Editing Marilyn Monroe (section)

== Screen persona and reception ==

The 1940s had been the heyday for actresses who were perceived as tough and smart&mdash;such as [[Katharine Hepburn]] and [[Barbara Stanwyck]]&mdash;who had appealed to women-dominated audiences during the war years. 20th Century-Fox wanted Monroe to be a star of the new decade who would draw men to movie theaters, and saw her as a replacement for the aging [[Betty Grable]], their most popular "blonde bombshell" of the 1940s.{{sfn|Banner|2012|pp=124, 177}} According to film scholar [[Richard Dyer]], Monroe's star image was crafted mostly for the [[male gaze]].{{sfn|Dyer|1986|pp=19, 20}}

From the beginning, Monroe played a significant part in the creation of her public image, and towards the end of her career exerted almost full control over it.{{sfnm|1a1=Banner|1y=2012|1pp=172–174|2a1=Hall|2y=2006|2p=489}}<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/model-arrangement-36654928/|title=Model Arrangement|publisher=[[Smithsonian Institution]]|date=May 2008|access-date=September 11, 2015|first=Michelle|last=Stacey|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925201206/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/model-arrangement-36654928/|archive-date=September 25, 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> She devised many of her publicity strategies, cultivated friendships with gossip columnists such as [[Sidney Skolsky]] and [[Louella Parsons]], and controlled the use of her images.{{sfnm|1a1=Spoto|1y=2001|1pp=172–174, 210–215, 566|3a1=Banner|3y=2012|3pp=172–174|2a1=Churchwell|2y=2004|2p=9}} In addition to Grable, she was often compared to another well-known blonde, 1930s film star [[Jean Harlow]].{{sfn|Banner|2012|p=238}} The comparison was prompted partly by Monroe, who named Harlow as her childhood idol, wanted to play her in a biopic, and even employed Harlow's hair stylist to color her hair.{{sfn|Banner|2012|pp=38, 175, 343}}
[[File:Marilyn Monroe Seven Year Itch.jpg|thumb|right|As seen in this publicity photo for ''[[The Seven Year Itch]]'' (1955), Monroe wore figure-hugging outfits that enhanced her sexual attractiveness.]]
Monroe's screen persona focused on her blonde hair and the stereotypes that were associated with it, especially dumbness, naïveté, sexual availability and artificiality.{{sfn|Churchwell|2004|pp=21–26, 181–185}} She often used a breathy, childish voice in her films, and in interviews gave the impression that everything she said was "utterly innocent and uncalculated", parodying herself with [[double entendre]]s that came to be known as "Monroeisms".{{sfnm|1a1=Dyer|1y=1986|1pp=33–34|2a1=Churchwell|2y=2004|2pp=25, 57–58|3a1=Banner|3y=2012|3p=185|4a1=Hall|4y=2006|4p=489}} For example, when she was asked what she had on in the 1949 nude photo shoot, she replied, "I had the radio on".{{sfn|Banner|2012|p=194}}

In her films, Monroe usually played "the girl", who is defined solely by her gender.{{sfn|Dyer|1986|pp=19, 20}} Her roles were almost always chorus girls, secretaries, or models: occupations where "the woman is on show, there for the pleasure of men."{{sfn|Dyer|1986|pp=19, 20}} Monroe began her career as a pin-up model, and was noted for her hourglass figure.{{sfn|Dyer|1986|pp=19–20}} She was often positioned in film scenes so that her curvy silhouette was on display, and frequently posed like a pin-up in publicity photos.{{sfn|Dyer|1986|pp=19–20}} Her distinctive, hip-swinging walk also drew attention to her body and earned her the nickname "the girl with the horizontal walk".{{sfn|Churchwell|2004|p=62}}

Monroe often wore white to emphasize her blondness and drew attention by wearing revealing outfits that showed off her figure.{{sfnm|1a1=Churchwell|1y=2004|1p=25|2a1=Banner|2y=2012|2pp=246–250}} Her publicity stunts often revolved around her clothing either being shockingly revealing or even [[Wardrobe malfunction|malfunctioning]],{{sfnm|1a1=Spoto|1y=2001|1pp=224–225, 342–343|2a1=Churchwell|2y=2004|2p=234}} such as when a shoulder strap of her dress snapped during a press conference.{{sfnm|1a1=Spoto|1y=2001|1pp=224–225, 342–343|2a1=Churchwell|2y=2004|2p=234}} In press stories, Monroe was portrayed as the embodiment of the [[American Dream]], a girl who had risen from a miserable childhood to Hollywood stardom.{{sfnm|1a1=Dyer|1y=1986|1p=45|3a1=Banner|3y=2012|3pp=44–45, 184–185|2a1=Harris|2y=1991|2pp=40–44}} Stories of her time spent in foster families and an orphanage were exaggerated and even partly fabricated.{{sfn|Banner|2012|pp=44–45}} Film scholar Thomas Harris wrote that her working-class roots and lack of family made her appear more sexually available, "the ideal playmate", in contrast to her contemporary, [[Grace Kelly]], who was also marketed as an attractive blonde, but due to her upper-class background was seen as a sophisticated actress, unattainable for the majority of male viewers.{{sfn|Harris|1991|pp=40–44}}
[[File:Marilyn Monroe, Photoplay 1953.jpg|thumb|left|Monroe in a ''[[Photoplay]]'' magazine cover photo, December 1953]]

Although Monroe's screen persona as a dim-witted but sexually attractive blonde was a carefully crafted act, audiences and film critics believed it to be her real personality. This became a hindrance when she wanted to pursue other kinds of roles, or to be respected as a businesswoman.{{sfn|Banner|2012|pp=273–276}} The academic [[Sarah Churchwell]] studied narratives about Monroe and wrote:{{Blockquote|The biggest myth is that she was dumb. The second is that she was fragile. The third is that she couldn't act. She was far from dumb, although she was not formally educated, and she was very sensitive about that. But she was very smart indeed&mdash;and very tough. She had to be both to beat the Hollywood studio system in the 1950s. [...] The dumb blonde was a role&mdash;she was an actress, for heaven's sake! Such a good actress that no one now believes she was anything but what she portrayed on screen.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2012/0803/Marilyn-Monroe-Anything-but-a-dumb-blonde|title=Marilyn Monroe: Anything but a dumb blonde|work=[[The Christian Science Monitor]]|last=Dotinga|first=Randy|date=August 3, 2012|access-date=June 16, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160630045046/http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2012/0803/Marilyn-Monroe-Anything-but-a-dumb-blonde|archive-date=June 30, 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>}}
Biographer [[Lois Banner]] writes that Monroe often subtly parodied her [[sex symbol]] status in her films and public appearances,{{sfn|Banner|2012|p=244}} and that "the 'Marilyn Monroe' character she created was a brilliant archetype, who stands between [[Mae West]] and [[Madonna]] in the tradition of twentieth-century gender tricksters."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.wcwonline.org/WRB-Issues/the-meaning-of-marilyn|title=The Meaning of Marilyn|last=Banner|first=Lois|publisher=Women's Review of Books|access-date=April 30, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180501093607/https://www.wcwonline.org/WRB-Issues/the-meaning-of-marilyn|archive-date=May 1, 2018|url-status=live}}</ref> Monroe herself stated that she was influenced by West, learning "a few tricks from her&mdash;that impression of laughing at, or mocking, her own sexuality".{{sfnm|1a1=Churchwell|1y=2004|1p=63 for West|2a1=Banner|2y=2012|2p=325}} She studied comedy in classes by mime and dancer [[Lotte Goslar]], famous for her comic stage performances, and Goslar also instructed her on film sets.{{sfn|Banner|2012|pp=170–171}} 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.{{sfn|Banner|2012|p=201}}

According to Dyer, Monroe became "virtually a household name for sex" in the 1950s and "her image has to be situated in the flux of ideas about morality and sexuality that characterised the Fifties in America", such as [[Sigmund Freud|Freudian]] ideas about sex, the [[Kinsey Reports|Kinsey report]] (1953), and [[Betty Friedan]]'s ''[[The Feminine Mystique]]'' (1963).{{sfnm|1a1=Dyer|1y=1986|1p=21|2a1=Dyer|2y=1991|2p=58}} By appearing vulnerable and unaware of her sex appeal, Monroe was the first sex symbol to present sex as natural and without danger, in contrast to the 1940s ''femmes fatales''.{{sfn|Dyer|1986|pp=29–39}} Spoto likewise describes her as the embodiment of "the postwar ideal of the American girl, soft, transparently needy, worshipful of men, naïve, offering sex without demands", which is echoed in [[Molly Haskell]]'s statement that "she was the Fifties fiction, the lie that a woman had no sexual needs, that she is there to cater to, or enhance, a man's needs."{{sfnm|1a1=Haskell|1y=1991|1p=256|2a1=Spoto|2y=2001|2p=249}} Monroe's contemporary Norman Mailer wrote that "Marilyn suggested sex might be difficult and dangerous with others, but ice cream with her", while [[Groucho Marx]] characterized her as "[[Mae West]], [[Theda Bara]], and [[Little Bo Peep|Bo Peep]] all rolled into one".{{sfnm|1a1=Dyer|1y=1986|1p=39|2a1=Churchwell|2y=2004|2p=82}} According to Haskell, due to her sex symbol status, Monroe was less popular with women than with men, as they "couldn't identify with her and didn't support her", although this would change after her death.{{sfn|Dyer|1986|p=57, quoting Haskell}}

Dyer has also argued that Monroe's blonde hair became her defining feature because it made her "racially unambiguous" and exclusively white just as the [[civil rights movement]] was beginning, and that she should be seen as emblematic of racism in twentieth-century popular culture.{{sfn|Dyer|1986|p=40}} Banner agreed that it may not be a coincidence that Monroe launched a trend of platinum blonde actresses during the civil rights movement, but has also criticized Dyer, pointing out that in her highly publicized private life, Monroe associated with people who were seen as "[[white ethnic]]s", such as Joe DiMaggio (Italian-American) and Arthur Miller (Jewish).{{sfn|Banner|2012|pp=254–256}} According to Banner, she sometimes challenged prevailing racial norms in her publicity photographs; for example, in an image featured in ''Look'' in 1951, she was shown in revealing clothes while practicing with African-American singing coach [[Phil Moore (jazz musician)|Phil Moore]].{{sfn|Banner|2012|p=184}}

[[File:MonroeLustreCremead.jpg|thumb|alt=A headshot of Monroe holding a bottle of shampoo, accompanying text box says that "LUSTRE-CREME is the favorite beauty shampoo of 4 out of 5 top Hollywood stars...and you'll love it in its new Lotion Form, too!" Below, three smaller images show a brunette model using the shampoo. Next to them, there are images of the two different containers that the shampoo comes in.|Monroe in a 1953 Lustre-Creme shampoo advertisement]]
Monroe was perceived as a specifically American star, "a national institution as well known as hot dogs, apple pie, or baseball" according to ''Photoplay''.{{sfn|Banner|2012|p=8}} Banner calls her the symbol of [[populuxe]], a star whose joyful and glamorous public image "helped the nation cope with its paranoia in the 1950s about the [[Cold War]], the atom bomb, and the totalitarian communist Soviet Union".{{sfn|Banner|2012|pp=239–240}} Historian Fiona Handyside writes that the French female audiences associated whiteness/blondness with American modernity and cleanliness, and so Monroe came to symbolize a modern, "liberated" woman whose life takes place in the public sphere.{{sfn|Handyside|2010|pp=1–16}} Film historian [[Laura Mulvey]] has written of her as an endorsement for American consumer culture:{{Blockquote|If America was to export the democracy of glamour into post-war, impoverished Europe, the movies could be its shop window&nbsp;... Marilyn Monroe, with her all American attributes and streamlined sexuality, came to epitomise in a single image this complex interface of the economic, the political, and the erotic. By the mid-1950s, she stood for a brand of classless glamour, available to anyone using American cosmetics, nylons and peroxide.{{sfn|Handyside|2010|p=2, quoting Mulvey}}}}

Twentieth Century-Fox further profited from Monroe's popularity by cultivating several lookalike actresses, such as [[Jayne Mansfield]] and [[Sheree North]].{{sfnm|1a1=Spoto|1y=2001|1p=396|2a1=Belton|2y=2005|2p=103}} Other studios also attempted to create their own Monroes: [[Universal Pictures]] with [[Mamie Van Doren]],{{sfn|Spoto|2001|p=396}} Columbia Pictures with [[Kim Novak]],{{sfn|Solomon|2010|p=110}} and [[The Rank Organisation]] with [[Diana Dors]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/may/05/from-the-archives-diana-dors-obituary|title=From the archives: Sex Symbol Diana Dors Dies at 52|newspaper=The Guardian|date=May 5, 1964|access-date=September 11, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925131302/http://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/may/05/from-the-archives-diana-dors-obituary|archive-date=September 25, 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>

In a profile, [[Truman Capote]] quoted Monroe's acting teacher, [[Constance Collier]]: <blockquote>She is a beautiful child. I don't mean that in the obvious way—the perhaps too obvious way. I don't think she's an actress at all, not in any traditional sense. What she has—this presence, this luminosity, this flickering intelligence—could never surface on the stage. It's so fragile and subtle, it can only be caught by the camera. It's like a hummingbird in flight: only a camera can freeze the poetry of it.{{sfn|Capote|1980|pp=224–226}}</blockquote>