Early Cinema and Marilyn Monroe

In the early days of cinema, movies were marketed much differently than they are today. Actors were almost never part of the advertising process. They were essentially considered to be laborers, no more socially important than your average factory worker. Movies were, instead, marketed based on their premises and directors, and that didn’t change for a long time. One of the first actors to be named publicly was a woman named Florence Lawrence. Lawrence was known by some as the “Biograph Girl” due to her numerous movie appearances (nearly 300!) and the fact that she was one of the first women to lead her own film studio in the US. Florence Lawrence is considered by many to be the first ever “movie star,” and what she started slowly began to snowball into one of the greatest phenomena in all of entertainment: the parasocial relationship based celebrity machine known as the Hollywood star system, which would then go on to fuel film related marketing to this very day.

Before the age of red carpets and movie stars, the public focused their adoration (and scrutiny) on more “productive” members of society. People like the titans of industry: Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Ford, and Morgan were the closest you would get to today’s movie stars in terms of public attention. But when the entertainment industry took over the celebrity scene, it took over hard, and now the term celebrity itself is almost fully intertwined with show business. One of the most prolific stars of the 20th century was a model turned actress named Marilyn Monroe. Monroe began her film crusade out of the spotlight, with very few named roles, limited screentime, and clearly only featured for sex appeal, as opposed to charisma or acting talent. Monroe quickly played into this sex appeal and made it her own, becoming increasingly popular with audiences and critics alike. Monroe’s career really started taking off in 1953, where the first three films featuring Monroe as a starring role were released (Niagara, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How to Marry a Millionaire). She was voted the top female box-office star in the US, and soon began featuring in dozens of magazines and performing publicity stunts.

It is important for movie stars to forge a ‘star’ identity that remains consistent across their roles and is somewhat based on their true selves, and Monroe pulled this off better than anyone before her. She had become the new American symbol of sex, and as the old adage goes: sex sells. In the 1950’s, many people acted outwardly prude, and Monroe absolutely flew in the face of that notion, with an extremely casual approach to sex that had not been seen prior, which boosted her publicity and engagement sky-high. In the circles that did condone outwardly expressing sexual interest, there were debates regarding ‘natural beauty’. Beauty without the need for additives or alterations was seen as superior. During these times there was a general bias toward ‘naturalness,’ or the idea that the way humans would act if we lived in nature and were stripped of society and its rules has its benefits. As has been voiced by countless commentators throughout the years, Monroe fully embodies this idea of both natural sex and beauty, and these were both reflected strongly in her acting roles. While she largely played the part of the ‘Dumb Blonde’ which I will get into later, Monroe’s roles were largely characterized by a simultaneous sense of promiscuity as well as innocence. These two descriptors would appear to be contradictory at first glance, but with Monroe’s treatment of sex as entirely natural and nothing to be ashamed of, it doesn’t interfere with the naivete of her characters. This combination proved to be very popular with male audiences especially, and her popularity as an actress continued to climb and climb.

While many of Monroe’s successes could be attributed to her femininity, that does not mean that making it as an actress in the sexist landscape of the 1950’s didn’t come without its hurdles. Thanks to her reputation as a ‘dumb blonde’, Marilyn was forced to suppress her intelligence, and was generally only scripted to display it as cunning when tricking men with sexual temptations. When she married Arthur Miller, a famous playwright, some of her fans felt betrayed because they felt that someone like Monroe shouldn’t consort with “intellectuals” as it didn’t fit her brand. Monroe was married a few times throughout her life, and each time to massive publicity. But it was actually considerably beneficial to her to be unmarried as it made her appear more “attainable” to her male audience.