Marilyn Monroe's 100th birthday: Did she have the makings of an unexpected revolutionary?
Yesterday would have been Marilyn Monroe's 100th birthday. It is in tribute to the great feminist icon (who shares my love for bright red lipstick!) that I will write this post observing the many ways she shaped the last century's fashion, popular culture, and film, and, most of all, the way that women's presence in society could be regarded, surpassing all kinds of stereotypical ideation demonstrated through the presence of the male gaze, and other huge chauvinist attitudes that were apparent in the film industry in the US during this period. We can thus very clearly consider her as way more than just the perennial stereotype of the heavily sexualised glossy pop icon that she has for too long been portrayed as, and even go so far as to view her as, in her own rights, a true revolutionary and a good comrade. When reflecting on the ways in which the stereotype of subservience, submission and reliance on men has been considered as an integral aspect of her character, howeve...