This post makes me think of "Ten Seconds to Love," Chuck Klosterman's comparison of Marilyn Monroe and Pamela Anderson (from Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs).
I get it. She's very attractive, for one. Her beauty is of a softer, more "womanly" kind than what's presently fashionable, two (when I was heavier, I had a MM-esque figure, and I got plenty of attention). Third, she's extremely funny. Fourth, her persona was actually quite sweet: gullible, yes, but not really ditzy--she's never vapid or two-dimensional, just naive and earnest. Fifth, her unhappiness conveys a certain kind of vulnerability that a lot of men find attractive, and sixth, it also hints that there's more there than is on the surface.
I can't remember who it was, some pissed-off feminist writer (funny. whoever it was was funny) described Marilyn Monroe's appeal as that "You could trick her into fucking you."
That doesn't seem too far off -- she doesn't want sex in the actually having sexual desires of her own sense, because that would be threatening. She's prey, in the predator-prey model of sexual relations in which men chase women, but she's slow, defenseless prey.
My sister had a MM type figure and coloration, but she lived during the Twiggy era. Guys loved her, but she couldn't be fashionable.
I read an interview with an acquaintance of MM's who said she could turn it on and off. When she had it turned on, though, she could stop traffic. She just had all these ways of seeming sexy and available and making the random guy feel special. But when she turned it off, nobody noticed her. She was just like anyone else.
They that when she finally got an actual contract she said something like, "Well, that's the last cock I'm going to have to suck."
For my part, I've never seen any more of her than pictures, and know probably as little about her as it is possible to know. Not on purpose; I've just never made any effort to find out more.
No, I read LB's comment. I confess. I think of LB as a valid source.
The story about her stopping traffic came from somewhere else, though. Before she was famous men used to organize their days around watching her walk past.
As per usual, LB said it better and first. It's not that she looks fifteen, it's that she appears to have the emotional resources of a fifteen year-old. To the extent that people do want to sleep with fifteen year-olds, I assume they want to sleep with the mature-looking ones, not the the pimply, etc. ones (as covered before by, again, LB). So, then, the value of sleeping with a fifteen year-old has less to do with what she looks like and more to do with her emotional resources.
I don't think your last sentence follows, but the rest seems absolutely right. I find a certain kind of vulnerability attractive, but I also think that this may reflect something bad about me.
#15, MM looks like an adult woman, whereas a lot of today's fashionably attractive women look 15.
#19, I disagree about the emotional resources of a 15yo, although I see the point. Really, I think that MM was quite clever. Now, the character/persona she played, not so much, but still, if you watch, there are flashes of rather pointed wit. And *no* 15yo in the world knows how to play guys the way she does.
Everything okay, Wolfson? (And I think the 'trick her into fucking you' line is Cynthia Heimel. Either that, or someone who reminds me of Cynthia Heimel, but I can't think of anyone who fits into that category.)
This might be another Say Anything thing for me, so I may be well out of step. But listen to her voice and tell me that it doesn't sound like an adult talking baby-talk constantly. Also, I don't know about all her lovers, but Miller died recently, as did Joe D (who, I believe, beat her). She, of course, suicided. I don't know that she worked those guys all that well.
Well, again, we're conflating the person with the persona. Yes, the persona used a babyish kind of voice. I don't mind that per se: Jennifer Tilly is also sexy, imho. The persona also played men like violins (I'm thinking of the stairwell scene in "All About Eve," an early Monroe appearance).
The person was indeed very unhappy and surely more used than using.
See, this again goes back to the purple flute thread, but incredible skill at attracting men has very little to do with relating to them happily. (Isn't necessarily a drawback, but it's not the same skill.) So saying that she could play men like no one else isn't necessarily going to have made her happy.
I didn't say it made her happy, I said it made her not dumb.
She wasn't the aristocrat, but she was something of an ice princess--over and over again, we find out that she isn't actually *fucking* the guys who are fascinated by her, just leading them on, and getting paid handsomely for it.
Well, again, we're conflating the person with the persona.
If I had a daughter, and I had to choose a persona for her from the three main female characters in How to Marry a Millionaire, I'd want her to be Bacall, Grable, Monroe, in that order. Off the top of my head, I can't think of single MM character that I'd want her to emulate. But, again, I may be way out of step on this.
Wolfson - yeah, nothing. You're right; it was, if nothing else, lazy.
#42: Of course her persona isn't one I'd encourage any woman to *emulate*. But in the context of her time, she (the persona) is using the rules of sexism to advance her own cause, much like Pamela Anderson is doing today. I have no problem with that, although I do find it terribly sad that in real life, she was so shat upon.
I know I have next to no credibility on this, but let's not make this a "who's hot?" thread.
Ok, except that, without a comparison, it's kinda hard to get at things and,
The Monroe issue is pretty interesting, by itself.
That's the point. Most of the complaints I hear about 'not getting Monroe' involve her weight, which is not an issue for me. (See Page reference.) I really really don't get it. She's not particularly cute, her speaking face is obviously contrived, she's always 'posing', and as far as I can tell she never actually had a personality. Mainly, as far as I can tell, she had big tits. I'd like Jayne Mansfield better if it came down to tits.
Page is from the same period and is obviously working the seedier end of the same side of the street, but at least she's fun. Also, attractive.
I guess I do NOT get the sense Monroe would do anything. Quite the opposite. Produce diamonds and maybe she will, maybe she won't. I always thought that WAS her public personality. If so, ick.
Oh sorry -- never mind those last 2 posts -- looking back I see that Ogged was requesting that this not become a "who's hot" thread, where I took him to mean the opposite.
"Hedy Lamarr married Fritz Mandal, the first of six husbands, in 1933. During their marriage, which broke up in 1937, Madame Mandl was an institution in Viennese society, entertaining—and dazzling—foreign leaders, including Hitler and Mussolini. Her husband specialized in shells and grenades, but from the mid-thirties on he also manufactured military aircraft. He was interested in control systems and conducted research in the field. His wife clearly learned things from him, because she and her co-inventor, George Antheil, later went on to invent the torpedo guidance system that was two decades before its time.
Hedy Lamarr's co-inventor, George Antheil, was born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1900. His parents were from East Prussia. After studying music at what is now the Curtis Institute, in Philadelphia, he went to Europe to pursue a career as a concert pianist, heading first to Berlin and then settling in Paris in 1923.....
They began talking about radio control for torpedoes. The idea itself was not new, but her concept of "frequency hopping" was. Lamarr brought up the idea of radio control. Antheil's contribution was to suggest the device by which synchronization could be achieved. He proposed that rapid changes in radio frequencies could be coordinated the way he had coordinated the sixteen synchronized player pianos in his Ballet Méanique. The analogy was complete in his mind: By the time the two applied for a patent on a "Secret Communication System," on June 10, 1941, the invention used slotted paper rolls similar to player-piano rolls to synchronize the frequency changes in transmitter and receiver, and it even called for exactly eighty-eight frequencies, the number of keys on a piano.
Lamarr and Antheil worked on the idea for several months and then, in December 1940, sent a description of it to the National Inventors Council, which had been launched with much fanfare earlier in the year as a gatherer of novel ideas and inventions from the general public. Its chairman was Charles F. Kettering, the research director of General Motors. Over its lifetime, which lasted until 1974, the council collected more than 625,000 suggestions, few of which ever reached the patent stage. But according to Antheil, Kettering himself suggested that he and Lamarr develop their idea to the point of being patentable. With the help of an electrical engineering professor from the California Institute of Technology they ironed out its bugs, and the patent was granted on August 11, 1942. It specified that a high-altitude observiation plane could steer the torpedo from above."
"In the United States Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil, shunned by the Navy, no longer pursued their invention. But in 1957, the concept was taken up by engineers at the Sylvania Electronic Systems Division, in Buffalo, New York. Their arrangement, using, of course, electronics rather than piano rolls, ultimately became a basic tool for secure military communications. It was installed on ships sent to blockade Cuba in 1962, about three years after the Lamarr-Antheil patent had expired. Subsequent patents in frequency changing, which are generally unrelated to torpedo control, have referred to the Lamarr-Antheil patent as the basis of the field, and the concept lies behind the principal anti-jamming device used today, for example, in the U.S. government's Milstar defense communication satellite system."
Hey, does anyone remember when Matt McIrvin was talking about how he remembered the day when he read something about someone reminiscing about Frank Zappa talking about when nostalgia was better than it had become? That was really cool, far better than this degenerate age.
#59: Well, this isn't terribly original--it's arguably the one moment when I'm ever going to say something that agrees, even slightly, with anything Camille Paglia's said. Basically, Monroe and Anderson, like Madonna and Cindy Crawford, are ambitious women who took stock of the world they lived in, decided (not incorrectly) that one route to success was to play up their looks and sex appeal, and went whole hog. It's not something I'd recommend to a daughter or friend or whatever, but I can't blame (and somewhat admire) women who decide, basically, that if you can't beat 'em you might as well take 'em for a ride and get rich off it.
The difference between Monroe and the others is that she wasn't in charge of the situation in quite the same way--Anderson, Crawford, and Madonna all pretty much own their own "brand" and profit from it accordingly. Monroe didn't.
I think I remember someone alluding to something about how Matt McIrvin had talked about how he had remembered a day when he read something about someone reminiscing about Frank Zappa talking about when nostalgia was better than it had become, but I'm not sure.
But isn't it a pretty selfish way to make it, insofar as it reinforces the stereotypes?
In her case she just had this sexed up/vulnerable quality, couldn't escape it, because of her background. So better by far to try to exert some control over it--and others--rather than just be completely led around by it, no? Ultimately she couldn't control it, but I can see why she made the attempt.
I don't think it's so much that women are being selfish. It's that some people are benefitting by reinforcing the same stereotypes that are oppressive to most other people. That it's women who are doing it is really incidental.
Based on the times and the lack of family support, MM didn't have a lot of options. The one she chose might have been the best actual one. Housewife and girlfriend were the other two, probably. Career women were rare then, but mainly, she had no family support ($$).
Come on, I think you know what I mean: black actors are often reluctant or refuse to play roles where they're cast as gangbangers or drug dealers, and we understand their reasons--it seems quite similar with women playing a certain kind of sexpot.
74: ogged had a post during—lets call it the interregnum—about his issues with people living up to stereotypes (not that there is a stereotype of women being selfish, it goes towards why he's drawing the negative value judgment that they are selfish).
#75, 77, and 78: No, I wasn't being snarky, and I do understand why some actors won't play X stereotypical role. But that doesn't mean I'm gonna object to people who say, "hey, these are the available roles, and I want to work, so I'm gonna get paid." Getting paid is also a progressive act, in some situations.
I do, actually, think it's relevant that in this case it's women: the stereotype, of course, is that women *aren't supposed* to be selfish, and part of that stereotype is that they're not supposed to be as hard-headed about business as men are. One effect of that stereotype is that, generally speaking, women *do* negotiate salaries less effectively than men, which kind of perpetuates the whole second-class earner problem. So again, I have a paradoxical admiration for women who are straight up about wanting to get paid, and well: it's something so few women will admit to.
And anyway, although I do admire the principled stand of people who refuse to play into stereotypes, I'm not into holding those who are stereotyped responsible for the stereotype that they themselves didn't create. Even if playing along with it perpetuates a problem, hey: we all play along with bullshit from time to time, don't we? I'm not gonna throw stones.
I don't even think it's selfishness, per se. It's that there were other models out there (at least in film land) that she didn't fit. It's not that (in the movies) you couldn't find a tough-talking woman in a man's world (Rosalind Russell) or a wife who matched her husband drink for drink (Myrna Loy), or been the smart woman who marries a decent guy (Grable, IIRC), etc. It's that Marylin couldn't credibly be those people on film. Given what she had, she used it. But she didn't have to use it because she was a woman (or not to such caricature); she had to use it because that's what she had that was most valuable. And I think that's the dangerous aspect of iconizing Monroe. Even if it's the most valuable thing she has, I don't want my future daughter learning to trade on her sexuality.
It's entirely possible that, for an attractive but poor young woman, a $10K loan would be better spent on breast implants than on college. But that doesn't mean I want that as a social policy.
So again, I have a paradoxical admiration for women who are straight up about wanting to get paid, and well: it's something so few women will admit to.
Fair enough. I simply don't see any reason why anyone would want to enter into the bidness transaction MM was after.
Yeah, but it isn't fair to demand that the actions of every individual live up to the goal of "I want it to be social policy"--especially when said individual is in a disadvantaged position to begin with.
I'm not sure I can agree with 85. I think of Iran, and the basij, the regime's thug force. They're almost entirely drawn from the ranks of the poor, but it seems like we still need a category of condemnation for people who do bad things, even out of legitimate need.
But isn't it a pretty selfish way to make it, insofar as it reinforces the stereotypes
This might be a valid criticism of madonna or pam anderson, I guess, but I hardly think that in choosing to be MM, MM was rejecting any feminist alternatives. The choices the culture offered at the time were more like Nice Girl, Bad Girl(Dumb) and Bad Girl(Smart). And the Nice Girl needed family support to keep on being nice, or faced a life of poverty. MM didn't have that. So it looks like she tried to be Bad Girl(Smart) pretending to be Bad Girl(Dumb). The thing about those choices is you can't win.
Marilyn Monroe's success as an actress is on a par with killing people?
They're not strictly analogous, obviously (though they are both keeping women down). Just establishing the "bad things done for understandable reasons are still bad" principle.
I also don't think it's as simple as saying that the example MM (or PA or anyone else) sets to young women is "trade on sex appeal." On a simple level that can be said to be the example; but I would say that the example is, "be in charge of your own image, know what you're doing, if you're going to make compromises know why, and keep your eye on whatever ball you've decided is important."
I also don't think it's true that we don't want our daughters to learn how to trade on their sex appeal. Let's be realistic: women are judged on their looks--not entirely, but it counts. And certain kinds of feminized "styles" just translate as effective / powerful / successful more than others do. I think it would be unconscionable not to at least teach girls that, even if at the same time it would be equally unconscionable not to teach them that they shouldn't have to play along with it, if they don't want to.
Some bad things are bad no matter what the rationale; and some bad things are less bad than their causes. And in context, some things that would be "bad" in a perfect world can actually be admirable in certain circumstances.
Speaking as an old guy, the idea that there was a feminist option for MM in 1950 or 1955 is more or less ridiculous. Hollywood was terribly corrupt , monopolistic, and mobbed-up, and treated everyone badly, and few actors or actresses had much choice over their scripts (even scriptwriters didn't have control over scripts.)
Beyond that, there was no feminist awareness in the general culture. When feminism showed up in a big way in left circles around 1970, even there there was a lot of resistance. Politicos just didn't think that women's issues were important.
it isn't fair to demand that the actions of every individual live up to the goal of "I want it to be social policy"
I'm not saying that she had to do anything. Even today, I'd find it hard to begrudge said poor young woman. But I don't see anything particularly admirable about it. She looked at her assets and used what she had; we all do that.
It's just that, often enough, when we admire people, we're admiring particular characteristics or assets more than something willed about them. My admiration for Jordan, for example, is really a stand-in for my admiration for his athleticism and the world he has open to him because of his athleticism. Monroe as object of admiration is sex appeal as object of admiration. If you are, for some reason, a woman who's only value is ever going to be as someone's sex doll, she might be totally admirable. But otherwise there are better models, and better characteristics to admire.
Well, no, we *don't* all look at our assets and use what we have; a lot of us fail to use our assets because doing so is somehow "indecent" or "not respectable" or will make people "not like us." That's the context in which I have to give props to MM.
Whatever condemnation is going on isn't because people are seeing her actions as "indecent". It's because they were less than what would be most admirable (and yes, self-sacrificing to a certain extent), avoiding playing into damaging stereotypes.
But isn't that a double standard? Do we judge *everyone* for being less than "what would be most admirable"? Is that a standard that men are held to? Or is it one that only those who are subject to stereotypes have to live up to? And if so, isn't that really rather unfair and, dare I say, oppressive?
It's because they were less than what would be most admirable (and yes, self-sacrificing to a certain extent), avoiding playing into damaging stereotypes.
OK, I disagree with this. There's a difference between not admiring and condemning. Part of the problem is that we (certainly I) are conflating the person with the persona. I don't find much admirable about the persona. I feel sorry for the person, but I don't think she's bad or evil. She made a series of choices that had certain payoffs. So be it. Who are we to judge?
It's a standard that everyone is held to in the sense that we don't actively encourage less than admirable behaviour (obviously there are exceptions, but for the sake of argument let's say that well meaning people don't). The point isn't that we're singling out MM and saying "You--how dare you not contradict the stereotype", it's that she shouldn't be singled out for praise for being successful by playing into a stereotype.
OK, I disagree with this. There's a difference between not admiring and condemning.
I'm actually trying to (awkwardly) say that. I'm not making a moral judgment here, just saying that her actions weren't an example of an ideal mode of behaviour, and thus aren't particularly praise-worthy. No condemning on my part though.
See, I think that that (102) is an oversimplified understanding of what it is that she did. She played to stereotype, sure, but lots of other people have done so as well. Her skill is a testament to, well, skill (as an actor); her decision to play the role in many guises and to perpetuate it in real life as well was a canny business move; and her beauty--as beauty--is, imho, admirable.
Practically speaking, the decisions she made in her professional life seem to have made her unhappy in her personal life--and professionally as well, in that many of her talents were under or mis-used (she seldom got credit for being a good comic actor, and her skill in perpetuating the role off-screen led and lead a lot of people to confusing the persona with the person, which ironically underestimates her acting ability). I'm sure that the fact that she had the skill and control only up to a point--but not, in the end, to the same degree that, say, Pamela Anderson has--were part of her depression, inasmuch as a lot of depression is about powerlessness. And in that sense, her life demonstrates that those choices, in isolation, weren't great, or at least weren't enough. But I honestly think that, whatever one thinks of the role she played, taking the role out of the context in which she lived and not recognizing the real skill and pragmatism with which she made her decisions, is unfair.
I concede that she was a talented person, but I don't think anyone is really disputing that. I didn't mean to say that playing into stereotype successfully as she did isn't difficult. She should be praised for her talent and ability, but not for playing into stereotype in and of itself. That she was able to make the most of a sexist situation is impressive, but this shouldn't stop us from recognizing that she was, to a certain extent, strengthening those stereotypes (though I could be completely wrong about this).
So, summing up: praise the talent, not the roles she took.
My admiration for Jordan, for example, is really a stand-in for my admiration for his athleticism and the world he has open to him because of his athleticism.
I just happened to have been flipping through a book on Jordan; I think I've given up on ever possessing that kind of drive. Athleticism is one thing, that kind of single-minded commitment is another. And that's probably also something to be admire about MM. She did make it, however she did it. That's not easy to do, to put everything aside and lay all your bets on one goal. It may not even be a particularly wise thing to do. But she did it and made it work.
I'm coming in very late on this, but I won't let that stop me.
Some affectations annoy me in the MM persona: the fluty, whispery voice, some poorly managed moments of feigned innocence, some predatory elements in the narratives she got cast into. But there are magnificent moments captured in some of these narratives that just kill me, and I don't entirely know what to make of that.
For example, there's a shot in Some Like It Hot where MM is walking along a train platform. She's got an amazing, satin-clad ass, switching back and forth on ridiculous heels, and she's trundling--but with easy panache--multiple little cases. As I recall it, the male duo is behind her (so the ass-watching would be from their POV), the train starts going, and she turns her head over her shoulder to say something, laughing, seemingly unaffected.
It's always seemed like an extraordinary moment to me--as though the viewer's desiring her wasn't her fault, that she and her attempts to take control of her life (yes, often via sex) could somehow remain innocent.
Now that we are clearly not in MM's world, her delicate (and perhaps intrinsicly problematic) balancing-act seems much more like the perfection of an asymmetric tactic. The dangers on both sides are more clearly visible to young women, I would argue.
Blaming her for reinforcing the stereotype seems out of place to me. Movies with dumb blonde sexpot heroines would have been made with or without her: her participation probably made them better movies, but not more harmful for that reason.
I can find the persona distasteful, and perhaps disapprove of someone who finds it too appealing, but that doesn't mean that MM was doing anything all that wrong by playing to it. As Hattie McDaniels, said, "I'd rather play a maid than be one."
Hattie McDaniels is an example of another actor who managed to add *some* dimension to stereotypes. I think the movie version of GWTW sometimes gets unfairly tagged for exceptional racism (the book, on the other hand, is exceptionally racist) when in fact, its portrayals of its black characters were actually a very small step above some other stuff from that period I've seen, which doesn't get complained about as much because it's not in the middle of an apologia for the Confederacy. I think it was Sullivan's Travels, maybe, in which there's this scene with a train porter (I'm blanking on the specific word for bellhops on trains) that's supposed to be funny but is just horrifying, because the character doesn't even really seem human. Bringing some humanity and interest to otherwise demeaning roles ihas a degree of progressivity to it.
It is amazing to me how consistently Bphd presents my point of view. I'll be reading along formulating a response and then viola, Bphd has already posted it.
But for good drama, Bphd, we need to find something to disagree on.
The Monroe issue is pretty interesting, by itself.
And it goes beyond possible parallels with any other pneumatic hotties. See, e.g., this:
She was just like our whole country, not young anymore, but not old either; a little breathless, very beautiful, maybe a little stupid, maybe a lot smarter than she seemed. And she was looking for something -- I think she wanted to be good. Look at the men in her life -- Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller, maybe the Kennedys. Look at how good they seem!... And she was vulnerable, too. She was never quite happy, she was always a little overweight. She was just like our whole country.... And those men.... Those famous, powerful men -- did they really love her? Did they take care of her? If she was ever with the Kennedys, they couldn't have loved her -- they were just using her, they were just being careless and treating themselves to a thrill. That's what powerful men do to this country -- It's a beautiful, sexy, breathless country, and powerful men use it to treat themselves to a thrill! They say they love it, but they don't mean it....
I looked back at this, and it's more than I mean. There are MM movies I find entertaining, she's lovely to look at, a very good actress, and very funny. All I meant by 'finding the persona distasteful' is the obvious: that I'm not happy with the society that makes her (the persona's) route to success a practical or attractive one, and that even in such a society I'd say that such a route to success is probably ill-advised and unworthy of emulation. As an entertainer, though, MM (the actress) did a spectacular job.
"Do we judge *everyone* for being less than "what would be most admirable"? Is that a standard that men are held to?"
Yes. When the question is, "do we admire this person?" or "Is this person admirable?" the issue is: "does this person meet our standards for what would be admirable."
This is true for men and women. If I have stated a tautology, sorry, but apparently it needed to be said.
But that's not entirely true -- we admire people for excellence or for being admirable in some dimension, but we don't generally require them to be unexceptionable. Michael Jordan is an admirable ball player: the fact that he appears pretty light on the social concern, worrying about Nike workers worldwide, front doesn't make him not an admirable ball player.
MM was an admirably skilled, funny and beautiful actress. The genre in which she worked could be described as socially pernicious on some level, but doesn't make her not admirable in the areas in which she excelled.
That Owen Meany passage reminded me of something else I wanted to say about Marilyn. Ogged's sentence of "she has no needs of her own" was entirely wrong. She has a passle of needs--she just makes you believe that you could be the one to fill them, that you will be kinder and better than all those other galoots, that you are the savior whose desire is purer than all the others, the one who won't hurt her. She creates a possibility that sexual desire and conquest, which is in its real world manifestation messy, and sometimes hostile, could be innocent, even righteous. That's a powerful fantasy--to be sexual and to be good.
we admire people with faults, yes. But we have to find something admirable about them. We don't find men admirable without some reason for it. Same with women.
Many people here don't find Marilyn Monroe admirable. This does not mean that they are executing some sort of double standard. The fact of public renown doesn't have make you admire a person. It's an absurd suggestion that because Marilyn Monroe was famous -- her success as an actress is actually pretty dubious -- that we must find her admirable.
Having a submissive girlfriend or wife is a sign of moral if not mental illness.
This statement pisses me off. Submissive people need love too.
One of my best friends in grad school hooked up with a submissive woman for a few months, and it completely screwed up the friendship. I didn't know how to act around such a creature, and I couldn't imagine how he would know.
Yes, such creatures should be locked away somewhere where they won't offend the delicate sensibilites of snobbish grad students.
It isn't just that the area in which MM worked was socially dubious, it is the fact that her career embodied that very social dubiousness. Maybe she was a clever opportunist; maybe she was a tool. Anyone who claims to know for sure one way or the other, I would question how certain you can be about that.
Even if she was a clever opportunist, that does not mean we have to find her admirable. I do not find Paris Hilton admirable, though she could probably claim the same.
Text, the original question wasn't "is this person admirable," it was "do we "get" the appeal?" They're different questions. One can "get" it without agreeing with it. And, as LB said, there's a difference between "admirable" (which can apply to some characteristics but not others--no one has just one set of characteristics, and even MLK was apparently an adulterer) and "unexceptionable."
One question that's occured to me, and I'm surprised no one has brought it up yet, is that we all seem uncritical of admiring MJ's athleticism. So far, so good: watching him in action is glorious. But that, too, is a pervasive and damaging stereotype: black men are, above all, athletes and entertainers. Yet we're able to separate the admiration for the obvious skill from endorsing the stereotype.
I'd argue that the significant difference between MJ and MM in that regard is simply history: with a little historical distance, we're somewhat freer of the cultural frame that made admiring MM inevitable than we are of the frame that compels admiration for MJ.
Can we draw a distinction between 'submissive' which I understand as a sexual orientation/kink/whatever which doesn't necessarily inform non-sexual parts of one's life all that much, and 'submissive' as used in the quote, which means something more like compliant?
Because, you know, call me a bigot, but I do find relationships in which one person is unquestionably in charge and the other is obedient (outside of the whole sexual role-play thing, in which, hey, whatever floats your boat) freaky and disturbing.
She has a passle of needs--she just makes you believe that you could be the one to fill them,
Exactly. She offers the "Hero and the wounded bird" relationship, and who doesn't want to be a hero?
The long term problem with such relationships is that in order for the man to remain the hero the bird must remain wounded, which is not a very nice place to be.
And it was not required that MM embody the sexual pathologies of her era to succeed as an actress. There were other -- and more -- successful actresses who did not make that choice.
There were many actresses in her era and in previous eras with strong, intelligent personas who we may choose to admire if we like. I will choose Katherine Hepburn.
If MJ performed minstrel shows after each game, I think we'd find him less admirable. He doesn't care about social issues, but he also seems ruthlessly intelligent. We admire his athleticism because he's an athlete.
On the whole, I "get" Monroe's attraction, but I think that makes me a worse, not better person.
I'd argue that the significant difference between MJ and MM in that regard is simply history: with a little historical distance, we're somewhat freer of the cultural frame that made admiring MM inevitable than we are of the frame that compels admiration for MJ.
Disagree entirely. When we worry about over-emphasizing MJ's characteristics, we worry about it because we know that the vast majority of people trying to emulate him will fail. And then they will be lost. When we worry about MM's characteristics, we worry that the people emulating her will succeed - that they will learn to successfully trade sex for status, cash, whatever.
Also, re: "black men are, above all, athletes and entertainers," strange as it may seem, no small part of Jordan's appeal is that he seems smart and not that committed to being an entertainer.
Miller died recently, as did Joe D (who, I believe, beat her).
!!!!
Incidentally, I, too, find myself in agreement with Dr. Bitch, and also with Tripp!
I do happen to think that if we cast ourselves as judges of whole lives that people have lived, we should at the very least give each person some slack from the get-go, cosidering that living a life is hard work, and mostly sucks.
#131: I don't know that I agree that we worry those who emulate the MM paradigm will succeed. I think we worry b/c we know that, as paradigm, it is only fantasy, unsustainable in the real world--and therefore doomed to failure.
How did that "one person unquestionably in charge" get in there? I think you have a problem with that part, not the submissive part.
Even if the relationship is totally freely agreed upon by both sides, that gets me to 'none of my business -- people should do what makes them happy' but I don't really like people who want to be in a relationship where they are either unquestionably in charge or unquestionably dominated.
That's a powerful fantasy--to be sexual and to be good.
That's what she offered straight men. But the appeal goes beyond that. See, e.g., Elton John. It's just being, as Tripp says, the hero. Sex doesn't necessarily enter into it at all.
I may have overstated my argument. It is a fact that MM was appealing to lots of men, and as for reasons why, there are interesting things to say.
But for those who do not find her appealing, I do not find that at all troubling or odd. It probably means that they lack certain American sexual pathologies. Let's not elevate MM to a level that she never attained or aspired to in order to turn the tables on men whose tastes indicate less, and not more, cockenvaginmindedness than the overall population.
Paris Hilton and MM are not in any way comparable.
Two blondes who used sex appeal and played dumb to get famous. Hilton may not compare well, but she can be compared. I can grasp why Marilyn Monroe maintains a grip on the American imagination. The one I can't for the life of me figure out is Princess Diana.
Talent / no talent. Self-made woman / billionaire. Many facial expressions / one facial expression. Natural / bionic. Vulnerable / brassy. Available / unattainable.
They're both blond and wear skimpy outfits, but Paris's game is fame and not sexiness. I suppose that a frat-house poll is required, but I doubt that she ranks high among the fantasy babes of our time.
It's funny that Paris liked her Greek boyfriend, also named Paris (Latsis), because he "knew how to spend money". This must be some atavistic female thing from the African veldt, because Paris H. didn't need anyone else to spend money on her.
#144: Princess Di is pretty unappealling, but obviously a lot of people like her because she was a pretty victim, and also perhaps because she tried, ineffectively, to be a populist royal.
When we worry about over-emphasizing MJ's characteristics, we worry about it because we know that the vast majority of people trying to emulate him will fail. And then they will be lost.
This is at least overstated, since it suggests that if everyone could be a great athlete (and not particularly devoted to anything else at all), they should do that.
Now with the Di bashing? Oy vey. She was pretty, and demure, and seemed to have a good heart. And she was popular before she became a victim, which I think made the sympathy her victimization provoked more heartfelt. She wasn't "my type," but I did have a soft spot for her.
She was pretty, and demure, and seemed to have a good heart.
BFD. I could stand on my desk with a Nerf ball right now and hit four different women that fit that description.
I'm not hating on Diana, I just couldn't grasp the histrionic outpouring of grief at her death from a bunch of people who had precisely zero connection with her beyond having watched her dysfunctional marriage in supermarket tabloids. It will ever be mysterious to me.
Yeah, yeah, she was a princess. That appeal eludes me as well, but then I'm not a thirteen-year-old girl.
Mother Teresa dies, and is welcomed joyously into heaven, and issued a small golden halo. As St. Peter is giving her an orientation tour, she notices Princess Di, who had died the week before. Slightly miffed, she asks Peter, "Wait a second, I was saintly, a holy woman all my life, and yet I have this small, simple golden halo. Princess Diana was a sinner, and while I know that our sins are forgiven and I'm glad to see her here in heaven, why is her halo so much larger and more complex than mine?"
"Terry, Terry, don't worry about it. That's not a halo -- it's the steering wheel."
"Marilyn Monroe is a woman who desperately wants your cock, won't make fun of it no matter what, and has absolutely no needs of her own, other than more of your cock."
Not much to say that hasn't been said, but here are three things I like about Marilyn Monroe:
1) She's a normal weight. She's only fat by modern Hollywood standards (and even then, I think Monroe was roughly Kate Winslet-sized). She looks damn fine nonetheless.
2) Her persona seemed like a lot of fun; aside from the sex appeal, she seemed the sort of person who would be absolutely delighted with small pleasures of everyday life. Happy people are fun to be around and her smile is contagious.
3) I had heard that she invented the dumb blonde persona -- she didn't adapt to a stereotype as much as she invented/perfected it (and then, sadly, was identified with that persona.) And she's really funny.
And it was not required that MM embody the sexual pathologies of her era to succeed as an actress.
Not so much. Not with her looks. The other actresses around and before that time seem to embody the idea of the unattainable, distant yet alluring rich woman (40s wave, languid glance through dark lashes) or the sharp and spunky Woman Journalist. All those types seem to require, I dunno, angles somewhere on someone's face.
I doubt she would have been a believable Hildy in His Girl Friday, and I doubt she would have had a chance at being cast.
141: The lyrics to Candle in the Wind were written by a straight man. I think that the idea that Marilyn offers a non-sexual appeal to goodness may be part of the fantasy of transcending the rapacity of sexuality.
"The other actresses around and before that time seem to embody the idea of the unattainable, distant yet alluring rich woman (40s wave, languid glance through dark lashes) or the sharp and spunky Woman Journalist."
I don't know. I think there were probably more than three kinds of actresses in the 50s. You can group public figures into all sorts of different categories, but in the end, they each have their own particularities. I don't think Doris Day was the angular type, but neither did she play Marilyn's game.
I don't want to condemn MM for being a sex-pot, but don't pretend that she was more than that, or that she was a sex-pot out of duress.
Nah, neither of them do it for me. If I were forced to choose a runner up, I'd pick Jody Williams, but only Aung San Suu Kyi genuinely qualifies as NLILF.
The lyrics to Candle in the Wind were written by a straight man.
Fair enough. But as with all analyses of original intent, we might look not only to the text's meaning for its author, but for its readers.
Also, as I take to be implicit in many of the above comments, note John's adaptation of the song to Diana. Cultural Studies scholars take note: perhaps there are important textual / contextual penumbrae to the song(s) that tell us about American vs. British takes on the 'dumb' blonde.
She was just like our whole country, not young anymore, but not old either; a little breathless, very beautiful, maybe a little stupid, maybe a lot smarter than she seemed. And she was looking for something -- I think she wanted to be good. Look at the men in her life -- Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller, maybe the Kennedys. Look at how good they seem!... And she was vulnerable, too. She was never quite happy, she was always a little overweight.
Jesus. Talk about making gophers out of molehills!
Ogged's sentence of "she has no needs of her own" was entirely wrong. She has a passle of needs--she just makes you believe that you could be the one to fill them, that you will be kinder and better than all those other galoots, that you are the savior whose desire is purer than all the others, the one who won't hurt her. She creates a possibility that sexual desire and conquest, which is in its real world manifestation messy, and sometimes hostile, could be innocent, even righteous. That's a powerful fantasy--to be sexual and to be good.
I don't think she's attractive because she doesn't look like anything. She's a little overweight (or is that really over?) so her face is sort of formless, none of the individual features that make up her face are anything but bland. People keep saying 'she's this, she's that' - and that's the advantage of basically having a non-face: people can project onto you any particular idea they want and there's nothing to contradict the idea.
To restate that, she's a penciled-in yellow upside down U, two dark slashes, a long vertical slash, and red pencil lip abstraction formed in a kiss, and a rounded-V to make the chin. (Or 'chin') Woo! Marilyn Monroe!
That's why she could act 'well'. Any simple expression easily and automatically overrode the nullness of her. (This is a commonality amoung actors.) Which she did not much use to any effect.
Anyways, so now's she's fascinating because nobody can agree on what she is/was.
If she were alive and young, she'd be a touch chick or a feminist ideal or hot sex pot or something, because she would have a broader range of choices amoungst 'schtick'.
Two blondes who used sex appeal and played dumb to get famous. Hilton may not compare well, but she can be compared. I can grasp why Marilyn Monroe maintains a grip on the American imagination. The one I can't for the life of me figure out is Princess Diana.
Princess Diana: same as above.
Hilton: tabloid fodder. Famous for being famous.
Anna Nicole Smith: Person Marilyn Monroe was trying to play.
Pamela Anderson: see Paris Hilton.
I don't get the appeal of any of those.
ash
['Actual personality as opposed to pre-packaged personality option good!']
I'd like to sidle up to him, wink as I handed him my hotel room key, and then, when he got there, sodomize him with a heated curling iron. If he tried to complain, I'd say, "Hey, you were going to fornicate; you're really not in a position to complain. Besides, we're just mara anyway, so enjoy it."
Thanks guys -- all I can do when presented with such a breathtakingly hateful piece is ridicule the author's appearance, I'm glad others are better able to talk about the problems in his writing.
Shorter Vox Day: I haven't actually read the Bible, either, as there are whole sections on how rape is bad and how it is different from fucking for fun. (Dinah? Angry brothers kicking the shit out of people and their foreskins? Notice they didn't kick the shit out of her, too?)
I can't critique it much beyond that; he starts off by assuming that everyone woman who claims date rape actually wanted to have sex. I'm wondering when the decision to fornicate attaches; when she decides to go on a date? When she comes back to his dorm room to watch a movie? When she laughes at his godawful hair?
Is he really saying that people who are not 100% morally "pure" have no right to complain when people commit crimes against them? I stole a candy bar when I was 6, guess it's open season on me for all the murderers and armed robbers in the world.
I wonder if Mr. Smartypants knows that consent is the difference between rape and fornication even within Christianity? Given most of Christianity's preoccupation with sex and women's purity, this distinction is pretty well clear.
It's not the Christian response to blame the victim (I don't claim that it often hasn't been, but that it's usually Christianity + some other factor, not anything Christ said and usually not in bare Catholic teachings (as opposed to practice), at least.).
The reason women aren't screwing you, VD, isn't because the feminists got to them and told them stories about consent. It's because of your hair.
Something about that Vox Day essay struck me as familiar--the complete mischaracterization of Buddhist thought, the offhand reference to Nietzsche--and then it hit me:
Vox Day is the real-life version of Otto from A Fish Called Wanda!
i am coming late to this thread, and bitchphd has said almost everything i would have. (rock on, b.)
but! i wanted to say: i have selectively identified with MM for a long time. i am young, blonde, soft-featured like MM, and even 50 years after MM's time i have huge trouble with people's perceptions of me because of the blondeness, not so much within academia (where ppl are trained to be self-conscious) but more outside of it. if i answer the question "what do you do" with "phd program at Stodgy Famous Ivy League", ppl very often follow up by asking if i plan to teach high school. [um, NO]. condescension, flirting from middle-aged and old men, not being taken seriously, being treated rudely because i don't look "powerful," especially in regions outside the east coast where my appearance is more easily translated into the right age and social role.
MM was adept at turning the crappy suffering-causing stereotypes to her own material advantage. even if my methods run to menswear more than boobs, i'd like to have her finesse.
MM was fully aware of the trade-offs she was making, which is all the more heart-breaking for me:
"That's the trouble, a sex symbol becomes a thing. But if I'm going to be a symbol of something, I'd rather have it sex than some other things we've got symbols of."
so, i'm being way more serious than the rest of you, which is never a good idea, but i did want to say this.
If the definition of rape is stretched so far to include women who have not given consent, then I am absolutely a serial rapist. So, too, is every man I know.
by the way, the attraction to vulnerable-looking women is certainly not over, and also certainly not just an american thing.
i got the most catcalling, wolfwhistling, flashing of dicks, groping, and general hassling the year i was 14. and i probably looked about 12. so think about that, parents.
Those seem like different kinds of vulnerability, mmf! I take Monroe's vulnerability to be a kind of wounded gentleness, whereas a fourteen year-old is just basically a defenseless victim. That's not very precise, but they do seem different.
Her naturally blonde hair is also naturally curly, which means that she looks like she went to a hair salon in Nashville and got their $300 special do.
If the definition of rape is stretched so far to include women who have not given consent, then I am absolutely a serial rapist. So, too, is every man I know.
How the fuck does that stretch the definition? Does he think that consent means 'woman on top' or something? Is it consented to as long as no one was beaten? I'm sorry to keep harping on this but this guy is really fucking pissing me off.
I was hit on by a man when I was 15 who was very creepy. Talked about how underage sex laws (the A column in the WSJ that week) were oppressing women, didn't I agree? Then asked me out.
Two weeks later I saw him again. At my dad's 25-year high school reunion.
Ignoring Otto's insane essay for the sake of my sanity, why were you at your Dad's 25-year high school reunion? Chaperoning to make sure they don't dance too close?
He's making some moronic point about explicit verbal negotiations, and how most people don't have them before sex. (Although that, I think, gets overstated as a matter of fact. Maybe I just talk about stuff more than most people, but most times I've had sex, there were things said that explicitly indicated consent.)
He says "have not given consent." Consent can be verbal or non-verbal. By his own admission, he's a rapist.
And I'm with you, LB: I'd say that the vast majority of the times I've had sex with someone, there was, in fact, explicit verbal consent at some point.
w/d, family picnic the day after the reunion. Ew. ew. ew.
I'm trying to think... yeah, there was explicit verbal consent. (Kind of a byproduct of limiting sex to coupledom).
Charitably, I'm guessing VD isn't a rapist, but did not have a situation set-up in Fantasy Land where he asked "may I have sex with you this evening at 8pm" and received a "yes, please, use the side door" in response. But, like, torch straw-men much? Has any woman ever claimed to be raped because she didn't have a formal 'ask-me-nicely' scenario?
Largely because I think saying that he is a rapist (in an actual, not in Fantasy-Land Consent World) gives him too much credit for his argument against Evil Feminists ® who hate his hair.
No one is saying that 'consent' means 'drawn out, elegant request for and acceptance of coitus'; if that's what he means by consent, then it seems that one should deny he's a rapist. If I agree that he's a rapist, then I'm conceding that to qualify for 'feminist consent', I've got some trumped-up ritual in mind when all I really need is, 'you wanna?' 'Okay!'
Why should I accept that he's got any clue about the notion of consent?
#218 your point is well taken, ogged, except that it was probably not just an age issue. believe me, i spent a fair bit of ages 15-18 consciously working on getting rid of the vulnerability - projecting more confidence and unapproachability on the street. and (arg) the subway car.
Cala, that's a good point, but I'm less charitable, I guess (and kind of cranky tonight). "You wanna? Okay!" is verbal consent, as is "fuck me now" as is "ready? Yes!" and all the other things people say while having sex.
But I really am quite willing to say that the arguments he is making encourage rape.
Retracted. He's not a confused guy who is worried that 'date rape' might mean 'what if I wasn't good and she regrets it?' but thinks that 'date rape' means, 'we all know women say no when they mean yes, and sometimes don't say no when I'm busy thrusting my cock down their throat.'
Not worth the time. Also, shouldn't it be Populi? What is a Popoli?
Let's talk about boots. BPhD, you're the expert on boots. Do you like cowboy boots, especially if they're in a festive burgundy color, or is my fashion sense gone with my sanity?
My feelings on cowboy boots are mixed. I like them too, but somehow when I've owned them I've never felt they were really "me." I do have a weakness for the really elaborately detailed and worked ones, though, and I can imagine myself giving in, yet again, to the desire to be a cowboy boot girl. And I'll admit right up front that cowboy boots on cowboys? Lawd have mercy, woman, I think I feel faint. I need to lie down...
I want you to buy them, so I can live vicariously.
I've never owned a pair! So this might be fun. I haven't tried any on yet. Will have to see if they fit my weirdo feet. (Why are all shoes based on a last that assumes feet are the same width from toes to heels? Who has feet like that?)
Oh cripes, yes, don't tuck your pants into your boots, that's just embarrassing. Let the pants pull up when you sit down and cross your leg if you want to flash the tooling on the side of the boot--a li'l subtlety is a good thing.
I also advise against wearing 'em with denim skirts. Ick. If you have good legs, though, tights and a miniskirt w/ cowboy boots is a great look.
205: VD might not show up here, but if you make a post criticizing him, especially if you're a woman, he'll probably link to it and his commenters will come over and harass you.
And he'll say that you're stupid, or perhaps illogical, or emotional, or maybe all three.
Oh, and did you know that he doesn't think women should be allowed the vote?
Vox is a macho, violent guy who really believe that the toughest guy should be boss, as in the middle ages. I'm sure he regrets that he can't silence his critics by challenging them to hand-to-hand combat. Women are not his only problem.
Yeah, I don't have good legs either. So sad. I have to admit that's one reason I don't have cowboy boots: I haven't figured out what to really wear them with yet, b/c the unfortunate tendency to cut mid-calf does create that tank look with so many things...
This post makes me think of "Ten Seconds to Love," Chuck Klosterman's comparison of Marilyn Monroe and Pamela Anderson (from Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs).
Posted by Clancy | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 6:07 PM
I don't get the big deal either. She is attractive, but she seems super needy and unhappy. I don't think it would be a joy to be married to her.
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 6:41 PM
I get it. She's very attractive, for one. Her beauty is of a softer, more "womanly" kind than what's presently fashionable, two (when I was heavier, I had a MM-esque figure, and I got plenty of attention). Third, she's extremely funny. Fourth, her persona was actually quite sweet: gullible, yes, but not really ditzy--she's never vapid or two-dimensional, just naive and earnest. Fifth, her unhappiness conveys a certain kind of vulnerability that a lot of men find attractive, and sixth, it also hints that there's more there than is on the surface.
What I don't get is why people don't get her.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 6:44 PM
On second thought, I also don't get why O. thinks she's hot in that picture. She's wearing makeup! And heels! And a dressy dress!
And everyone knows that's not her real hair color.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 6:48 PM
I can't remember who it was, some pissed-off feminist writer (funny. whoever it was was funny) described Marilyn Monroe's appeal as that "You could trick her into fucking you."
That doesn't seem too far off -- she doesn't want sex in the actually having sexual desires of her own sense, because that would be threatening. She's prey, in the predator-prey model of sexual relations in which men chase women, but she's slow, defenseless prey.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 6:48 PM
My sister had a MM type figure and coloration, but she lived during the Twiggy era. Guys loved her, but she couldn't be fashionable.
I read an interview with an acquaintance of MM's who said she could turn it on and off. When she had it turned on, though, she could stop traffic. She just had all these ways of seeming sexy and available and making the random guy feel special. But when she turned it off, nobody noticed her. She was just like anyone else.
They that when she finally got an actual contract she said something like, "Well, that's the last cock I'm going to have to suck."
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 6:51 PM
She is no Debbie Reynolds
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 6:54 PM
Emerson is pwned.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 6:56 PM
Now, Debbie Reynolds *I* don't get. Zero sex appeal.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 6:56 PM
You and LB read the same interview.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 6:59 PM
What I don't get is why people don't get her.
For my part, I've never seen any more of her than pictures, and know probably as little about her as it is possible to know. Not on purpose; I've just never made any effort to find out more.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:00 PM
I am pwned.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:01 PM
Pre-empted is not pwned, people!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:02 PM
Don't you like Weiner senses, Ogged? C'mon, doesn't "chivalrous" sound better than "horndog"?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:05 PM
What I don't get is why people don't get her.
Because, as discussed in a prior thread, it's no longer socially acceptable to want to fuck a fifteen year-old.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:07 PM
An observation you were somewhat pwned on, by the way.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:08 PM
No, I read LB's comment. I confess. I think of LB as a valid source.
The story about her stopping traffic came from somewhere else, though. Before she was famous men used to organize their days around watching her walk past.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:08 PM
16 to 14, not to 15, which is madness. What 15-year-old looks like that?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:08 PM
Weiner:
As per usual, LB said it better and first. It's not that she looks fifteen, it's that she appears to have the emotional resources of a fifteen year-old. To the extent that people do want to sleep with fifteen year-olds, I assume they want to sleep with the mature-looking ones, not the the pimply, etc. ones (as covered before by, again, LB). So, then, the value of sleeping with a fifteen year-old has less to do with what she looks like and more to do with her emotional resources.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:14 PM
HELLO!!
HELLO!! ... I AM GOING TO SPEAK NOW!!!!! ... HELLO!!!!!!
HELLO!!!!!!!!!
I'VE HIT MY HEAD ON THE TABLE!!
HELLO!!!!!!!!!!!!
...MY BRAIN... MY BRAIN HURTS !!!
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:14 PM
Does everyone else mentally pronounce "pwned" as "p-owned"?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:15 PM
I pronounce it as "poned".
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:15 PM
I don't think your last sentence follows, but the rest seems absolutely right. I find a certain kind of vulnerability attractive, but I also think that this may reflect something bad about me.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:16 PM
23 to 19.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:17 PM
#15, MM looks like an adult woman, whereas a lot of today's fashionably attractive women look 15.
#19, I disagree about the emotional resources of a 15yo, although I see the point. Really, I think that MM was quite clever. Now, the character/persona she played, not so much, but still, if you watch, there are flashes of rather pointed wit. And *no* 15yo in the world knows how to play guys the way she does.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:17 PM
Where's the thread where we first discussed the peculiar Weiner sense of "pwned"? I know it's in here somewhere.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:17 PM
Everything okay, Wolfson? (And I think the 'trick her into fucking you' line is Cynthia Heimel. Either that, or someone who reminds me of Cynthia Heimel, but I can't think of anyone who fits into that category.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:18 PM
Y'all realize blogger is down, right? Let's spice things up around here, there's nothing else to do.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:19 PM
Now, the character/persona she played, not so much, but still, if you watch, there are flashes of rather pointed wit.
But isn't the attraction often to the character, and not to her herself? Isn't Joe O right that the actual person was depressed and unhappy?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:20 PM
Let's spice things up around here, there's nothing else to do.
Yeah, let's play Truth or Dare.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:22 PM
The actual person was depressed and unhappy. Also, extremely bright.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:22 PM
She would have had to have been bright -- she's a wonderful actress.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:23 PM
SB, it's here.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:24 PM
Re ##23, 25:
This might be another Say Anything thing for me, so I may be well out of step. But listen to her voice and tell me that it doesn't sound like an adult talking baby-talk constantly. Also, I don't know about all her lovers, but Miller died recently, as did Joe D (who, I believe, beat her). She, of course, suicided. I don't know that she worked those guys all that well.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:27 PM
Well, again, we're conflating the person with the persona. Yes, the persona used a babyish kind of voice. I don't mind that per se: Jennifer Tilly is also sexy, imho. The persona also played men like violins (I'm thinking of the stairwell scene in "All About Eve," an early Monroe appearance).
The person was indeed very unhappy and surely more used than using.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:30 PM
Please don't use "suicide" as a verb. It sounds childish.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:30 PM
I think that part of her power was making mediocre, timid guys feel like they had a chance. She wasn't the aristocrat or the ice princess.
So what about Elizabeth Taylor?
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:31 PM
See, this again goes back to the purple flute thread, but incredible skill at attracting men has very little to do with relating to them happily. (Isn't necessarily a drawback, but it's not the same skill.) So saying that she could play men like no one else isn't necessarily going to have made her happy.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:32 PM
I don't get the appeal. By that I mean, her face did nothing for me. As opposed to Bettie Page.
ash
['Ja.']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:34 PM
Purple flute?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:35 PM
I didn't say it made her happy, I said it made her not dumb.
She wasn't the aristocrat, but she was something of an ice princess--over and over again, we find out that she isn't actually *fucking* the guys who are fascinated by her, just leading them on, and getting paid handsomely for it.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:35 PM
Well, again, we're conflating the person with the persona.
If I had a daughter, and I had to choose a persona for her from the three main female characters in How to Marry a Millionaire, I'd want her to be Bacall, Grable, Monroe, in that order. Off the top of my head, I can't think of single MM character that I'd want her to emulate. But, again, I may be way out of step on this.
Wolfson - yeah, nothing. You're right; it was, if nothing else, lazy.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:37 PM
Sheila (who is an actress and often writes about craft) did a bunch of interesting posts on MM recently. You can start here and work backwards.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:37 PM
#42: Of course her persona isn't one I'd encourage any woman to *emulate*. But in the context of her time, she (the persona) is using the rules of sexism to advance her own cause, much like Pamela Anderson is doing today. I have no problem with that, although I do find it terribly sad that in real life, she was so shat upon.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:39 PM
Purple flute. Scroll down that thread for purple-rhyming.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:39 PM
Purple flute.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:40 PM
Pwned!
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:41 PM
Weiner is pwn-happy.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:45 PM
So what about Elizabeth Taylor?
Pass. Catherine Deneuve.
And while you're at it, Myrna Loy and Lana Turner.
ash
['And Raquel Welch now, not before.']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:54 PM
I know I have next to no credibility on this, but let's not make this a "who's hot?" thread. The Monroe issue is pretty interesting, by itself.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:56 PM
If it's a "who's hot" thread, it'll be more interesting and faster-paced, though. And blogger's down.
Myrna Loy, for sure.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:57 PM
Patricia Quinn, says I.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 7:59 PM
(no fifteen-year-old she)
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:03 PM
No boy toy was Mina Loy!
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:03 PM
I know I have next to no credibility on this, but let's not make this a "who's hot?" thread.
Ok, except that, without a comparison, it's kinda hard to get at things and,
The Monroe issue is pretty interesting, by itself.
That's the point. Most of the complaints I hear about 'not getting Monroe' involve her weight, which is not an issue for me. (See Page reference.) I really really don't get it. She's not particularly cute, her speaking face is obviously contrived, she's always 'posing', and as far as I can tell she never actually had a personality. Mainly, as far as I can tell, she had big tits. I'd like Jayne Mansfield better if it came down to tits.
Page is from the same period and is obviously working the seedier end of the same side of the street, but at least she's fun. Also, attractive.
I guess I do NOT get the sense Monroe would do anything. Quite the opposite. Produce diamonds and maybe she will, maybe she won't. I always thought that WAS her public personality. If so, ick.
ash
['That's all.']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:04 PM
Speaking voice. Sheesh. Tiny box typing.
ash
['Gah.']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:05 PM
Oh sorry -- never mind those last 2 posts -- looking back I see that Ogged was requesting that this not become a "who's hot" thread, where I took him to mean the opposite.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:05 PM
An easy mistake to make, Jeremy. Thanks.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:06 PM
she (the persona) is using the rules of sexism to advance her own cause, much like Pamela Anderson is doing today.
pls to xpound.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:06 PM
Hedy Lamarr
"Hedy Lamarr married Fritz Mandal, the first of six husbands, in 1933. During their marriage, which broke up in 1937, Madame Mandl was an institution in Viennese society, entertaining—and dazzling—foreign leaders, including Hitler and Mussolini. Her husband specialized in shells and grenades, but from the mid-thirties on he also manufactured military aircraft. He was interested in control systems and conducted research in the field. His wife clearly learned things from him, because she and her co-inventor, George Antheil, later went on to invent the torpedo guidance system that was two decades before its time.
Hedy Lamarr's co-inventor, George Antheil, was born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1900. His parents were from East Prussia. After studying music at what is now the Curtis Institute, in Philadelphia, he went to Europe to pursue a career as a concert pianist, heading first to Berlin and then settling in Paris in 1923.....
They began talking about radio control for torpedoes. The idea itself was not new, but her concept of "frequency hopping" was. Lamarr brought up the idea of radio control. Antheil's contribution was to suggest the device by which synchronization could be achieved. He proposed that rapid changes in radio frequencies could be coordinated the way he had coordinated the sixteen synchronized player pianos in his Ballet Méanique. The analogy was complete in his mind: By the time the two applied for a patent on a "Secret Communication System," on June 10, 1941, the invention used slotted paper rolls similar to player-piano rolls to synchronize the frequency changes in transmitter and receiver, and it even called for exactly eighty-eight frequencies, the number of keys on a piano.
Lamarr and Antheil worked on the idea for several months and then, in December 1940, sent a description of it to the National Inventors Council, which had been launched with much fanfare earlier in the year as a gatherer of novel ideas and inventions from the general public. Its chairman was Charles F. Kettering, the research director of General Motors. Over its lifetime, which lasted until 1974, the council collected more than 625,000 suggestions, few of which ever reached the patent stage. But according to Antheil, Kettering himself suggested that he and Lamarr develop their idea to the point of being patentable. With the help of an electrical engineering professor from the California Institute of Technology they ironed out its bugs, and the patent was granted on August 11, 1942. It specified that a high-altitude observiation plane could steer the torpedo from above."
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:11 PM
So, if you were to fight Marilyn Monroe, and she was a ninja, but you had a 6-8 inch long knife, what do you reckon your chances?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:12 PM
"In the United States Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil, shunned by the Navy, no longer pursued their invention. But in 1957, the concept was taken up by engineers at the Sylvania Electronic Systems Division, in Buffalo, New York. Their arrangement, using, of course, electronics rather than piano rolls, ultimately became a basic tool for secure military communications. It was installed on ships sent to blockade Cuba in 1962, about three years after the Lamarr-Antheil patent had expired. Subsequent patents in frequency changing, which are generally unrelated to torpedo control, have referred to the Lamarr-Antheil patent as the basis of the field, and the concept lies behind the principal anti-jamming device used today, for example, in the U.S. government's Milstar defense communication satellite system."
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:14 PM
Hey, does anyone remember when Matt McIrvin was talking about how he remembered the day when he read something about someone reminiscing about Frank Zappa talking about when nostalgia was better than it had become? That was really cool, far better than this degenerate age.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:15 PM
So, if you were to fight Marilyn Monroe, and she was a ninja, but you had a 6-8 inch long knife, what do you reckon your chances?
That's a rather odd metaphor for sex.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:16 PM
Emereson, are you saying Hedy Lamarr radio-controls your torpedo?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:17 PM
#59: Well, this isn't terribly original--it's arguably the one moment when I'm ever going to say something that agrees, even slightly, with anything Camille Paglia's said. Basically, Monroe and Anderson, like Madonna and Cindy Crawford, are ambitious women who took stock of the world they lived in, decided (not incorrectly) that one route to success was to play up their looks and sex appeal, and went whole hog. It's not something I'd recommend to a daughter or friend or whatever, but I can't blame (and somewhat admire) women who decide, basically, that if you can't beat 'em you might as well take 'em for a ride and get rich off it.
The difference between Monroe and the others is that she wasn't in charge of the situation in quite the same way--Anderson, Crawford, and Madonna all pretty much own their own "brand" and profit from it accordingly. Monroe didn't.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:18 PM
I think I remember someone alluding to something about how Matt McIrvin had talked about how he had remembered a day when he read something about someone reminiscing about Frank Zappa talking about when nostalgia was better than it had become, but I'm not sure.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:20 PM
But isn't it a pretty selfish way to make it, insofar as it reinforces the stereotypes?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:21 PM
Hey, everyone! Prohibition was repealed 72 years ago today!
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:23 PM
Essentially, Hedy Lamarr guides
all
of our torpedos. Not just mine, or yours, but everyone's.
And screw HTML here.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:25 PM
69: Let's party like it was 2005 - 72!
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:29 PM
As a little girl, Audrey Hepburn carried messages for the Dutch Resistance -- how could a Nazi mistrust that wide-eyed look?
Little did those suckers know.
It was traumatic for her and she never spoke of it, they say.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:29 PM
But isn't it a pretty selfish way to make it, insofar as it reinforces the stereotypes?
In her case she just had this sexed up/vulnerable quality, couldn't escape it, because of her background. So better by far to try to exert some control over it--and others--rather than just be completely led around by it, no? Ultimately she couldn't control it, but I can see why she made the attempt.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:35 PM
#68, yeah, god forbid women should be selfish.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:37 PM
god forbid women should be selfish.
I don't think it's so much that women are being selfish. It's that some people are benefitting by reinforcing the same stereotypes that are oppressive to most other people. That it's women who are doing it is really incidental.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:40 PM
Based on the times and the lack of family support, MM didn't have a lot of options. The one she chose might have been the best actual one. Housewife and girlfriend were the other two, probably. Career women were rare then, but mainly, she had no family support ($$).
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:40 PM
Come on, I think you know what I mean: black actors are often reluctant or refuse to play roles where they're cast as gangbangers or drug dealers, and we understand their reasons--it seems quite similar with women playing a certain kind of sexpot.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:41 PM
74: ogged had a post during—lets call it the interregnum—about his issues with people living up to stereotypes (not that there is a stereotype of women being selfish, it goes towards why he's drawing the negative value judgment that they are selfish).
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:41 PM
Hedy Lamarr
Hedley.
ash
['Count De Monet.']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:47 PM
#75, 77, and 78: No, I wasn't being snarky, and I do understand why some actors won't play X stereotypical role. But that doesn't mean I'm gonna object to people who say, "hey, these are the available roles, and I want to work, so I'm gonna get paid." Getting paid is also a progressive act, in some situations.
I do, actually, think it's relevant that in this case it's women: the stereotype, of course, is that women *aren't supposed* to be selfish, and part of that stereotype is that they're not supposed to be as hard-headed about business as men are. One effect of that stereotype is that, generally speaking, women *do* negotiate salaries less effectively than men, which kind of perpetuates the whole second-class earner problem. So again, I have a paradoxical admiration for women who are straight up about wanting to get paid, and well: it's something so few women will admit to.
And anyway, although I do admire the principled stand of people who refuse to play into stereotypes, I'm not into holding those who are stereotyped responsible for the stereotype that they themselves didn't create. Even if playing along with it perpetuates a problem, hey: we all play along with bullshit from time to time, don't we? I'm not gonna throw stones.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:47 PM
I don't even think it's selfishness, per se. It's that there were other models out there (at least in film land) that she didn't fit. It's not that (in the movies) you couldn't find a tough-talking woman in a man's world (Rosalind Russell) or a wife who matched her husband drink for drink (Myrna Loy), or been the smart woman who marries a decent guy (Grable, IIRC), etc. It's that Marylin couldn't credibly be those people on film. Given what she had, she used it. But she didn't have to use it because she was a woman (or not to such caricature); she had to use it because that's what she had that was most valuable. And I think that's the dangerous aspect of iconizing Monroe. Even if it's the most valuable thing she has, I don't want my future daughter learning to trade on her sexuality.
It's entirely possible that, for an attractive but poor young woman, a $10K loan would be better spent on breast implants than on college. But that doesn't mean I want that as a social policy.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:49 PM
Well said, SCMT.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:50 PM
Shorter #80: It's admirable to take a principled stand, but it isn't therefore selfish not to.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:51 PM
So again, I have a paradoxical admiration for women who are straight up about wanting to get paid, and well: it's something so few women will admit to.
Fair enough. I simply don't see any reason why anyone would want to enter into the bidness transaction MM was after.
ash
['Same with PA, actually.']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:51 PM
Yeah, but it isn't fair to demand that the actions of every individual live up to the goal of "I want it to be social policy"--especially when said individual is in a disadvantaged position to begin with.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:52 PM
Don't tell Kant!
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:55 PM
Kant was a pretty privileged guy.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:55 PM
I'm not sure I can agree with 85. I think of Iran, and the basij, the regime's thug force. They're almost entirely drawn from the ranks of the poor, but it seems like we still need a category of condemnation for people who do bad things, even out of legitimate need.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:57 PM
Marilyn Monroe's success as an actress is on a par with killing people?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:58 PM
But isn't it a pretty selfish way to make it, insofar as it reinforces the stereotypes
This might be a valid criticism of madonna or pam anderson, I guess, but I hardly think that in choosing to be MM, MM was rejecting any feminist alternatives. The choices the culture offered at the time were more like Nice Girl, Bad Girl(Dumb) and Bad Girl(Smart). And the Nice Girl needed family support to keep on being nice, or faced a life of poverty. MM didn't have that. So it looks like she tried to be Bad Girl(Smart) pretending to be Bad Girl(Dumb). The thing about those choices is you can't win.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:58 PM
it seems like we still need a category of condemnation for people who do bad things, even out of legitimate need.
This doesn't seem like a bad thing, though, so much as a not good thing. I think there's a meaningful distinction there.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 8:59 PM
Marilyn Monroe's success as an actress is on a par with killing people?
They're not strictly analogous, obviously (though they are both keeping women down). Just establishing the "bad things done for understandable reasons are still bad" principle.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 9:01 PM
I also don't think it's as simple as saying that the example MM (or PA or anyone else) sets to young women is "trade on sex appeal." On a simple level that can be said to be the example; but I would say that the example is, "be in charge of your own image, know what you're doing, if you're going to make compromises know why, and keep your eye on whatever ball you've decided is important."
I also don't think it's true that we don't want our daughters to learn how to trade on their sex appeal. Let's be realistic: women are judged on their looks--not entirely, but it counts. And certain kinds of feminized "styles" just translate as effective / powerful / successful more than others do. I think it would be unconscionable not to at least teach girls that, even if at the same time it would be equally unconscionable not to teach them that they shouldn't have to play along with it, if they don't want to.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 9:05 PM
Some bad things are bad no matter what the rationale; and some bad things are less bad than their causes. And in context, some things that would be "bad" in a perfect world can actually be admirable in certain circumstances.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 9:09 PM
Speaking as an old guy, the idea that there was a feminist option for MM in 1950 or 1955 is more or less ridiculous. Hollywood was terribly corrupt , monopolistic, and mobbed-up, and treated everyone badly, and few actors or actresses had much choice over their scripts (even scriptwriters didn't have control over scripts.)
Beyond that, there was no feminist awareness in the general culture. When feminism showed up in a big way in left circles around 1970, even there there was a lot of resistance. Politicos just didn't think that women's issues were important.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 9:10 PM
B:
it isn't fair to demand that the actions of every individual live up to the goal of "I want it to be social policy"
I'm not saying that she had to do anything. Even today, I'd find it hard to begrudge said poor young woman. But I don't see anything particularly admirable about it. She looked at her assets and used what she had; we all do that.
It's just that, often enough, when we admire people, we're admiring particular characteristics or assets more than something willed about them. My admiration for Jordan, for example, is really a stand-in for my admiration for his athleticism and the world he has open to him because of his athleticism. Monroe as object of admiration is sex appeal as object of admiration. If you are, for some reason, a woman who's only value is ever going to be as someone's sex doll, she might be totally admirable. But otherwise there are better models, and better characteristics to admire.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 9:10 PM
Well, no, we *don't* all look at our assets and use what we have; a lot of us fail to use our assets because doing so is somehow "indecent" or "not respectable" or will make people "not like us." That's the context in which I have to give props to MM.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 9:13 PM
I know.
Let's change the subject.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 9:17 PM
Whatever condemnation is going on isn't because people are seeing her actions as "indecent". It's because they were less than what would be most admirable (and yes, self-sacrificing to a certain extent), avoiding playing into damaging stereotypes.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 9:18 PM
But isn't that a double standard? Do we judge *everyone* for being less than "what would be most admirable"? Is that a standard that men are held to? Or is it one that only those who are subject to stereotypes have to live up to? And if so, isn't that really rather unfair and, dare I say, oppressive?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 9:20 PM
It's because they were less than what would be most admirable (and yes, self-sacrificing to a certain extent), avoiding playing into damaging stereotypes.
OK, I disagree with this. There's a difference between not admiring and condemning. Part of the problem is that we (certainly I) are conflating the person with the persona. I don't find much admirable about the persona. I feel sorry for the person, but I don't think she's bad or evil. She made a series of choices that had certain payoffs. So be it. Who are we to judge?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 9:24 PM
It's a standard that everyone is held to in the sense that we don't actively encourage less than admirable behaviour (obviously there are exceptions, but for the sake of argument let's say that well meaning people don't). The point isn't that we're singling out MM and saying "You--how dare you not contradict the stereotype", it's that she shouldn't be singled out for praise for being successful by playing into a stereotype.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 9:26 PM
OK, I disagree with this. There's a difference between not admiring and condemning.
I'm actually trying to (awkwardly) say that. I'm not making a moral judgment here, just saying that her actions weren't an example of an ideal mode of behaviour, and thus aren't particularly praise-worthy. No condemning on my part though.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 9:34 PM
See, I think that that (102) is an oversimplified understanding of what it is that she did. She played to stereotype, sure, but lots of other people have done so as well. Her skill is a testament to, well, skill (as an actor); her decision to play the role in many guises and to perpetuate it in real life as well was a canny business move; and her beauty--as beauty--is, imho, admirable.
Practically speaking, the decisions she made in her professional life seem to have made her unhappy in her personal life--and professionally as well, in that many of her talents were under or mis-used (she seldom got credit for being a good comic actor, and her skill in perpetuating the role off-screen led and lead a lot of people to confusing the persona with the person, which ironically underestimates her acting ability). I'm sure that the fact that she had the skill and control only up to a point--but not, in the end, to the same degree that, say, Pamela Anderson has--were part of her depression, inasmuch as a lot of depression is about powerlessness. And in that sense, her life demonstrates that those choices, in isolation, weren't great, or at least weren't enough. But I honestly think that, whatever one thinks of the role she played, taking the role out of the context in which she lived and not recognizing the real skill and pragmatism with which she made her decisions, is unfair.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 9:52 PM
I concede that she was a talented person, but I don't think anyone is really disputing that. I didn't mean to say that playing into stereotype successfully as she did isn't difficult. She should be praised for her talent and ability, but not for playing into stereotype in and of itself. That she was able to make the most of a sexist situation is impressive, but this shouldn't stop us from recognizing that she was, to a certain extent, strengthening those stereotypes (though I could be completely wrong about this).
So, summing up: praise the talent, not the roles she took.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 10:19 PM
I don't want my future daughter learning to trade on her sexuality.
Look, my ass gets me places, and I refuse to feel sorry about that.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 10:22 PM
My admiration for Jordan, for example, is really a stand-in for my admiration for his athleticism and the world he has open to him because of his athleticism.
I just happened to have been flipping through a book on Jordan; I think I've given up on ever possessing that kind of drive. Athleticism is one thing, that kind of single-minded commitment is another. And that's probably also something to be admire about MM. She did make it, however she did it. That's not easy to do, to put everything aside and lay all your bets on one goal. It may not even be a particularly wise thing to do. But she did it and made it work.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 12- 5-05 10:30 PM
I'm coming in very late on this, but I won't let that stop me.
Some affectations annoy me in the MM persona: the fluty, whispery voice, some poorly managed moments of feigned innocence, some predatory elements in the narratives she got cast into. But there are magnificent moments captured in some of these narratives that just kill me, and I don't entirely know what to make of that.
For example, there's a shot in Some Like It Hot where MM is walking along a train platform. She's got an amazing, satin-clad ass, switching back and forth on ridiculous heels, and she's trundling--but with easy panache--multiple little cases. As I recall it, the male duo is behind her (so the ass-watching would be from their POV), the train starts going, and she turns her head over her shoulder to say something, laughing, seemingly unaffected.
It's always seemed like an extraordinary moment to me--as though the viewer's desiring her wasn't her fault, that she and her attempts to take control of her life (yes, often via sex) could somehow remain innocent.
Now that we are clearly not in MM's world, her delicate (and perhaps intrinsicly problematic) balancing-act seems much more like the perfection of an asymmetric tactic. The dangers on both sides are more clearly visible to young women, I would argue.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 12:02 AM
Blaming her for reinforcing the stereotype seems out of place to me. Movies with dumb blonde sexpot heroines would have been made with or without her: her participation probably made them better movies, but not more harmful for that reason.
I can find the persona distasteful, and perhaps disapprove of someone who finds it too appealing, but that doesn't mean that MM was doing anything all that wrong by playing to it. As Hattie McDaniels, said, "I'd rather play a maid than be one."
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 8:04 AM
Hattie McDaniels is an example of another actor who managed to add *some* dimension to stereotypes. I think the movie version of GWTW sometimes gets unfairly tagged for exceptional racism (the book, on the other hand, is exceptionally racist) when in fact, its portrayals of its black characters were actually a very small step above some other stuff from that period I've seen, which doesn't get complained about as much because it's not in the middle of an apologia for the Confederacy. I think it was Sullivan's Travels, maybe, in which there's this scene with a train porter (I'm blanking on the specific word for bellhops on trains) that's supposed to be funny but is just horrifying, because the character doesn't even really seem human. Bringing some humanity and interest to otherwise demeaning roles ihas a degree of progressivity to it.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 8:30 AM
(I'm blanking on the specific word for bellhops on trains)
I think "porter" is it. Or maybe you're thinking about "Pullman porter"?
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 8:36 AM
(What I mean to say is, "porter" is the name of the job. "Pullman" is a company that hired porters to work on trains.)
Here is a story about the unionization of Pullman porters.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 8:40 AM
I reckon this link will serve you better than that poorly formatted one in the above comment.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 8:43 AM
It is amazing to me how consistently Bphd presents my point of view. I'll be reading along formulating a response and then viola, Bphd has already posted it.
But for good drama, Bphd, we need to find something to disagree on.
I like circus peanuts, how about you?
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 9:16 AM
The Monroe issue is pretty interesting, by itself.
And it goes beyond possible parallels with any other pneumatic hotties. See, e.g., this:
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 9:24 AM
I can find the persona distasteful,
I looked back at this, and it's more than I mean. There are MM movies I find entertaining, she's lovely to look at, a very good actress, and very funny. All I meant by 'finding the persona distasteful' is the obvious: that I'm not happy with the society that makes her (the persona's) route to success a practical or attractive one, and that even in such a society I'd say that such a route to success is probably ill-advised and unworthy of emulation. As an entertainer, though, MM (the actress) did a spectacular job.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 9:24 AM
"Do we judge *everyone* for being less than "what would be most admirable"? Is that a standard that men are held to?"
Yes. When the question is, "do we admire this person?" or "Is this person admirable?" the issue is: "does this person meet our standards for what would be admirable."
This is true for men and women. If I have stated a tautology, sorry, but apparently it needed to be said.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 9:39 AM
But that's not entirely true -- we admire people for excellence or for being admirable in some dimension, but we don't generally require them to be unexceptionable. Michael Jordan is an admirable ball player: the fact that he appears pretty light on the social concern, worrying about Nike workers worldwide, front doesn't make him not an admirable ball player.
MM was an admirably skilled, funny and beautiful actress. The genre in which she worked could be described as socially pernicious on some level, but doesn't make her not admirable in the areas in which she excelled.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 9:44 AM
I don't want my future daughter learning to trade on her sexuality.
I dunno. If it is a strength, and one aspect of a balanced person, I see no problem with men or women using their sexuality to their advantage.
The problem comes in if sexuality is the only thing one can trade on, or the only thing one is allowed to trade on.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 9:51 AM
Marilyn Monroe didn't marry Henry Miller
Looks like you can get a little clip of it on Bern's webpage, but I couldn't link straight to the lyrics then. Just had to get that out of my head.
Posted by oz | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 9:53 AM
That Owen Meany passage reminded me of something else I wanted to say about Marilyn. Ogged's sentence of "she has no needs of her own" was entirely wrong. She has a passle of needs--she just makes you believe that you could be the one to fill them, that you will be kinder and better than all those other galoots, that you are the savior whose desire is purer than all the others, the one who won't hurt her. She creates a possibility that sexual desire and conquest, which is in its real world manifestation messy, and sometimes hostile, could be innocent, even righteous. That's a powerful fantasy--to be sexual and to be good.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 9:55 AM
we admire people with faults, yes. But we have to find something admirable about them. We don't find men admirable without some reason for it. Same with women.
Many people here don't find Marilyn Monroe admirable. This does not mean that they are executing some sort of double standard. The fact of public renown doesn't have make you admire a person. It's an absurd suggestion that because Marilyn Monroe was famous -- her success as an actress is actually pretty dubious -- that we must find her admirable.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 9:57 AM
Having a submissive girlfriend or wife is a sign of moral if not mental illness.
This statement pisses me off. Submissive people need love too.
One of my best friends in grad school hooked up with a submissive woman for a few months, and it completely screwed up the friendship. I didn't know how to act around such a creature, and I couldn't imagine how he would know.
Yes, such creatures should be locked away somewhere where they won't offend the delicate sensibilites of snobbish grad students.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:00 AM
It isn't just that the area in which MM worked was socially dubious, it is the fact that her career embodied that very social dubiousness. Maybe she was a clever opportunist; maybe she was a tool. Anyone who claims to know for sure one way or the other, I would question how certain you can be about that.
Even if she was a clever opportunist, that does not mean we have to find her admirable. I do not find Paris Hilton admirable, though she could probably claim the same.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:02 AM
Tripp, I hate circus peanuts. Ick.
Text, the original question wasn't "is this person admirable," it was "do we "get" the appeal?" They're different questions. One can "get" it without agreeing with it. And, as LB said, there's a difference between "admirable" (which can apply to some characteristics but not others--no one has just one set of characteristics, and even MLK was apparently an adulterer) and "unexceptionable."
One question that's occured to me, and I'm surprised no one has brought it up yet, is that we all seem uncritical of admiring MJ's athleticism. So far, so good: watching him in action is glorious. But that, too, is a pervasive and damaging stereotype: black men are, above all, athletes and entertainers. Yet we're able to separate the admiration for the obvious skill from endorsing the stereotype.
I'd argue that the significant difference between MJ and MM in that regard is simply history: with a little historical distance, we're somewhat freer of the cultural frame that made admiring MM inevitable than we are of the frame that compels admiration for MJ.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:02 AM
Can we draw a distinction between 'submissive' which I understand as a sexual orientation/kink/whatever which doesn't necessarily inform non-sexual parts of one's life all that much, and 'submissive' as used in the quote, which means something more like compliant?
Because, you know, call me a bigot, but I do find relationships in which one person is unquestionably in charge and the other is obedient (outside of the whole sexual role-play thing, in which, hey, whatever floats your boat) freaky and disturbing.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:05 AM
Tia,
She has a passle of needs--she just makes you believe that you could be the one to fill them,
Exactly. She offers the "Hero and the wounded bird" relationship, and who doesn't want to be a hero?
The long term problem with such relationships is that in order for the man to remain the hero the bird must remain wounded, which is not a very nice place to be.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:05 AM
And it was not required that MM embody the sexual pathologies of her era to succeed as an actress. There were other -- and more -- successful actresses who did not make that choice.
There were many actresses in her era and in previous eras with strong, intelligent personas who we may choose to admire if we like. I will choose Katherine Hepburn.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:06 AM
Lizardbreath,
How did that "one person unquestionably in charge" get in there? I think you have a problem with that part, not the submissive part.
I don't think the two always go hand in hand.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:10 AM
If MJ performed minstrel shows after each game, I think we'd find him less admirable. He doesn't care about social issues, but he also seems ruthlessly intelligent. We admire his athleticism because he's an athlete.
On the whole, I "get" Monroe's attraction, but I think that makes me a worse, not better person.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:10 AM
I'd argue that the significant difference between MJ and MM in that regard is simply history: with a little historical distance, we're somewhat freer of the cultural frame that made admiring MM inevitable than we are of the frame that compels admiration for MJ.
Disagree entirely. When we worry about over-emphasizing MJ's characteristics, we worry about it because we know that the vast majority of people trying to emulate him will fail. And then they will be lost. When we worry about MM's characteristics, we worry that the people emulating her will succeed - that they will learn to successfully trade sex for status, cash, whatever.
Also, re: "black men are, above all, athletes and entertainers," strange as it may seem, no small part of Jordan's appeal is that he seems smart and not that committed to being an entertainer.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:13 AM
Miller died recently, as did Joe D (who, I believe, beat her).
!!!!
Incidentally, I, too, find myself in agreement with Dr. Bitch, and also with Tripp!
I do happen to think that if we cast ourselves as judges of whole lives that people have lived, we should at the very least give each person some slack from the get-go, cosidering that living a life is hard work, and mostly sucks.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:15 AM
Great, suicidal commenters.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:17 AM
It might just be because I'm hung over.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:19 AM
no small part of Jordan's appeal is that he seems smart and not that committed to being an entertainer
This doesn't seem right. Didn't be become famous as the man who popularized the showy dunk? And the tongue affectation?
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:21 AM
"we should at the very least give each person some slack from the get-go, cosidering that living a life is hard work, and mostly sucks."
I can't really disagree with that, except for the policy of taut roping, forbidding slack, at the mineshaft.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:23 AM
#131: I don't know that I agree that we worry those who emulate the MM paradigm will succeed. I think we worry b/c we know that, as paradigm, it is only fantasy, unsustainable in the real world--and therefore doomed to failure.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:24 AM
How did that "one person unquestionably in charge" get in there? I think you have a problem with that part, not the submissive part.
Even if the relationship is totally freely agreed upon by both sides, that gets me to 'none of my business -- people should do what makes them happy' but I don't really like people who want to be in a relationship where they are either unquestionably in charge or unquestionably dominated.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:28 AM
Paris Hilton and MM are not in any way comparable.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:34 AM
not in any way?
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:38 AM
That's a powerful fantasy--to be sexual and to be good.
That's what she offered straight men. But the appeal goes beyond that. See, e.g., Elton John. It's just being, as Tripp says, the hero. Sex doesn't necessarily enter into it at all.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:39 AM
they might run the forty yard dash in a similar amount of time. If Monroe wasn't dead.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:39 AM
I may have overstated my argument. It is a fact that MM was appealing to lots of men, and as for reasons why, there are interesting things to say.
But for those who do not find her appealing, I do not find that at all troubling or odd. It probably means that they lack certain American sexual pathologies. Let's not elevate MM to a level that she never attained or aspired to in order to turn the tables on men whose tastes indicate less, and not more, cockenvaginmindedness than the overall population.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:44 AM
Paris Hilton and MM are not in any way comparable.
Two blondes who used sex appeal and played dumb to get famous. Hilton may not compare well, but she can be compared. I can grasp why Marilyn Monroe maintains a grip on the American imagination. The one I can't for the life of me figure out is Princess Diana.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:44 AM
That's what she offered straight men. But the appeal goes beyond that. See, e.g., Elton John. It's just being, as Tripp says, the hero.
I puzzled over this for a long time, misreading slol's intent and thinking that Elton John was being compared to MM, and being called a hero.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:48 AM
Not really.
Talent / no talent. Self-made woman / billionaire. Many facial expressions / one facial expression. Natural / bionic. Vulnerable / brassy. Available / unattainable.
They're both blond and wear skimpy outfits, but Paris's game is fame and not sexiness. I suppose that a frat-house poll is required, but I doubt that she ranks high among the fantasy babes of our time.
It's funny that Paris liked her Greek boyfriend, also named Paris (Latsis), because he "knew how to spend money". This must be some atavistic female thing from the African veldt, because Paris H. didn't need anyone else to spend money on her.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:50 AM
Being famous is like a hobby to Paris.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:52 AM
Well sure, it isn't a flattering comparison.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:52 AM
#144: Princess Di is pretty unappealling, but obviously a lot of people like her because she was a pretty victim, and also perhaps because she tried, ineffectively, to be a populist royal.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:53 AM
And the 'literally a princess' thing is a big element. Royalty means fairy-tales and magic to Americans.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:55 AM
When we worry about over-emphasizing MJ's characteristics, we worry about it because we know that the vast majority of people trying to emulate him will fail. And then they will be lost.
This is at least overstated, since it suggests that if everyone could be a great athlete (and not particularly devoted to anything else at all), they should do that.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:56 AM
I don't think it would be a joy to be married to her.
Three marriages, all ending in divorce, with a mean duration of 3.1 years, seems to confirm your speculation.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:59 AM
Now with the Di bashing? Oy vey. She was pretty, and demure, and seemed to have a good heart. And she was popular before she became a victim, which I think made the sympathy her victimization provoked more heartfelt. She wasn't "my type," but I did have a soft spot for her.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 10:59 AM
Di's anti-land mines activities were several notches above most society charities.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:02 AM
She was pretty, and demure, and seemed to have a good heart.
BFD. I could stand on my desk with a Nerf ball right now and hit four different women that fit that description.
I'm not hating on Diana, I just couldn't grasp the histrionic outpouring of grief at her death from a bunch of people who had precisely zero connection with her beyond having watched her dysfunctional marriage in supermarket tabloids. It will ever be mysterious to me.
Yeah, yeah, she was a princess. That appeal eludes me as well, but then I'm not a thirteen-year-old girl.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:04 AM
Lady Di was the Paris Hilton of the 1980s, only more slutty.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:05 AM
only more slutty
Hilton has superior documentation, however.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:07 AM
Horrendous Princess Di joke:
Mother Teresa dies, and is welcomed joyously into heaven, and issued a small golden halo. As St. Peter is giving her an orientation tour, she notices Princess Di, who had died the week before. Slightly miffed, she asks Peter, "Wait a second, I was saintly, a holy woman all my life, and yet I have this small, simple golden halo. Princess Diana was a sinner, and while I know that our sins are forgiven and I'm glad to see her here in heaven, why is her halo so much larger and more complex than mine?"
"Terry, Terry, don't worry about it. That's not a halo -- it's the steering wheel."
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:07 AM
with a Nerf ball right now and hit four different women
In one shot? We have got to play pool.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:08 AM
Pretty, demure, good heart, yeah, okay, maybe.
Also, incredibly vapid.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:11 AM
Di's anti-land mines activities were several notches above most society charities.
Yes, but I don't expect Elton John to pen tearful odes to Rigoberta Menchu or Aung San Suu Kyi when they die.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:14 AM
Ok, I'm getting the anti-royalist vibe, which I can respect, even if I like Di "personally."
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:16 AM
What about the anti-airhead vibe?
(Feel free to point out that my dislike of Di is not free of the taint of internalized sexism.)
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:20 AM
"Marilyn Monroe is a woman who desperately wants your cock, won't make fun of it no matter what, and has absolutely no needs of her own, other than more of your cock."
God bless her. And you, sir, are a poet.
Posted by kyle | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:22 AM
Bad things come in threes, so when Mother T and Lady Di died ("Di dies": unused headline) , I was waiting for the third.
It ended up being President Mobutu of the Congo. A friend of mine was pulling for Soupy Sales, but no.
Thank you.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:36 AM
Not much to say that hasn't been said, but here are three things I like about Marilyn Monroe:
1) She's a normal weight. She's only fat by modern Hollywood standards (and even then, I think Monroe was roughly Kate Winslet-sized). She looks damn fine nonetheless.
2) Her persona seemed like a lot of fun; aside from the sex appeal, she seemed the sort of person who would be absolutely delighted with small pleasures of everyday life. Happy people are fun to be around and her smile is contagious.
3) I had heard that she invented the dumb blonde persona -- she didn't adapt to a stereotype as much as she invented/perfected it (and then, sadly, was identified with that persona.) And she's really funny.
And it was not required that MM embody the sexual pathologies of her era to succeed as an actress.
Not so much. Not with her looks. The other actresses around and before that time seem to embody the idea of the unattainable, distant yet alluring rich woman (40s wave, languid glance through dark lashes) or the sharp and spunky Woman Journalist. All those types seem to require, I dunno, angles somewhere on someone's face.
I doubt she would have been a believable Hildy in His Girl Friday, and I doubt she would have had a chance at being cast.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:36 AM
141: The lyrics to Candle in the Wind were written by a straight man. I think that the idea that Marilyn offers a non-sexual appeal to goodness may be part of the fantasy of transcending the rapacity of sexuality.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:39 AM
Not so much. Not with her looks.
It would have been interesting to see her doing broad comedy -- Lucille Ball stuff. Might have worked.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:41 AM
"The other actresses around and before that time seem to embody the idea of the unattainable, distant yet alluring rich woman (40s wave, languid glance through dark lashes) or the sharp and spunky Woman Journalist."
I don't know. I think there were probably more than three kinds of actresses in the 50s. You can group public figures into all sorts of different categories, but in the end, they each have their own particularities. I don't think Doris Day was the angular type, but neither did she play Marilyn's game.
I don't want to condemn MM for being a sex-pot, but don't pretend that she was more than that, or that she was a sex-pot out of duress.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:46 AM
Yes, but I don't expect Elton John to pen tearful odes to Rigoberta Menchu or Aung San Suu Kyi when they die.
Aung San Suu Kyi is unique among Nobel Prize winners in that every time I see her, I think to myself "She's kinda hott."
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:49 AM
Did you know that Lucille Ball was a member of the Communist Party. Fact.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:49 AM
Hence the attraction to Desi Arnaz.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:55 AM
For playing a sexpot.
Anthony Hopkins doesn't really eat people, even with a nice chianti.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:56 AM
170: What about Henry Kissinger, the doctor of my dreams?
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:58 AM
unique among Nobel Prize winners
C'mon now, Alva Myrdal was a total GrandMILF. Also, Mairead Corrigan was kinda fetching.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 11:58 AM
Re: 175
Nah, neither of them do it for me. If I were forced to choose a runner up, I'd pick Jody Williams, but only Aung San Suu Kyi genuinely qualifies as NLILF.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 12:09 PM
Eh, Jody Williams is the poor man's Kim Gordon.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 12:19 PM
Kim looks pretty surly in that picture.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 12:22 PM
Friendly Kim.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 12:27 PM
friendly Henry
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 12:30 PM
I don't care how friendly Henry appears. He'll never be a NLILF for me. You can have him all to yourself, Jeremy.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 12:33 PM
Friendly Henry / Surly Henry / Picky Henry
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 12:40 PM
Apo, your so-called Friendly Henry will haunt me till my dying day.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 12:58 PM
NLILF - Wow.
The internet is awesome.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 1:01 PM
The lyrics to Candle in the Wind were written by a straight man.
Fair enough. But as with all analyses of original intent, we might look not only to the text's meaning for its author, but for its readers.
Also, as I take to be implicit in many of the above comments, note John's adaptation of the song to Diana. Cultural Studies scholars take note: perhaps there are important textual / contextual penumbrae to the song(s) that tell us about American vs. British takes on the 'dumb' blonde.
Perhaps, also, not.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 1:06 PM
184: It was bound to happen after this thread.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 1:08 PM
She was just like our whole country, not young anymore, but not old either; a little breathless, very beautiful, maybe a little stupid, maybe a lot smarter than she seemed. And she was looking for something -- I think she wanted to be good. Look at the men in her life -- Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller, maybe the Kennedys. Look at how good they seem!... And she was vulnerable, too. She was never quite happy, she was always a little overweight.
Jesus. Talk about making gophers out of molehills!
Ogged's sentence of "she has no needs of her own" was entirely wrong. She has a passle of needs--she just makes you believe that you could be the one to fill them, that you will be kinder and better than all those other galoots, that you are the savior whose desire is purer than all the others, the one who won't hurt her. She creates a possibility that sexual desire and conquest, which is in its real world manifestation messy, and sometimes hostile, could be innocent, even righteous. That's a powerful fantasy--to be sexual and to be good.
I don't think she's attractive because she doesn't look like anything. She's a little overweight (or is that really over?) so her face is sort of formless, none of the individual features that make up her face are anything but bland. People keep saying 'she's this, she's that' - and that's the advantage of basically having a non-face: people can project onto you any particular idea they want and there's nothing to contradict the idea.
To restate that, she's a penciled-in yellow upside down U, two dark slashes, a long vertical slash, and red pencil lip abstraction formed in a kiss, and a rounded-V to make the chin. (Or 'chin') Woo! Marilyn Monroe!
That's why she could act 'well'. Any simple expression easily and automatically overrode the nullness of her. (This is a commonality amoung actors.) Which she did not much use to any effect.
Anyways, so now's she's fascinating because nobody can agree on what she is/was.
If she were alive and young, she'd be a touch chick or a feminist ideal or hot sex pot or something, because she would have a broader range of choices amoungst 'schtick'.
Two blondes who used sex appeal and played dumb to get famous. Hilton may not compare well, but she can be compared. I can grasp why Marilyn Monroe maintains a grip on the American imagination. The one I can't for the life of me figure out is Princess Diana.
Princess Diana: same as above.
Hilton: tabloid fodder. Famous for being famous.
Anna Nicole Smith: Person Marilyn Monroe was trying to play.
Pamela Anderson: see Paris Hilton.
I don't get the appeal of any of those.
ash
['Actual personality as opposed to pre-packaged personality option good!']
Posted by ash | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 1:41 PM
Some say that ash was abandoned at birth by his mother Marilyn and never forgave her.
And his mother was NOT AT ALL overweight. The Twiggy era is past.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 1:44 PM
Hey, check out Vox Day's latest.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 2:02 PM
But first ask yourself, "Where does he get his hair cut? And can I get an appointment?"
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 2:07 PM
Thanks Ben. I feel stupider already.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 2:10 PM
I really wanted to think that was a spoof of some sort.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 2:12 PM
ash,
I think you are burned out. That was harsh.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 2:14 PM
Christianity knows no hierarchy of sins.
Yeah, it does.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 2:15 PM
I'd like to sidle up to him, wink as I handed him my hotel room key, and then, when he got there, sodomize him with a heated curling iron. If he tried to complain, I'd say, "Hey, you were going to fornicate; you're really not in a position to complain. Besides, we're just mara anyway, so enjoy it."
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 2:16 PM
Haha, Tia beat me to it. I was thinking of killing people for not honoring their mothers, but the curling iron is much... hottter.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 2:19 PM
Thanks guys -- all I can do when presented with such a breathtakingly hateful piece is ridicule the author's appearance, I'm glad others are better able to talk about the problems in his writing.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 2:24 PM
Re: 195
Best response to Vox Dei ever. Although mine was the same as Cala's in 194.
What is wrong with the man?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 2:24 PM
Shorter Vox Day: If you don't get your morality from the Bible, you have no right to complain when you get raped.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 2:29 PM
Vox Dei
*slaps forehead*
Of course!
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 2:39 PM
Well it does explain the world's absurdity.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 2:40 PM
Shorter Vox Day: I haven't actually read the Bible, either, as there are whole sections on how rape is bad and how it is different from fucking for fun. (Dinah? Angry brothers kicking the shit out of people and their foreskins? Notice they didn't kick the shit out of her, too?)
I can't critique it much beyond that; he starts off by assuming that everyone woman who claims date rape actually wanted to have sex. I'm wondering when the decision to fornicate attaches; when she decides to go on a date? When she comes back to his dorm room to watch a movie? When she laughes at his godawful hair?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 2:41 PM
I just meant, I hadn't seen the connection until LB made it explicit.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 2:42 PM
Geez. That guy is pretty full of himself.
What. a. turd.
It is bad enough when one feels compelled to join Mensa but to then advertise the fact is pitiful.
I wonder if mister smartypants knows that men can be raped?
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 2:50 PM
Now all we need is for VD to show up here, PD-style.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 2:51 PM
Is he really saying that people who are not 100% morally "pure" have no right to complain when people commit crimes against them? I stole a candy bar when I was 6, guess it's open season on me for all the murderers and armed robbers in the world.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 2:54 PM
I wonder if Mr. Smartypants knows that consent is the difference between rape and fornication even within Christianity? Given most of Christianity's preoccupation with sex and women's purity, this distinction is pretty well clear.
It's not the Christian response to blame the victim (I don't claim that it often hasn't been, but that it's usually Christianity + some other factor, not anything Christ said and usually not in bare Catholic teachings (as opposed to practice), at least.).
The reason women aren't screwing you, VD, isn't because the feminists got to them and told them stories about consent. It's because of your hair.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 2:58 PM
I stole a candy bar when I was 6
Get ready for the curling iron, Matt.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 2:59 PM
I suppose I'd only be getting what I deserve.
*runs away and hides*
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 3:04 PM
another reason they aren't screwing him is that he is the type to write essays in defense of rape.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 3:20 PM
"It is, I have been reliably informed, nauseating, vile and hateful to assert that women are capable of bearing responsibility for their actions."
This just makes zero sense. Being raped is an "action"? It's something women do to themselves? Does he even mention men once in that article?
And whose responsibility is that haircut?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 3:26 PM
Something about that Vox Day essay struck me as familiar--the complete mischaracterization of Buddhist thought, the offhand reference to Nietzsche--and then it hit me:
Vox Day is the real-life version of Otto from A Fish Called Wanda!
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 3:33 PM
And I'm pretty sure the Hindu term for "illusion" is "Maya", not "Mara" (who is a typical destroyer goddess).
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 3:43 PM
i am coming late to this thread, and bitchphd has said almost everything i would have. (rock on, b.)
but! i wanted to say: i have selectively identified with MM for a long time. i am young, blonde, soft-featured like MM, and even 50 years after MM's time i have huge trouble with people's perceptions of me because of the blondeness, not so much within academia (where ppl are trained to be self-conscious) but more outside of it. if i answer the question "what do you do" with "phd program at Stodgy Famous Ivy League", ppl very often follow up by asking if i plan to teach high school. [um, NO]. condescension, flirting from middle-aged and old men, not being taken seriously, being treated rudely because i don't look "powerful," especially in regions outside the east coast where my appearance is more easily translated into the right age and social role.
MM was adept at turning the crappy suffering-causing stereotypes to her own material advantage. even if my methods run to menswear more than boobs, i'd like to have her finesse.
MM was fully aware of the trade-offs she was making, which is all the more heart-breaking for me:
"That's the trouble, a sex symbol becomes a thing. But if I'm going to be a symbol of something, I'd rather have it sex than some other things we've got symbols of."
so, i'm being way more serious than the rest of you, which is never a good idea, but i did want to say this.
Posted by mmf! | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 4:10 PM
But (via Silvana) VD does say he has sex!
He does seem to be a bit of a fornicator, though.
212 completely pwns.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 4:12 PM
212 does indeed.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 4:16 PM
by the way, the attraction to vulnerable-looking women is certainly not over, and also certainly not just an american thing.
i got the most catcalling, wolfwhistling, flashing of dicks, groping, and general hassling the year i was 14. and i probably looked about 12. so think about that, parents.
Posted by mmf! | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 4:25 PM
Those seem like different kinds of vulnerability, mmf! I take Monroe's vulnerability to be a kind of wounded gentleness, whereas a fourteen year-old is just basically a defenseless victim. That's not very precise, but they do seem different.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 4:31 PM
MMF, you're not my sister, are you?
Her naturally blonde hair is also naturally curly, which means that she looks like she went to a hair salon in Nashville and got their $300 special do.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 4:34 PM
If the definition of rape is stretched so far to include women who have not given consent, then I am absolutely a serial rapist. So, too, is every man I know.
How the fuck does that stretch the definition? Does he think that consent means 'woman on top' or something? Is it consented to as long as no one was beaten? I'm sorry to keep harping on this but this guy is really fucking pissing me off.
I was hit on by a man when I was 15 who was very creepy. Talked about how underage sex laws (the A column in the WSJ that week) were oppressing women, didn't I agree? Then asked me out.
Two weeks later I saw him again. At my dad's 25-year high school reunion.
Ew ew ew.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 4:39 PM
Ignoring Otto's insane essay for the sake of my sanity, why were you at your Dad's 25-year high school reunion? Chaperoning to make sure they don't dance too close?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 4:43 PM
It's too bad none of the women VD or any of his friends have raped pressed charges.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 4:46 PM
How the fuck does that stretch the definition?
He's making some moronic point about explicit verbal negotiations, and how most people don't have them before sex. (Although that, I think, gets overstated as a matter of fact. Maybe I just talk about stuff more than most people, but most times I've had sex, there were things said that explicitly indicated consent.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 4:49 PM
He says "have not given consent." Consent can be verbal or non-verbal. By his own admission, he's a rapist.
And I'm with you, LB: I'd say that the vast majority of the times I've had sex with someone, there was, in fact, explicit verbal consent at some point.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 5:02 PM
w/d, family picnic the day after the reunion. Ew. ew. ew.
I'm trying to think... yeah, there was explicit verbal consent. (Kind of a byproduct of limiting sex to coupledom).
Charitably, I'm guessing VD isn't a rapist, but did not have a situation set-up in Fantasy Land where he asked "may I have sex with you this evening at 8pm" and received a "yes, please, use the side door" in response. But, like, torch straw-men much? Has any woman ever claimed to be raped because she didn't have a formal 'ask-me-nicely' scenario?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 5:07 PM
Why be charitable? The guy is arguing in favor of rape.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 5:17 PM
Agree: explicit verbal consent is very hott.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 5:23 PM
Largely because I think saying that he is a rapist (in an actual, not in Fantasy-Land Consent World) gives him too much credit for his argument against Evil Feminists ® who hate his hair.
No one is saying that 'consent' means 'drawn out, elegant request for and acceptance of coitus'; if that's what he means by consent, then it seems that one should deny he's a rapist. If I agree that he's a rapist, then I'm conceding that to qualify for 'feminist consent', I've got some trumped-up ritual in mind when all I really need is, 'you wanna?' 'Okay!'
Why should I accept that he's got any clue about the notion of consent?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 5:27 PM
#218 your point is well taken, ogged, except that it was probably not just an age issue. believe me, i spent a fair bit of ages 15-18 consciously working on getting rid of the vulnerability - projecting more confidence and unapproachability on the street. and (arg) the subway car.
Posted by mmf! | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 5:32 PM
Cala, that's a good point, but I'm less charitable, I guess (and kind of cranky tonight). "You wanna? Okay!" is verbal consent, as is "fuck me now" as is "ready? Yes!" and all the other things people say while having sex.
But I really am quite willing to say that the arguments he is making encourage rape.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 5:37 PM
Never mind, read the guy's blog.
Retracted. He's not a confused guy who is worried that 'date rape' might mean 'what if I wasn't good and she regrets it?' but thinks that 'date rape' means, 'we all know women say no when they mean yes, and sometimes don't say no when I'm busy thrusting my cock down their throat.'
Not worth the time. Also, shouldn't it be Populi? What is a Popoli?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 5:38 PM
Let's talk about boots. BPhD, you're the expert on boots. Do you like cowboy boots, especially if they're in a festive burgundy color, or is my fashion sense gone with my sanity?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 5:40 PM
What is a Popoli?
Vatican pizza crust.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 5:42 PM
My feelings on cowboy boots are mixed. I like them too, but somehow when I've owned them I've never felt they were really "me." I do have a weakness for the really elaborately detailed and worked ones, though, and I can imagine myself giving in, yet again, to the desire to be a cowboy boot girl. And I'll admit right up front that cowboy boots on cowboys? Lawd have mercy, woman, I think I feel faint. I need to lie down...
I want you to buy them, so I can live vicariously.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 5:44 PM
as long as you don't tuck your pants into the boots.
that is what everybody is doing in paris. (where i live).
bah!!
(italian women seem to pull it off better, but they are usually skinnier and wearing much tighter pants)
Posted by mmf! | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 5:47 PM
I've never owned a pair! So this might be fun. I haven't tried any on yet. Will have to see if they fit my weirdo feet. (Why are all shoes based on a last that assumes feet are the same width from toes to heels? Who has feet like that?)
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 5:47 PM
as long as you don't tuck your pants into the boots.
This is happening all over NYC as well. It makes most women look stumpy, I'm afraid.
About your boots, Cala: have you already bought them?
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 5:50 PM
Cross-posted 237 with 236. Since you haven't bought them yet, I'm voting no.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 5:53 PM
Oh cripes, yes, don't tuck your pants into your boots, that's just embarrassing. Let the pants pull up when you sit down and cross your leg if you want to flash the tooling on the side of the boot--a li'l subtlety is a good thing.
I also advise against wearing 'em with denim skirts. Ick. If you have good legs, though, tights and a miniskirt w/ cowboy boots is a great look.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 5:53 PM
205: VD might not show up here, but if you make a post criticizing him, especially if you're a woman, he'll probably link to it and his commenters will come over and harass you.
And he'll say that you're stupid, or perhaps illogical, or emotional, or maybe all three.
Oh, and did you know that he doesn't think women should be allowed the vote?
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 5:57 PM
I can't pull off the tight pants + boots look. I'm kind of short and have muscular legs, so I look a bit like a little tank when I do that.
(They're not 'good' legs, unfortunately. Not lanky enough.)
silvana: That was the point when I realized he wasn't worth the electrons.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 5:59 PM
Vox is a macho, violent guy who really believe that the toughest guy should be boss, as in the middle ages. I'm sure he regrets that he can't silence his critics by challenging them to hand-to-hand combat. Women are not his only problem.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 6:00 PM
Well, sure, having to go outside in order to punch a ballot only exposes you to justifiable rape.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 6:01 PM
Yeah -- any self-proclaimed Christian that brags about having bested 1000 men in fights and lost to only 200! probably is a bit of a weenie.
(We already knew he misread the Bible.)
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 6:02 PM
Yeah, I don't have good legs either. So sad. I have to admit that's one reason I don't have cowboy boots: I haven't figured out what to really wear them with yet, b/c the unfortunate tendency to cut mid-calf does create that tank look with so many things...
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 6:04 PM
Bitchphd is banned!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 6:06 PM
For not having good legs? Puhleeze, Mr. Skinny.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 6:07 PM
My site, my rules. Later, stumpy.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 6:09 PM
Double jeopardy, no can do.
Besides, for better or for worse, remember?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 6:10 PM
Come on, B. I'm too short for him anyway.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 6:10 PM
Oh, we're all too short/slutty/makeup-wearing/shoe-crazy for O.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 6:13 PM
But who isn't? Really, he's pretty much left with Vox Day, a curling iron, and some swimming videotapes.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 12- 6-05 6:14 PM