Marilyn vs. The Media vs. Women

Someone very dear to me idolizes Marilyn Monroe, and to be honest, I have never understood it. The issue isn’t with Marilyn herself. Instead, it is with our culture and the media, according to which a girl’s worth is in how she looks. The damages of this concept are far reaching: 65% of women have an eating disorder, 1 in 4 are victims of domestic violence and 1 in 6 have either been raped or have been victims of attempted rape. If those numbers don’t scare you, they should.

The reason for all of this is that once women are dehumanized and become sex objects, it is far easier to justify violence towards them. And Marilyn Monroe – the ultimate sex object – was a victim of child molestation, domestic violence and attempted rape (when she was just starting out, several studio executives at a party held her down and tried to rape her in one of the bedrooms).

Due to our culture’s unattainable idea of beauty it is becoming far easier for young girls and women to fall victim to the ridiculous pressures put upon them to reach impossible standards. There is a constant message being sent to women through television, magazines and social media stating, “You are never beautiful enough.” This eventually leads to men seeing women as objects, which, in turn, makes women consider themselves to be sex objects (just look at the female journalists on Fox News who look like cocktail waitresses). We have been taught that women are supposed to be sugar and spice and everything nice…if that nice leads to an erection. So it’s no wonder that women feel disempowered when all society seems to care about is your cup size and how great your ass looks in those jeans. It doesn’t help that as Hollywood attempts to cash in by repeating the same stereotypes over and over again, women are perceived as human beings less and less.

And this is nothing new. Back in the 50s, Betty Grable warned Marilyn of what those Hollywood executives would do to her. The stomach that is Hollywood swallows starlets whole, devours their youth and disposes of them as soon as their boobs loose their perkiness and their skin shows signs of that first wrinkle. For the most part, woman were, and still are, used as body props – useful when men wanted to sleep with them, and completely useless as marketing tools after they’ve lost their youthful glow.

Side Note: Did you know that women are just as likely to be dressed in revealing clothing in a G rated movie as in an R rated movie?

The fact is that Hollywood’s hypersexualization of women has always been, and still is, highly toxic to our society. For example, young girls have been releasing sex tapes online because the same behavior made Kim Kardashian famous (god help us all).

Now, Marilyn tried to use her sexuality to gain empowerment. After she rose to fame with the success of “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” she felt that she had earned the respect of Twentieth Century Fox. After all, she had made those male executives lots of money with a character the world adored – one that Marilyn created herself. It didn’t matter though. The executives saw her as stupid and not to be taken seriously. It didn’t matter how many books she read, or was seen reading. She was always going to be seen as a blonde bimbo – not a serious actor. They didn’t even see her as a serious comedienne – even though others have compared her comedic talent to the genius of Charlie Chaplin.

It was clear to Marilyn that the studio head, Darryl Zanuck – Mr. Z, as she called him – would never let her perform different roles. She knew that the studio would force her to play the same dumb blonde over and over again until she was pre-menopausal, or until the money at the box office dried up – whichever came first.

Yet, Marilyn was wildly ambitious. She had managed to overcome so much in her pursuit to become a respected actor, and she wasn’t going to let the studio executives get in her way. So, she started her own production company – Marilyn Monroe Productions, through which she could do the roles she wanted to do with the directors she wanted to work with. She also wanted to help other actors achieve the same goals. However, society didn’t accept it. It seems that in our culture, women exist to be stupid – especially in Hollywood, where a woman’s only power is in her beauty, through which she doesn’t have any real power, nor should she want any. Instead, it is a world in which men judge women based on their looks, and women feel the need to apply pounds of makeup and spend hours styling their hair, as if screaming, “Pick me! Pick me!”

And that’s the problem. There has always been far more coverage about Marilyn’s appearance than about her life. In addition, her ambition has always been presented as a bad thing. And by idolizing her image, our society is continuing to dehumanize this woman. We must put an end to this and bring about the necessary change to our culture and society. After all, if women don’t look out for each other, no one else will.

Marilyn vs. The Media vs. Women

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