Marilyn Monroe, I feel like most people know the name and even have an image that comes to mind when we hear it, for me it is this image:

Now I don’t know about anyone else but personally I didn’t really even know what Marilyn Monroe was famous for for a long time just that she was incredibly well known and had a very specific persona/image that everyone just seems to know even if you have never seen anything she has been in. I find this incredibly interesting and it means that the people surrounding her did their job incredibly well.

When watching the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes I got to see Marilyn Monroe act for the first time. Something I found while I watched was that even though I hadn’t seen her act I found that she was exactly what I expected her to be like. The way she portrayed the “dumb blonde” stereotype was very well done but I noticed it was much more than just the “dumb blonde”. She did a great job of showing a deeper side to the persona by having her character use it to her advantage to get what she wanted. By showing that there is more to her character than just being a ditzy man crazed girl she was able to empower other women in a very man centric society. 

In this class I have learned how stars where made in that time period and the people and time that went into curating such a pristine image for that celebrity. I find it interesting that so much preparation went into the idea of the star and creating their persona before the public even knew who they were. In the article The Building of Popular Images it talks about all the different people that go into the process and how they use the base of who the star actually is but tweak it so theres a strong persona that comes out that they can use to give the public something to dream about and idolize. Something I thought was important in this article was the way they talked about using the people surrounding the start to keep up the persona. By using people who personally know the star it can help the audience feel closer to them and as if they really know what that star is like and that they must be like that in person if their actual friend said they were like that.

I personally find the idea of this created image of a star super interesting because in the last couple years I have gotten into the world of Kpop. In Kpop the created persona and image of a star is exactly what we’ve been talking about in this class but on an even more extreme level. From a young age Kpop idols become trainees in a company. This is the first part of their image because even the different companies in Korea have different ways of going about creating their star and the things that idol is allowed to do or ways they can present themselves to the public. Once the company has decided they are ready to debut they are sometimes put into very choreographed groups or they might be a soloist. Before they debut they get teased to the public in the form of pictures or videos on platforms like Instagram or Tiktok to create hype about the group or person so that they aren’t completely unknown when they debut with music.

When I was reading about how the companies surrounding the celebrities curate their image and find ways to draw the fans in or make it seem like that star is attainable to them it made me think of how at certain companies in the Kpop world there will be a “dating ban” for a certain amount of time so that the fans of that idol feel as though they they themselves are dating the idol and draw in more fans and therefore more money to the group. 

While I find the idea of the “star persona” fascinating, I’m not sure it is a great way to continue producing celebrities because it makes a very harsh line of how that celebrity has to act and if they break out of that mold it can destroy the illusion that they are a perfect person and lead to a lot of backlash from fans. It is also quite a toxic thing for the fans because when they see this person that they idolize they think they know everything about them when they simply do not and it can have a bad affect of the mental health of both the celebrity and the fan. I think that with the way technology and social media are changing it is helping break down the wall that a star is perfect and we get to see more of who they are and slightly less of they incredibly formulated persona although it is definitely still a strong presence in the celebrity world.