August 4 marked the sixtieth anniversary of the death of the icon that was Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn is an image to be deconstructed.
Posted at 12:00 p.m.
Modern and complex, it has opened up many avenues for women. Always seeking to improve her art, when she achieved some stardom in Los Angeles in 1954, she left everything behind to take lessons with director Lee Strasberg in New York. During the same period, she set up, with photographer Milton Greene, her production company Marilyn Monroe Productions LLC (MMP).
A natural child whose mother suffered from mental illness, Marilyn was placed in public assistance, what we call here the DPJ. At age 8, while in state custody, she was sexually assaulted. Assaults which kill the soul and which mark with a hot iron. She was sexually harassed during “couch” interviews during which producers and directors, whom she nicknamed “the wolves”, forced her to have sex in exchange for a role. Situation that she had been the first to denounce, as early as 1953. Denunciation which remained a dead letter until the movement #weathera movement that was founded by a black woman, Tarana J Burke.
Despite her multiple traumas or thanks to them, Marilyn never stopped building and rebuilding herself throughout her life. Paradoxically, she deconstructed the stereotype that she participated in building, in the film Men prefer blondeswanting blondes to be silly and stupid (dumb blonde).
This stereotype, which translates a sly contempt for “the blonde”, is a symptom of the sexism of our society. Joanna Pitman, author of the book Blondes, a funny story: from Aphrodite to Madonnain an interview given to The Express, remarked that: “The character of the idiot blonde, who in the 1950s in the United States took on the unforgettable forms of Marilyn Monroe, was created by men for men. In the post-war American context, this constituted an attempt to stifle the growing power of women, “by reducing the woman to her physique”. »
“Angry Black Woman”
This is what stereotypes are for, to reduce, confine, limit and, ultimately, take away all credibility from the person thus judged. These stereotypes have effects on mental health, which can manifest as anxiety or insecurities. The same goes for the “Angry Black Woman” stereotype.
This stereotype manifests itself at the slightest displeasure from a black woman. Dissatisfaction, disputes can be wrongly qualified as “anger” leading to the demonization of black women. This stereotype qualifies and invalidates black women’s anger as explosive, irrational and frightening “anger”. It is one of the legacies of slavery.
Indeed, this system was based on the control not only of the life of its women, but also of their body, a tool of reproduction. It was in our interest for these women to be stereotyped in this way in order to keep them in a state of subordination, even humiliation.
This stereotype has consequences on the power to express oneself in an angry or moderate tone, a normal exercise which, for black women, makes them hyper visible and threatening.
Remember that Serena Williams was the target of this stereotype. In 2018, he was fined following a vociferous expression of annoyance on court. Some call Duchess Meghan Markel’s treatment of English royalty a manifestation of this stereotype.
On August 5, 60 years after Marilyn’s death, Anne Heche was found brain dead after a fatal accident whose circumstances remain to be elucidated. She died on August 14. Anne also paid the ransom for many stereotypes. Her promising career was shattered in mid-flight when, in 1997, she had the courage to openly live a homosexual relationship with Ellen DeGeneres, a relationship that cost her several roles.
Just like Marilyn, she was sexually assaulted. Her father, a repressed homosexual, raped her when she was just a baby, giving her herpes. He assaulted her until the age of 12. Just like Marilyn, she was too smart for Hollywood. Just like Marilyn, she was resilient and she managed to alchemize her pain. Just like Marilyn, she had the courage to speak out against sexual harassment. In 2018, she lifted the veil on her dismissal from Miramax, because she had refused to perform oral sex on Harvey Weinstein.
“If I hadn’t been sexually abused as a child, I don’t know if I would have had the strength to stand up to Harvey — and many others, for that matter,” she told the podcast Allegedly … With Theo Von & Matthew Cole Weiss. “It wasn’t just Harvey, and I will say that. »
Anne is dead, she carried a secret that concerns us all.