Girls Just Want to Have Fun

Central Image by Andy Warhol, Marilyn Monroe, 1967.

 

I chose Marilyn Monroe for this collage because I find the huge gap between her “dumb blonde” public image and her real-life badass personality very intriguing. 

Those differences, represent, in my opinion, the differences between the male and the female gaze. She was portrayed as the embodiment of the ideal of the American girl, soft, needy, worshipful of men, naive, fragile, and dumb when in actual fact she was incredibly tough, clever, talented, independent, and courageous. She did not comply with a sexist industry, believed in herself, and worked hard to achieve what she wanted- a great inspiration for young women. 

Monroe often complained about the condescension and sexism of her male co-stars and directors, she wished to show more of her acting range and was “tired of the same old sex roles”. On top of that, she was underpaid by her studio. Her solution was to go ahead and found her own film production company. After she took things into her own hands, she really proved herself as an actress winning a Golden Globe (1959 Best Actress).

Academic Sarah Churchwell said about her: “Such a good actress that no one believed she was anything but what she portrayed on screen.”

In ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes ‘, one of the films in which she played an archetypal dumb blonde, Monroe had the sentence “I can be smart when it’s important, but most men don’t like it.” added to her character’s lines.