My Week With Marilyn: When Innocence Was Sexy
The movie My Week With Marilyn both saddened and charmed me. It brought me back to 1956, to an era in which a kittenish, impish, slightly naughty, only slightly undressed, whispery-voice child-woman was considered the world’s biggest sex symbol.
I am talking about the incomparable Marilyn Monroe and the very good actress Michelle Williams who now plays her. She does not “impersonate” Marilyn. Williams really acts the part, carefully re-creating Marilyn’s childish, playful, giggle-of-a-wriggle, her incandescent screen presence, her calculated but spontaneous sauciness, her little-girl-lost real persona.
Contrast this innocence to Paris Hilton’s decision to use a sex tape to launch her celebrity “brand,” or to Kim Kardashian’s XXX-rated video of her own. Compare this to the stream of prostitutes and porn stars who enjoy 15 minutes of fame because one of their clients was a governor or a major athlete. Stop and consider the dirty sex language people use on the internet and how many untold hours of pornographic films are available free of charge with only the click of the mouse.
The film is based on two books by upper-crust Brit Colin Clark (played by Eddie Redmayne) who, for nine days when he was 23 years old, had a platonic-erotic romance with Marilyn, a woman whom he viewed as a “Greek goddess.” He was the “third assistant director” working for the great Laurence Olivier on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl. This great, great actor, played by the brilliant Kenneth Branagh, was bested on the screen by the American pseudo-Method actress who perpetually came late, kept forgetting her lines, and who needed countless retakes and the aggressive protection of acting teacher Paula Strasberg. She was “unprofessional” and yet even Olivier conceded that the camera loved her, not him.
So far, at least ten actresses, including Ashley Judd, Mariah Carey, and her impersonator, Susan Griffith, have played Monroe. Countless books about her “secret lives” have also appeared with never-before-seen photos, written by Donald Spoto, J. Randy Taraborrelli, Sarah Bartlett Churchwell, Bert Stern, and Norman Mailer. Donald H. Wolfe wrote a book which suggests she was assassinated.
So, who was she, really?
Next: Why Marilyn had abandonment issues…
I was born in 1954. I remember seeing Marilyn Monroe in movies after she died. I always found her beautiful, fun, interesting and sad. There are no women in movies today with the same power and beauty.
thank you phyllis, for a kind look at marilyn monroe, she was one of several hollywood women who taught me as a boy, then young man, what a beautiful woman should look like. she left us all too soon, gone but not forgotten. the current crop of hollywood celebrities are no match for her.
“Hollywood” is the epitome of the maladies of a society’s sickness where the “eternally young” appearance at any cost is glamorized, and where aging gracefully is shunted. Marylin too was not exception, and whether suicide or accidental overdose, it was the ticking age, the flabbiness of the flesh, and the inability to come to grips with it that propelled the end. Thus we have now the freaks like Joan Rivers and company, and the panoply of laughably enhanced breast, an American doing, for when you travel to Europe, Paris, Madrid, you find none.
Here, the body and its appearance, is king. The superficial is paramount. A total ignorance of the answer to the question posed by Nachiketas to Yama…what happens after death? A further ignorance of the inner body that never ages, the Sukhma Sarira, and its importance, by the followers of the Great Philosopher Brad Pitt, who, with Hollywoodean Grace, teaches us his brand of agnosticism.
Marilyn Monroe once sang happy birthday to the president of the United States. She wore barely enough clothing to make her legally dressed in that day and her song was the sound of a prostitute whose voice invited the president to have public sex with her as any other woman in that day doing this would be labeled a slut.
She died like she lived. A fatal dose of poison in an enema was the cause of death.
An adulteress and a whore is not the image you want your daughter to emulate for it is written: 1Cr 6:9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,..shall inherit the kingdom of God.
A little too much time with the bible lately? A sojourn in the Middle East would do you good…or…for the constipation, a nice enema.
She was a world-class idol – add to that simple fact all the Bible verses that apply to Idolatry and you have a clear indication of just how much we should admire her – less than zero. The fact that her activities pale in comparison to the sluts of today is immaterial.
Even if you don’t add the Bible to the mix, your observation about JFK’s birthday party are spot on. We should pity Norma Jean for the depths she had fallen and punish those responsible, but we should certainly not admire (much less idolize) her.
Picking the worst examples in society and comparing them to Marilyn monroe doesn’t exactly help your case.
in early grammar school we boys had one of those tiny visual picture viewers you put up to your eye against the light to view the picture. the pix we cherished most was marilyn posing reclined, in a bathing suit. we constantly passed it secretly around class giggling all the while, until some marine looking spinster took it away. that, was the innocence of those days.
ahhhh, the memories. thanks billie jean.
Some place along the line, I read a short comparison of Liz Taylor and Marilyn Monroe. They were sex goddesses at approximately the same time, both appeared nude on camera and had multiple husbands, but Liz ended up making a million dollars a picture and owning the world’s biggest diamond, while Marilyn ended up fired from her last picture and bankrupt. Was the reason for the disparity as simple as Elizabeth Taylor was smarter?
Marilyn was chemically dependent. Liz was not. Difference in financial fortunes was a simple as that. Ditto for their respective lifespans.
As to their final judgement: No need to worry about them. A Jewish carpenter
took their case and they both got off with Eternal Salvation.
I believe Marilyn was murdered.
In reading Dr. Phyllis Chesler’s poignant account of Marilyn Monroe’s life, I grieved over Marilyn’s suffering. There is one particularly harsh condemnation of Marilyn from one commentator who quoted the Bible. We have ALL sinned! I believe that GOD takes into account the terrible and painful things that have taken place in people’s lives. Poor Marilyn was abandoned by her mother and by her second mother. She was left without a single family member or relative. No one to help her. No one to protect her. All alone in the world.
And sexually assaulted from the age of nine. Every day, this innocent, defenseless child had to live with the constant trauma, shame, fear and dread of ongoing sexual assaults. A deep wound not just to the physical body, but to the emotions, the spirit, and the soul.
Dear Marilyn, rest in eternal peace. The peace that you never experienced in this life.
What a beautiful, kind and compassionate comment. Thank you.
Given that she was continually molested and, also, abandonned, we could say that she achieved a good deal although her lifespan was limited and she endured a good deal of pain and self-harm.
You might wish to update, Phyllis, your understanding of the difference between street prostitutes and escorts. The latter tend to be businesswomen who have chosen their occupation and engage in it for a limited period of time. As compared to the 1950s, this form of earning money (as an independent escort)is far more acceptable with respect to the populace and the rigning moral standards (or lack of them).
Pardon me, but M.M. ruthlessly slept her way to the top, broke up marriages without compunction, and as I recall reading, had a few abortions along the way.
She may have spoken in a breathy, innocent voice and, given the times, not performed sex acts on film – and she may have had a stinking childhood, though many others have and managed to live exemplary lives – but to extoll her as a virgin goddess is deceptive in the extreme.
Not judging, as I’m no angel myself. But I am suggesting Phyllis Chester do a little homework before putting someone on a pedestal for others.
Yes, that pathetic woman was a promiscuous murderess, and to present her as did the author is shameful. She was extremely emotionally disturbed and, in the last year of her life saw her psychiatrist daily. She is certainly not an appropriate model for anyone.
I’m not taking from Phyllis’s article that Marilyn is being extolled as an appropriate model… but as a sad and tragic… very human figure. Yes, I’m sure she sinned…. the price she paid for her sins was high. Great damage was done to this beautiful, very ordinary child. The abandonments and sexual abuses must have done her so much damage. Most children will never get over this kind of thing… even if they do wind up leading exemplary lives. I think Ms Chesler deserves credit for writing a touching and profound article about this iconic woman. We all have reason to do all we can to shield our daughters, our children, from such scarring pain.
Excuse me. I thought the point Phyllis was making (correct me if I’m wrong, Ms. Chesler), is that the steaming ‘sexuality’ on screen from days of yore was pretty tame and that the new ‘skanks R us’ type sexuality is really rotten to the core and a sad place for our culture.
Marilyn represented a sad, lost child in a woman’s full-grown body but she never represented the ‘slut it up culture’ of today.
Marilyn was no ‘innocent’ by any stretch, but she embodied a time of more ‘innocence’ and much less ‘flesh peddling’.
/sheesh out
As a mental health practitioner working in the area of sexual trauma, it is common to bear witness to women and men, in the aftermath of their trauma, become hypersexualized in their lives. It truly saddens me that Marilyn Monroe, in her childhood, had to experience such trauma, again and again. Quite possibly, if she had sought therapeutic intervention early on, her life may have truly been different.
If we are outraged by the depiction of Ms. Monroe’s life, and all the collateral damage caused by her behaviors, ultimately causing the demise of her own life- should we not express indignation at the media’s objectification of our daughters? When we are silent at the ever-increasing incidences of human trafficking in our communities, or when we allow our adolescents to purchase videos, with scenes of abuse toward women, aren’t we condoning similar kinds of sexualized behaviors that the late Marilyn Monroe was guilty of?
Let’s not be derailed by this movie. Let’s begin evaluating society’s overall image of women, and raising our voices in righteous indignation!
There is no comparison PERIOD. Liberation? Gimme a break liberated to do what be fodder? Make it easier to be trashed and not taken seriously? We are the majority yet we are underrepresented.
In a society where media is the most persuasive force shaping cultural norms, the collective message that our young women and men overwhelmingly receive is that a woman’s value and power lie in her youth, beauty, and sexuality, and not in her capacity as a leader. While women have made great strides in leadership over the past few decades, the United States is still 90th in the world for women in national legislatures, women hold only 3% of clout positions in mainstream media, and 65% of women and girls have disordered eating behaviors.
For 35 years I have been trying to show women they are allowing themselves to be sold short we have now come to the point where teens are sexting and allowing thmselves to be phone taped performing fellatio! This is not a dumb thing- this is dangerous and it is up to woken to wake up and stop it.
http://freemenow.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/sexualizing-our-society-1/
Phyllis, thank you for doing a terrific justice to this story on Marilyn. It is refreshing to see the difference between who Marilyn was and what we have today passing for sexy! I think yo did her proud! Thank you.
BJ
Thanks, Phyllis, for this article.
In spite of all the naysayers–especially the religious bigots among them–I have always felt a lot of compassion for MM, as well as admiration.
Why didn’t anyone tap into her sense of humor, presenting her with more prominent comedic roles? Why wasn’t her desire to take on serious roles championed by anyone with any clout in the motion picture industry? These are only a few of the questions I ponder when I think of her.
I will always have a special place in my heart for MM.
Dearest Dr. Phyllis, thank you for telling the whole story about her.
In my opinion she was the product of men’s (…) perversion [Marylin was meant to be a sexual object, not more not less than that],
and she looked like a special one (a goddess) because at that time the media market wasn’t developed as it is today, and just few people (men and women alike) could become as famous as (one like Marylin) became.
[Another example was Brigit Bardot, a sexy icon in Europe].
Morals of that time did not even permit the same kind of Extimacy (opposite of Intimacy, so as Dr. Willy Pasini, psychologist, calls it) that we have today
[which in your article was called Pornography (word coming from ancient Greece and meaning "image of prostitutes" - not necessarly of "sexual intercourses or abuses" as it means/is today!!! -)].
I like you dearest Dr. Phyllis, thank you for your great Work.
She was a sexy goddess/icon who could actually ACT! If she had lived longer, and the sexiness had faded somewhat and the iconography had worn off, we would have been left with nothing but the actress. If you want a hint at what may have happened then, take a look at her final film “The Misfits;” it is the work of a consummate actress (and it proves that Gable was no mere matanee idol, either).
Lou: I think you see in MM what most people missed, that she was growing up as a person and professionally. She was funny. Just watch “The Seven Year Itch” and “Some Like It Hot”. Comedy had become her nitch and she filled it well. My wife says that her performances in “Bus Stop” and “How to Marry A Millionaire” were also very good.
Unfortunately, her tragic early life scarred her so deeply that she probably never was able to recover from it. That was not her fault, and it is a shame that the movie industry didn’t help her, or enough, if they did anything at all.
She was truely a beautiful woman with a smile that looked like sunshine. Phyllis has written a fine tribute to her as a suffering child/woman who tried to make something of herself.
Some people need to be left alone in death as they suffered enough in life.
Course correction: I’m reacting to the tone set by the title, “When Innocence Was Sexy.” Whatever this was, it wasn’t innocence.
I, too, admire her as an actress and as a comedienne. The sexism of the time (the sexism of now is different) limited her and squashed her.
She was a determined and talented professional, and one of the great stars of Hollywood.
I wanted to add an excerpt from Alice Miller’s Work, about Marilyn: Most people are not so fortunate. The celebrities among them are surrounded by hosts of unsuspecting admirers, none of whom recognize the distress afflicting the stars they idolize. This is in fact the last thing they want to know about. Examples are legion. We may recall the fate of the enchanting Marilyn Monroe, who was put in a home by her mother, was raped at the age of nine, and was sexually harassed by her stepfather when she returned to her family. Right to the end she trusted in her charm, and finally she was killed by depression and drugs. Her own account of her childhood is frequently quoted on the internet:
“I was not an orphan. An orphan has no parents. All the other children in the orphanage had lost their parents. I still had a mother. But she didn’t want me. I was ashamed to explain this to the other children…”
Some may wish for similar success in their lives and cannot understand why celebrities cannot simply enjoy their stardom. If a person is especially gifted, they can use that gift to reinforce the refusal of the truth and keep it away from themselves and others.
( Source: http://www.alice-miller.com/articles_en.php?lang=en&nid=55&grp=11 )
Therefore we should not envy or admire Marilyn’s life: such an admiraton might be deceptive,
AND the present day’s Media’s world and/or SHOW BUSINESS (where fake Marilyns – so to call them – play pornos or anything similar) is based on Deception,
for more information about the subject please refer to Alexander Lowen’s Work “Narcissism” (where he explains how we, Western humanity, are used to rely on – void – Images since the end of WW1, which means, on Deception).
In my opinion, Psychology and Ethics are the/an Answer (to life’s Ugliness,
which is ugly – where it is ugly – undependantly on how many efforts we make in order to make it up, so that she might – at least – look pretty …:
but such a trick eventually make us lose the sense of Reality, which is actually the – ugly … – condition we are living in “today”).
Lightful, loveful and beautiful new Gregorian year 2012 to marvellous Phyllis and to everyone.