[On June 1, 1926, Norma Jeane Mortenson was born in Los Angeles. 100 years later, the woman who became Marilyn Monroe remains both as famous and as easily misunderstood as she was during her tragically brief life. So this week I’ve celebrated her centennial with a series AmericanStudying this 20th century icon, leading up to this special post on echoes in our 21st century moment.]
On two frustrating echoes and one inspiring legacy of Norma Jeane’s life in our own moment.
- Endometriosis: As I highlighted in Thursday’s post on Marilyn’s death, thanks to my wife Vaughn Joy (herself a deeply badass woman who has also struggled with the disease for much of her life) I learned that Marilyn dealt with endometriosis for a good deal of (and directly related to) her tragically short life. Like so many health conditions that affect women in particular, but perhaps even more than any other of them, endo has been chronically misunderstood, mismanaged, minimized; while we’ve learned a good deal about it in recent decades, that remains the case compared to most other widespread chronic illnesses. And the problem with that isn’t just that it makes it harder for women suffering from it to get the treatment and support they need (although yes to be sure); it’s that it can and often does lead to those women being treated as if their minds and/or emotions are the problem. Marilyn faced that in her life and even more in her death, and it doesn’t seem that we’ve yet learned anywhere near the lessons from such experiences that we should.
- Sex Symbols: In that same post on Marilyn’s death, I discussed the ways that the crazed coverage of and conspiracies around her foreshadowed our increasingly celebrity-mad contemporary culture. That’s unquestionably true and true today for most major celebrities of any type, but it seems to me infinitely more true still when it comes to young women who are deemed “sex symbols.” Years ago I watched a South Park episode about a cult that builds up young female stars like Britney Spears (the example on whom the episode focused) in order to then literally devour them to satiate their own selfish, cruel desires. I’m not sure I’ve encountered a better metaphor for this particular form of celebrity-crazed culture, and I’m not sure we’ve ever had a more explicit example than Marilyn Monroe. But Britney is high on the list too, and our collective willingness in recent years to reexamine her story (and that of other famous young women like her, as that story discusses), recognize the harms that had been done to her, and seek to remedy those wrongs would suggest that perhaps we have begun to learn from this particular legacy.
- Self-making: There’s no way to tell Marilyn’s story, nor to think about it legacies in the 21st century, without foregrounding those problematic and tragic layers. But at the same time, there’s a reason why I wanted to dedicate three of the week’s five posts to topics like her youthful origins, her film career, and her diverse trio of marriages. None of those topics were without their own frustrating challenges, of course, nor unrelated to the fraught subjects of items 1 and 2 above; but all of them were directed at least in part by Norma Jeane’s own choices, desires, and dreams. In this age of influencers and social media celebrities and TikTok musicians and the like, it’s become far easier—or at least more possible—for random individual to make their own careers. That’s not necessarily always a good thing, for them or for us; but it seems to me far preferable to more fully top-down examples of how individuals can be guided (or forced) into such stardom. In some very clear ways, Marilyn Monroe was one of the first self-made stars (again, not without challenges or other factors, but nevertheless), and that’s a badass legacy worth celebrating, for her centennial and every day.
Next series starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What do you think?
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