeâ meant exposing and resisting many of the contradictions of the postwar era. How she did that is the subject of this book.
In spite of, or perhaps because of, Monroeâs early, tragic, mysterious death, Monroe reflects what others want to see to this day; she figuratively, and sometimes literally, remains âsome kind of mirror.â For example, according to staff and guests at Hollywoodâs Roosevelt Hotel, where Monroe was photographed for her early modeling gigs, Monroeâs reflection still occasionally appears in the full-length mirror that had once been in her hotel room. The hotel has since moved the mirror to the gift shop, where it can attract revenue. Monroeâs films are still screened, both on television and in movie houses, and thus her screen image also persists.2 Her offscreen image is nearly unavoidable: despite being dead, Monroe appeared in a Snickers Super Bowl ad (2016), a Coke campaign (2015), campaigns for Chanel No. 5 (1994, 2013) and JâAdore Dior (2011), campaigns for Leviâs (1968, 1998), Gap (1993), and Max Factor cosmetics (1999, 2015), as well as campaigns for several automobiles, beers, and jewelry companies, among others (Gray).3
Monroe is useful to advertisers and exhibitors because she remains âsome kind of mirror,â reflecting viewersâ desires and suggesting that our problems can be solved with easily attainable consumer goods. Monroe died while she was still young and beautiful, in the middle of production on Somethingâs Got to Give (1962, dir. George Cukor), when she had not faced the dilemma of leaving Hollywood or acting only in âmatureâ roles. Indeed, Monroe never receded from the limelight in her lifetime, and her brief career and our memories of it, and her, have thereby escaped the vicissitudes of aging. She remains, to todayâs audiences, the same vibrant, fascinating woman she was when she died. (Aging might have been the necessary component for Monroe to escape the dumb blonde sexpot image to which she was bound. Ruth Barton argues that Hedy Lamarr âhad to âloseâ her bodyâ in death before her interest in invention could be reconciled with her star image [84].) Monroe has never âlostâ her body, and while fans invested in her biography often remark on her intelligence, sensitivity, and curiosity, she remains a sex symbol.
But she also means much more to todayâs fans, hundreds of whom visit Monroeâs grave every year,4 and thousands of whom engage in lively conversation on fan social media pages, such as Marilyn Remembered, Marilyn Monroe Forever in Our Hearts, and Immortal Marilyn. Fans desire to honor the star, to save her from those who would exploit her image and story, and to bask in her beauty and glamour. But why should fans still have such strong feelings about a star who died over fifty-six years ago? S. Paige Baty argues that ârememberings of her end breathe life back into the dead star, casting her in roles and histories that relate her to the âlegitimate and illegitimateâ bodies politic of the last several decadesâ (7). Baty focuses on Monroe as a figure that can cross âhighâ and âlowâ culture, and argues that her rich biography makes it possible for her to be used to continually refigure American identity (25â26; see also Ebert xviiâxviii). Although many do engage in activities designed to remember Monroeâs death, such as visiting her grave, many fans prefer to remember her work through discussing the merits of her films, sharing photos of her from throughout her career, and purchasing merchandise bearing her image in order to imagine her as one of their dear friends.5
Much has been written about Monroeâs biography, and I do not intend to delve into who she âreallyâ was or her complex personal life here (although it will, at times, be necessary to mention select details).6 Instead, I focus on Monroeâs career, which is unique in a number of ways that have nothing to do with her biography. For example, Monroe was obviously âbuilt upâ by her studio, Twentieth Century-Fox, to be a sexpot. That is, she conspicuously emphasized her sex appeal and sexual availability (including the âMmmm Girlâ campaign to promote Love Happy [dir. David Miller] in 1949, as well as such stunts as being photographed wearing a potato sack), was frequently cast in roles that were little more than decorative, and always played some version of the sexy blonde. And yet, she became a huge star, in a manner that differed from the blondes who copied her as well as from the few other sexpot actresses who had achieved similar stardom (e.g., Jean Harlow, whom I discuss later in the chapter). Whatâs more, because Monroeâs major film roles fell between 1949 and 1961, we can think of her career as a product of the 1950s, a decade in which many shifts in American cultural life took place, and in which, certainly, many changes in American womenâs lives occurred. It is perhaps counterintuitive that a sexpot should speak to American womenâs concerns, and yet, as subsequent chapters show, that is exactly what she did.
Playing âMarilyn Monroeâ meant encompassing (at least) two meanings at once. The double entendres that filled reporting on her from the beginning of her career were so central to her persona that they became known as Monroeisms: for example, âIn bed, she claims, she wears âonly Chanel No. 5,â and she avoids excessive sun bathing because âI like to feel blonde all overâ â (âSomethingâ 88).7 Monroeâs double meaning was not limited to her offscreen publicityâher double entendres call attention to how she can say one thing while meaning another, and why should we think this differs in her film performances? And yet many writers, both then and now, doubt her acting skill. But encompassing at least two meanings at once, in a performance, has been praised, for example, in male Method actors, who have been described as delivering performances that, by expressing psychic conflict, âcompet[e] withâ the film as scripted (Wexman 174). Monroe has never been given the respect given to acclaimed Method actors, and yet, I argue that Monroeâs performances always challenged the film as scripted, both resisting the sexpot role and referencing cultural debates about womenâs roles in marriage, sexuality, and acting.8 Monroe was more than a sexpotâshe was a star.
MONROE THE STAR
Monroeâs performances simultaneously fulfill the expectations of a sexpot and a serious film star.9 What do I mean by the designation âserious film starâ? During the days of the studio system, all potential stars were given the studio buildup from the moment they stepped onto the lot, and even the studio wasnât sure which potentials would actually become favorites. More who were given the star buildup are forgotten than remembered, and so one aspect of being a star must be becoming well known enough to be remembered. In fact, predicting which âstarsâ were âStars-of-Tomorrowâ had been the subject of a Motion Picture Herald poll from the publicationâs beginnings in the 1930s. In 1952, the poll named Monroe the âNumber One Star-of-Tomorrowâ despite the fact that she had not yet had any major starring roles (Weaver 12). But, as Esther Sonnet points out, âthe uncertainty and unpredictability of even Monroeâs position at this point is historically confirmed by the lack of comparable historical impact of other Stars-of-Tomorrow actors that are named alongside her such as Danny Thomas, David Wayne, Marge and Gower Champion, and Forrest Tuckerâ (66). Studio publicity, then, succeeded in interesting audiences in Monroe, but her film performances had to complement that publicity to maintain audience interest and transform her into an enduring star.
Although there are many excellent articles that analyze specific films and Monroeâs role in them, not enough emphasis has been given to the cumulative effect of her performances in shaping the interpretation of the films. The field of academic star studies boasts a number of useful approaches; P. David Marshall summarizes the ways film stars have been studied as, variously, âthe economic heart of the culture industry,â âa form of spectatorial pleasure and identification,â and âa sociological phenomenon that exits the film roles and plays an active symbolic role in the lives of audiencesâ (12). Monroe has been examined, at least briefly, from all of these perspectives. I will incorporate what has been written about her films in later chapters, but an overview of the vast body of work on Monroe as a star is in order before proceeding.
Monroe often served as evidence of far-reaching patriarchy and Hollywood misogyny in the work of early feminist film scholars, and some of that persists even into the twenty-first century. Early feminist critics described Monroe as a product of âMammary Madnessâ (Rosen 291), the âbutt of all fantasiesâ (Rosen 287), or âbreast fetishism combined with Lolita lecheryâ (Haskell 255). Molly Haskell admits that Monroe âwas giving more to idiotic parts than they called forâmore feeling, more warmth, more anguish; and, as a result, her films have a richer tone than they deserveâ in that they âsuggest the discrepancy between the woman (and young girl) and the sexpot, even as their directors (Wilder and Hawks) exploit the image, through exaggeration, more than they have toâ (256). I agree with Haskell, but attend in more detail to Monroeâs performances to demonstrate how she resisted the sexpot character. Haskell and Marjorie Rosen published their reflectionist studies of women in film in the 1970s, paving the way for further consideration of actresses, a task begun by psychoanalytic theorists of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Nevertheless, foundational feminist film scholar Laura Mulvey, in her early work, reads Monroe as a prime example of the passive female as âerotic objectâ in Hollywood films (âVisualâ 40).10 Even into the twenty-first century, Jessica Hope Jordan, in her otherwise engaging study of the particularly feminine power of Hollywood âsex goddesses,â isolates Monroe as the sole powerless Hollywood sex goddess, whose âtrue helplessness and desperationâ disempower her (157). But Jordan does not acknowledge that while Monroeâs film characters may have appeared helpless and desperate, they also challenged the expectations others had of the sexpot. When critics refuse to concede that Monroe was an empowered woman whom other women admired, they objectify her in just the manner of which they are critical. Directors did exploit Monroe as the sexpot, but we should not let that stop us from seeking signs of Monroeâs resistance to that exploitation.
Complicating the insights of early feminist film scholars has provided later film scholars with tools to better understand Monroeâs appeal as a star. By theorizing spectator desire and identification, psychoanalytic theory usefully illuminates the specific problems involved in discussing female stars. Mulveyâs indispensable âVisual Pleasure and Narrative Cinemaâ posits that the camera and the other characters within the film have either a voyeuristic (watching the private without permission) or fetishistic (building up the beauty of the female star into a satisfying object to disavow castration anxiety) relationship to female stars. In either case, the filmic situation objectifies the woman (âVisualâ 43).11 Although Mulvey does not account for the pleasures of female stars for female viewers, nor for the cameraâs objectification of male stars, she has paved the way for subsequent theories regarding the kinds of pleasure viewers experience when watching Hollywood films, drawing at various points on notions of, as Gaylyn Studlar and Mary Ann Doane discuss, voyeurism, fetishism, masochism, and the masquerade.12 Although such notions maintain rigid gender dichotomies, they nevertheless provide useful heuristics for considering the relationship between stars and viewers.
In contrast, by thinking of film as a fantasy structure housing a number of shifting identificatory positions, theorists such as Elizabeth Cowie and Judith Mayne propose that viewers respond to stars in ways that are not driven by gender binaries.13 The work done toward disproving the hegemonic influence of the patriarchal gaze has resulted in a richer understanding of the ways female stars generate meaning for audiences. While female stars sometimes seem to embody the workings of patriarchy, at other times they demonstrate avenues of resistance to patriarchy, making these forms of resistance accessible to audience members. At still other times stars oscillate between being subjected to and resisting societyâs mores in a way that resembles the viewerâs own experience of social existence. Thus, Lucie Arbuthnot and Gail Seneca use the principle of identification to argue that Jane Russellâs and Monroeâs performance of friendship in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953, dir. Howard Hawks) encourages âthe female viewer to join them, through identification, in valuing other women and ourselvesâ (113). Considering the sexpotâs appeal to female audiences, then, challenges rigid understandings of viewer...