Writer Lin Yutang once said: "Other actresses use beauty to make themselves plump, while Monroe uses beauty to make rich people pay for the poor." ”
In the absence of understanding Marilyn. Before Monroe, the author also had a stereotype of Monroe: a sexy Hollywood actress, Kennedy's mistress.
However, after going through the thick materials and fully understanding Monroe, I found that I misunderstood her too deeply.
The United States was founded by a group of Puritans who were suppressed and ostracized in Europe, who advocated limiting indulgence and pleasure.
However, after the end of the Second World War, this phenomenon took a turn.
The two world wars caused the rapid decline of many of the established powers, and the United States, which had made a lot of war gains, rose rapidly to become a world power side by side with the Soviet Union.
With wealth and scientific and technological advantages, the U.S. economy has developed rapidly and life has become more and more abundant.
As the saying goes, full of warmth and lust.
Lin Yutang
Suddenly, one day, americans found a semi-nude photo of a blonde in a magazine that had just been released.
Accustomed to Grace's coldness and Hepburn's purity, this kind of blonde girl who is sexy and innocent is still the first time I have seen it.
So they were fascinated, desperately hoping who this girl was?
It can be said that Monroe made the first issue of "Playboy" popular in the United States, and "Playboy" put Monroe on the road of sexy goddess.
Three goddesses: Grace, Hepburn, Monroe
Monroe was only 22 years old when she took that sexy photo, and had recently arrived in Hollywood, without a car, unable to afford to rent a house, and often hungry.
In order to make a living, I had no choice but to take pictures and earned $50. She told the photographer not to reveal her real name, the only thing she could do to preserve a little dignity and fame.
At that time, Monroe had signed a contract with Fox, but Fox did not give her a chance to develop, so Monroe's life was very embarrassing.
When Monroe became popular with Playboy, Fox began to pay attention to Monroe: it turned out that there was such a sexy creature hidden in his backyard, a cash cow.
So Fox took the opportunity to package Monroe as an unprecedented sexy girl and launched a series of movies.
Gentleman Loves Beauty Stills
The movie "Gentleman Loves Beauty" embodies Monroe's feminine sexiness to the fullest, coupled with a relaxed and pleasant plot, directly making Monroe the hottest female star of the year, and leaving her own handprint on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
And the capitalists also smelled the business opportunities, Fox quickly let Monroe make a lot of similar movies,
Monroe's image in the movie is invariably a brainless, sexy blonde beauty.
As a result, Monroe's image was stereotyped, which made many people at that time, including many people later, prejudice against Monroe.
Relying on Monroe's sexiness, the film company made a lot of money, especially the phenomenon of "The Seven Year Itch", Fox earned hundreds of millions of box office, and then Monroe's film remuneration was only a pitiful $1500.
Monroe wanted to increase her salary, but how could the exploitative bourgeoisie agree? Even though Monroe contributed so much to the box office, in the eyes of those capitalists, Monroe was just a tool to make money.
Tools are not allowed to be requested. So in order to punish Monroe, Fox beat Monroe into the cold palace and gave him no more publicity and resources.
Stills of the Seven Year Itch
Monroe did not sit still, in 1954 she and the scandalous boyfriend Di Majo high-profile marriage, this news in one fell swoop on the front page of the major media headlines, put to today, Weibo's server will definitely be squeezed down.
Monroe's hand is very clever. For a while, everyone was frantically pursuing her news.
Fox saw Monroe's power and value and immediately reconciled with her.
But Monroe doesn't want to be just a headless blonde sweetheart, and she wants to challenge for more diverse roles.
Fox said contemptuously: "You are a woman who releases sexual signals, no matter what you are doing or thinking, as long as you appear on the screen, you can make the audience play." 」 For a studio, you're not that actor, you're a sex stimulant, they don't need your performance, they can make money as long as you release the erotic signal in front of the camera. ”
In this way, Monroe completely recognized the true face of these production companies and realized that she did not have real respect in their hands.
In 1955, She announced the establishment of the Marilyn Monroe Production Center and terminated her contract with Fox.
But how could Fox let go of this cash cow so easily? They have been tangling with Monroe in a lawsuit. A year later, the two sides reached a settlement and re-signed a contract, and Monroe won herself a salary of 200,000 yuan and the right to choose a script and director.
However, it all came to an abrupt end in August 1962.
There are many opinions about monroe's cause of death, due to the lack of key evidence, monroe's cause of death has become a mystery, some people say that she committed suicide, some people say that she died of political murder.
Here, the author analyzes only a few straws that crushed the camel.
First, the family curse — a genetic mental illness.
Monroe's maternal grandfather had a mental illness, her grandmother was also mentally disturbed, and her mother was a severe schizophrenic patient, and when Monroe was very young, she was taken to the hospital for treatment. Monroe also inherited this mental illness.
In 1960, Monroe was also hospitalized several times for mental stress.
Second, the experience of family deprivation and multiple abandonments brought her pain that could never be cured.
We all know Monroe's tragic childhood experience, in her growing up, the scumbag father never appeared, the mother was locked up in the hospital, she went around the fence, especially when she was a child, and was also sexually assaulted by foster carers. She had complained in church about the man's atrocities, but no one had stepped forward to protect her.
When she was 16 years old, her foster family stopped providing for her and had to marry someone to survive.
It can be said that as early as the age of 16, Monroe had already tasted all kinds of sourness in the world.
Suffering such a bumpy experience at such a young age made Monroe's personality very sensitive, coupled with the various squeezing and two miscarriages of Fox later, Monroe, who longed for family warmth and wanted to be a mother, once had a mental breakdown, and once devoured her mother's mental illness, it also tormented her.
Third, excessive reliance on psychotropic drugs, stimulants, and sleeping pills.
This kind of drug is similar to drugs, easy to rely on, and the side effects are extremely large.
When Monroe divorced her second husband, due to great mental pressure, she began to rely on drugs, and the two miscarriages caused a serious blow to her spirit, which made her more dependent on drugs to get rid of pain.
In the last two years of her life, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and the long-term use of these stimulants and sleeping pills also seriously affected Monroe's health, and she became forgetful, confused, and even difficult to control her emotions.
Monroe became a big Hollywood star from the bottom of society, and she tasted the hardships of the bottom society, which also gave her a sharper insight into the lives of the people at the bottom.
In her short life, she has helped countless vulnerable people. And her real fans are mostly working class and black.
After becoming a Hollywood superstar, she went to an orphanage. Remembering her experience in the orphanage as a child, she cried bitterly, and after leaving, she donated a large amount of money to the orphanage, she said, "I lived in the orphanage, I know what it is like to be hungry."
The experience of being oppressed made her feel bad about the capitalist system, she cared about human rights, she cared about black people, and even expressed her recognition of the Chinese Communist Party at that time, and the left-leaning playwright Arthur. Maitreya got married, which made the FBI think she was very suspicious, so the FBI had been monitoring Monroe's activities for years. But she never lost her passion for justice and equality.
In the United States, which was still in the middle of racial segregation at the time, Monroe openly opposed racial discrimination and once generously helped the black female singer Fitzgerald, who told a popular nightclub owner in Los Angeles: "As long as Fitzgerald sings at your nightclub, I will sit in the front row every night for a week to increase the popularity of the nightclub." ”
After her death, her bank deposits were only $40 million. Half of the $40 million was donated to her supervisor and the other half to an orphanage, as in her previous will.
She loves reading. Although she often plays a brainless blonde on movie screens, she is very intelligent, with hundreds of classics lined up on the shelves in her room in California, and in the last days of her life, she is still watching "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Captain Newman."
Although her life is only 36 years short, her charisma and demeanor will infect the next few hundred years.
The more you know about Monroe, the more you can find that under her sexy and beautiful appearance, she always has a kind heart and a thinking mind.
Monroe's greatness lies in the fact that no matter how bad her life is, she is constantly struggling, constantly fighting against the class that oppresses her.
Although her own experience is very tragic, Monroe in the public lens always has an innocent smile, but her pain we can never understand.
Her ex-husband once said that Monroe had an incomprehensible female life force that seemed to illuminate the vast darkness around her.
More people say: She is always alone, she is the loneliest, loneliest person I know.
Here, the author argues that Arthur. Miller's assessment was the most pertinent: In fact, Monroe was a poet standing on a street corner, trying to recite verses to people who wanted to pull down her clothes.
Dear friend, what kind of person do you think Monroe is?