Monroe can be seen here with her iconic pink lip and light colored clothing.

It is important to discuss how the audience reacts to the star. According to Professor Sergio Rigoletto, the audience/star relationship can be defined as “the audience gives to the film star a ‘reality effect’, turning her from a mere image in a film (or a music video) into a kind of character that we believe to be real”. In this entry I will be exploring the image that was placed onto Marilyn Monroe, and if that image was an accurate representation as to who she was as a person. I would first like to start off by comparing her to her costar, Jane Russell, who played Dorothy Shaw in the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. It is very clear that from the beginning of the film, Monroe embodied the “dumb blonde” persona where as Russell played the role of the decisive, “independent” woman. But, was Dorothy Shaw as independent as she came off as? During the scene where Dorothy and Lorelei board the boat to Europe, it is very evident that Lorelei’s main focus was on the male olympic team and getting their attention. It seems a bit contradictory and hypocritical that Lorelei was seen as a gold-digger by her fiance’s family and the rest of the general public, but when Dorothy is consumed by the male olympic team, no one commented on it? Dorothy was displaying the same intentions as Lorelei but no one treated her differently or looked down upon her. This double standard that is displayed in the film is a great parallel to how Monroe was actually treated in the real world when compared to other women. Richard Dyer’s piece “Monroe and sexuality” explores how Marilyn Monroe came to be and how the public treated and viewed Monroe as just a sex symbol.

Monroe started her career as a pin-up model, and became very successful. This success led her to pursue a career in films, transforming her into, what I would consider, the biggest sex symbol to date. During her time in films, her characters were often times “dumb”, and lacked individuality. Oftentimes Monroe’s character was even kept anonymous in the films. 

“In stressing the importance of sexuality in Marilyn Monroe’s image, it might seem that I am just another commentator doing to Monroe what was done to her throughout her life, treating her solely in terms of sex. Perhaps that is the danger, but I hope that I am not reproducing this attitude to Monroe but trying to understand it and historicize it. Monroe may have been a wit, a subtle and profound actress, and intelligent and serious woman; I’ve no desire to dispute this and it is important to recognize and recover those qualities against the grain of her image. But my purpose is to understand the grain itself, and there can be no question that this is overwhelmingly and relentlessly constructed in terms of sexuality. Monroe = sexuality is a message that ran all the way from what the media made of her in the pin-ups and movies to how her image became a reference point for sexuality in the coinage of everyday speech” (Dyer 2). Dyer then goes on to discuss how in all of Monroe’s pieces of work, she was set up in the eyes of the male sexual gaze. There was never a time when Monroe was portrayed as the intelligent, kind woman she was. I want to touch on how Monroe was set up, physically, in the pieces of work she did. Her makeup was always light and fresh, she never wore any dark eye makeup or dark lipstick. Her facial expressions in photos always consisted of a smirk or a smile, never a frown. She always displayed illustrious doe eyes that encapsulated the vision of sex in them. When examining her body posture, her arms were never covering her chest or any other part of her body. All of these components added extreme desire and lust to her image. Two noteworthy quotes that are included in Dyer’s work appear at the very beginning of the chapter. They state, “The denial of the body is delusion. No woman transcends her body.” (Joseph Rheingold) and “Men want women pink, helpless and do a lot of deep breathing.” (Jayne Mansfield) These quotes are just a prelude for the explanation and dissection that Dyer provides surrounding the sexualization of Monroe. 

In conclusion, Marilyn Monroe, in my opinion, is one of the strongest, most impactful figures in all of Hollywood’s history.