Pop culture has turned Marilyn Monroe into a two-faced mythological figure, both shallow sex symbol and confidence-boosting bearer of wisdom.

“I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.” This quote is one of dozens that make the rounds on the internet, typically written in script across a photo of Marilyn Monroe, sharing the wisdom of the tragic actress with a new generation. The problem – ironic given the nature of the quote – is that these words did not come from Marilyn. In fact, the many false quotes attributed to her are just a small part of the mythology of Marilyn, a movement that has placed her at the pinnacle of feminine charm and transformed her into something that both aggrandizes her and reduces her to the stereotypes she hated.

“A sex symbol becomes a thing. I hate being a thing.”

Now, those are Marilyn’s words. And like most of the “Marilynisms” that verifiably came from her, they paint a very different picture from the one that is now emblazoned across t-shirts and posters and tattooed on starlets’ bodies. To get the above quote tattooed is virtually a rite of passage for young women in show business and one that has turned Monroe into a sort of secular goddess to whom all sorts of wisdom is attributed. Why do women idolize Marilyn Monroe to this degree? Is it healthy? Does it really honor her?

“People had a habit of looking at me as if I were some kind of mirror instead of a person. They didn’t see me, they saw their own lewd thoughts, then they white-masked themselves by calling me the lewd one.”

It’s not hard to see why so many people continue to find Marilyn so charming, decades after her death. She was utterly captivating. Breathy and beautiful, Marilyn had a keen sense of comedic timing, and her overt sexuality made her both a magnetic and controversial figure. Today, most of us tend to see her as the ultimate representation of female sexiness: someone in control of her own body, someone who was able to gain the adoration of millions with a wiggle and a shake. She appeals to the desire of many women to transform themselves from Norma Jeane next door into a glamorous sex goddess.

In fact, Marilyn has become something of a meme. Pop culture has turned her into not just a sex symbol but a confident and carefree role model, with the help of fake quotes like “We are all stars and we all deserve to twinkle” (subverted, oddly enough, from a passage in one of her letters referencing a freedom ride for minority rights). Photos of her curvy figure are used to pit women of different body types against each other, ostensibly in support of the celebration of fuller figures, despite the fact that Marilyn averaged 117 pounds and had a 22-inch waist. She had the ideal shape of her era, now misinterpreted due to changes in sizing that make a vintage size 10 seem much larger than it really was. Such memes may be well-meaning, but they’re false.

“In Hollywood a girl’s virtue is much less important than her hairdo. You’re judged by how you look, not by what you are.”

Building Marilyn up into a mythological figure ignores the realities of who she was, and the circumstances that made her life so tragic. Marilyn had to change to fit an expectation of female beauty. She adapted to fit an existing ideal, and at this, she played her role perhaps a little too well: she became the ideal. But would Marilyn be happy to know that she is remembered primarily for her beauty and her sexuality? Probably not. Despite wanting nothing more than to succeed as an actress,  she was not only disrespected during her lifetime – treated as an object rather than a thinking and feeling person – but ridiculed.

“Some people have been unkind. If I say I want to grow as an actress, they look at my figure. If I say I want to develop, to learn my craft, they laugh. Somehow they don’t expect me to be serious about my work.”

Marilyn couldn’t seem to escape the restrictive boundaries that her physical appearance and her sense of alluring yet shallow feminine mystique placed on her life. When she proposed an adaptation of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, envisioning herself in a role that was actually quite fitting for her persona, a reporter asked her, “Do you know how to spell Dostoevsky, Marilyn?”

A foster child with a family history of severe depression, Marilyn bounced from one unloving home to another before marrying at sixteen to escape the cycle. Her two subsequent marriages, to Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, were a hallmark of what it was to be a woman in the socially restrictive 1950s: marrying what they wanted to be. In Marilyn’s case, that was first an American hero, and then someone serious, who commanded the respect of intelligent people. But the myth that had already begun to swirl around her then made her larger than life, even to her husbands. Marilyn oozed sex, but childhood abuse left her scarred to the degree that she didn’t experience an orgasm until she was well into her thirties.

“I am a failure as a woman. My men expect so much of me because of the image they have made of me and that I have made of myself, as a sex symbol. Men expect so much and I can’t live up to it. They expect bells to ring and whistles to whistle, but my anatomy’s the same as any other woman’s. I can’t live up to it.”

None of this is to say that Marilyn Monroe is unworthy of being adored, nor that she should be viewed only as a cautionary tale – an example of the toll that objectification can take on a woman’s psyche. But perhaps part of what draws us, as a culture, to the legend of Marilyn is the fact that she represents an essential struggle within many women to this day. She has become, as Gloria Steinem put it, an exaggeration of femininity that struggles to fit into the expectations of an ideal, but conceals the truth of who she really is inside – “a kind of larger projection of the individual woman for a lot of us.”

Marilyn’s early death at age thirty-six – whether an intentional overdose or accident – has preserved her at the height of her beauty and sexual allure. She didn’t live long enough to push through all of those restrictions and participate in the feminist movement, as many believe she likely would have. She never got that serious starring role that would finally have given her the validation she craved as a thespian. She didn’t reach an age that would have allowed her to beat back many of the misconceptions that many have developed about her and her life. And so she has been commercialized for mass consumption, plasticized into a mannequin that can be manipulated to say anything we want.

In our mythical interpretation of her, we have washed away some of Marilyn’s humanity. Remembering Marilyn Monroe as a three-dimensional person rather than a flattened image of an hourglass figure and a pretty face – or even worse, a complete subversion of her reality – is a far more fitting tribute to the most iconic woman of the 20th century, and to ourselves.

Images: 1, 2, 3, 4; shameless mag

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15 good reasons to approach the season of cocktails and cookies with healthy aplomb.

Caring about our weight is part of the American experience, like finding a Victoria’s Secret next to a Cinnabon at the mall. We shouldn’t count calories but we do, despite reading subscriptions to Cosmo and remembering that beauty comes in all sizes. 

In a world of Occupy Wall Street, the Great Recession, and an overseas war, life can feel out of control so we control what we can. We hold our bodies up as some kind of indication of how “good” or “disciplined” we’ve been and in a world of fantastical thinking, that life will then reward us with great jobs, healthy relationships, and a reliable economy if only we can just put down the carbs.

We set ourselves up to fail. Alanis Morisette, famous noter of irony, admits to iVillage, “I remember being at my most thin one day, feeling like I could barely drag my lethargic body around, only to be met with the most compliments I had ever received.” At the same time, she has felt the scorn of extra weight. “Equally, and perhaps more abrasively, when someone inside the struggle with food tips the scales high above the average Hollywood red-carpet star, comments are thrown out about how indulgent and undisciplined they are.”

Pop culture forbids us from ever forgetting about our weight. Open up a web page and you’ll find that actress Mischa Barton is too thin. Reality host and soap star Alison Sweeney went spinning on Thanksgiving day. Jennifer Love Hewitt did Pilates while her family ate mashed potatoes. Jessica Simpson may or may not be getting a $4 million deal from Weight Watchers to lose her baby weight. Good thing, because Mariah Carey calls her baby weight body “rancid.” All of this seeps into our brains like high-fructose corn syrup.

We have the right to be a little bit chubby or a little bit skinny. (As long as nobody is giving themselves diabetes or an eating disorder, right?) We are more than numbers on a scale. We are more than our jean size.

And just in time for the holidays, 15 good reasons to approach the season of cocktails and cookies with healthy aplomb.

1. It is a universal truth that the last three pounds you triumphantly lose will go completely unnoticed by everyone else.

2. Sneaking a bag of sliced celery sticks into a movie theater is as pointless as the $8 box of Sugar Daddies you will buy halfway through the movie.

3. When a “friend” caresses your upper arm and says “You’d be gorgeous if you just toned this up,” you will look him up on Facebook ten years later and find that he died alone.

4. We are living in a glorious age where leggings paired with a flowing shirt are fashionable.

5. The law of nature gives women periods. Periods give us cravings. Cravings give us Tater Tots. This is the law of nature.

6. If a burger comes with a side salad, is it really a burger? (See above: The Law of Nature.)

7. After a certain age, your face looks thin despite a muffin top around your waist.

8. Fretting over your muffin top will just make you want to bake muffins.

9. The more weight you gain, the bigger your breasts. Money once spent on push-up bras can be redirected towards organic donuts. Donuts made of buttermilk, organic cane sugar, and ripened strawberries which melt in your mouth.

10. If your significant other is male, accept the fact that he will likely eat three times as much as you and still retain a flat stomach.

11. If you find yourself hiding the last of the Thanksgiving potatoes from your significant other, no one will judge you.

12. A cupcake will not kill you. However, falling off your spin bike because you were distracted by visions of cupcakes just might.

13. In some circles, abstaining from once-a-year delicacies such as eggnog means you hate children, Santa, and the Baby Jesus.

14. If we could harness all the energy we spend worrying over a few extra pounds, we would have the ultimate renewable energy source. Seriously.

15. Pop culture says we are all too skinny or too fat. Common sense says we are all beautiful. Suck it, pop culture. Suck it.

Images: powellburns, puikibeach, kristinausk 

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EcoSalon’s Foodie Underground columnist explores the cultural ramifications of cupcakes.

A matter of grave importance. One that divides educated women everywhere. Hotly debated in the halls and Skype chats of EcoSalon, one editor loves it; another dismisses it as “glorified gluten” and a columnist – yours truly – despises it.

It’s the matter of cupcakes. And the fact that they’re everywhere. No really, everywhere. Even in mini versions.

Trendy cupcake stores are one thing, and even if I can’t get behind the popularity of the baked good, I’ll agree that they’re colorful, cute and, if you have a sweet tooth, taste good. But restraint is not a virtue Americans possess, and so we weren’t satisfied with adorably stenciled hole-in-the-wall cupcake shops. Instead we had to make the cupcake a national trend on a level of the beanie baby. Cupcakes have literally taken over. I’m too frightened to check QVC.

It Began with Cupcake Crap

When I saw the package of cupcake push pins at a local bookstore, I immediately snapped a photo and sent it to two fellow cupcake haters. “No. Just no,” was the immediate SMS.

iPhone covers, baby blankets, semi-scandalous Halloween costumes, tattoos…you can get it all a la cupcake. But really this is just another symbol of our need to consume more. It’s not that this stuff is covered in images of a saccharine baked good, it’s that none of it is stuff that we really need. But marketers know our sweet tooth, and they know what feeds it, and a cupcake product is apparently it.

Blogs

Just take a quick second and Google “cupcake blog.” The variety and quality out there is about as bad as the tumultuous sea of mommy blogs and World of Warcraft art. There are some decent ones which actually take cupcake baking to the next level, and as a foodie with a love for good food photos, even I can appreciate, and then there are the ones that make This Is Why You’re Fat look good.

Cupcake Creations Gone Wrong

At the grocery store last week I stopped and stared at the latest copy of Women’s Day, which prominently featured what looked to be corn on the cob as the cover story. Upon closer look, it turned out to be a photo of “corny cupcakes,” brown butter frosted cupcakes covered in jelly beans so they looked like sections of corn, oddly positioned next to a “15 minutes to a trimmer tummy” headline. Well, then.

The only thing worse than a cupcake is another food product that incorporates cupcakes, cupcake stuffed strawberries being a prime example. No, not a cupcake with strawberries in it, but vice versa. Like a culinary science experiment gone wrong. Equally as bad as a Push Pop Cupcake and a cupcake kabob. Or you can always go for a raw cupcake, which in my book is up there with the weirdness factor of veggie bacon.

TV shows

In a recent discussion with some friends, I asked, “did you know that there’s a reality show about a cupcake shop in D.C.?”

“Yeah, and then there’s Cupcake Wars,” another friend pitched in.

Helpfully, Cupcake Wars features thrilling food competition, cupcake style, vetting the best of the best cupcake bakers against each other. DC Cupcake is a little more absurd; think Real Housewives meets fluffy frosting. Did you know you can make an engagement ring and even a wedding dress out of cupcakes? Pardon me while I ponder the impending demise of our society.

Hygiene Products

As if stuffing yourself with overly sugar filled baked goods wasn’t enough, now you can brush your teeth and keep your lips hydrated with the stuff. You can even make your dentist happy by keeping your gums healthy with cupcake flavored floss.

Cupcake Camp

Just like good ole summer camp, but replace the sleeping bags and mosquitoes with frosting and sprinkles. And this in one of the pastry capitals of the world? Non merci.

Sure, they might help fight terrorism, but at the end of the day, do you really need another cupcake, cupcake?

Image: kristin_a (Meringue Bake Shop), Cupcake Project, Magazine Time, TLC, Lost at E Minor, Sugar Daze, lamantin

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ColumnWhere celebrity becomes conscious.

Make no mistake, Lady Gaga is in on the joke. But what’s so funny? Fame, she says, moments before twirling a dildo between her fingers, and jumping down a hatch – only to emerge moments later in a Marie Antoinette wig and an evening gown made of live kittens chewing on intertwining threads of beef jerky. Lady Gaga is a never-ending performance artist whose determination to express her own kinetic view of culture has spanned a global empire. She might even be the first successful meta-celebrity. Certainly, the world is listening. But should we be?

Like most people on the planet, I’m not an internationally famous celebrity who can strike corporate promotional deals while getting millions of people to groove to my tunes. But I wonder if the experience of fame would feel something like speeding through space towards a black hole. Or at the very least, it would feel like driving towards downtown Los Angeles right after rush hour, racing through space at terrifying speeds while looking for the singularity aka the exit to the 105. Fame via Charlie Sheen can seem like a force beyond control to those watching on the other side of the event horizon. (And somewhere, a scientist is slapping her forehead at my abuse of physics). But Lady Gaga, aka Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta of New York City, is clearly in control of her own spacecraft.

Lady Gaga is on the way to becoming an icon of post-feminist sexuality. But is she a confident cultural attaché to our own fantastical fantasies? Or she is more of a mouthpiece of modern times, a voice raging against homophobia and discrimination? Mostly, she’s a modern day Mad Hatter jumping through the rabbit hole of mass culture. Gaga’s got the keys to the kingdom and she’s asking us to follow her into a creative dynasty of tolerance. Or, she might be provoking a nightmare of dystopian culture – take your pick.

Part pop star, part performance artist, Lady Gaga examines celebrity with a consciousness we’re not really used to or expecting from a pop star. And this is why it works. She gets us to pay attention first through her music, with songs skewering a celebrity-obsessed society (See: Paparazzi). She’s known for appearing pant-less in public or wearing crustaceans on her head and feet. She never seems to break character – even walking through an airport, she’s in costume. As the current cover girl was recently described by Vogue, “Suddenly the curtains part and Lady Gaga makes her entrance, mincing into the room holding a porcelain teacup and saucer in one hand and a wineglass for me in the other. (Like fainting on command or dropping a glove, the long-lost art of making an entrance, which Gaga seems to have single-handedly revived, is a remarkably effective way to shift the conversation).”

She’s a Glam Rocker playing it straight.

In doing so, Lady Gaga possesses an enviable credibility for her causes. Forbes recently named her as one of the world’s most powerful celebrities. An extremely vocal proponent of gay rights, she recently announced that she was ending her partnership with Target due to their political donations to MN Forward, a group that supported the anti-gay candidate Tom Emmer in a failed run for governor in Minnesota last year. Gaga previously spoke of the agreement with Billboard Magazine, telling them “Part of my deal with Target is that they have to start affiliating themselves with LGBT charity groups and begin to reform and make amends for the mistakes they’ve made in the past…our relationship is hinged upon their reform in the company to support the gay community and to redeem the mistakes they’ve made supporting those groups.”

But Target failed to live up to this expectation, so Lady Gaga responded by severing their ties. As E! Online reports, “Target has refused to promise that it would never donate to a political candidate or group believed to be anti-gay.” Obviously, a giant retail chain would not bend its will for a celebrity endorsement deal. But Lady Gaga has certainly shined a giant spotlight on Target’s business practices, and you have to wonder if this parting of ways was part of her business plan all along.

Lady Gaga’s not the first performance artist or shock-rocker to push a cause. She knows this. Derivative of David Bowie, daughter of Madonna, Gaga herself told Vogue that she “could go on and on about all of the people I have been compared to – from Madonna to Grace Jones to Debbie Harry to Elton John to Marilyn Manson to Yoko Ono.” But unlike her predecessors, Gaga has use of a multi-media empire than can reach a global audience with an intimacy never before possible. She’s a product of her time based on a history of those trying to make a point through performance.

There’s one foremother she appears to be mostly closely emulating, perhaps without even knowing it. Meet the Baroness von Freytag-Loringhoven, who in the 1920s was dubbed a “living legend of Greenwich Village.” Born Else Hildegard Ploetz in 1874 near the Baltic Sea, the Baroness became an icon of the New York Dada crowd of the early twentieth century. Dadaism, which peaked mostly in Europe from 1916 to 1922, was partially embodied by European artists living in New York City who used visual arts, theater, poetry and more to send a message of anarchy and an anti-war party line. The movement arrived on the heels of World War I, which was widely seen by the Dadaists as the result of bourgeois interests and colonialism. Dadaists like the Baroness were known to ridicule the aspects of culture they deemed meaningless while rejecting the laws of conventional taste and beauty.

The Baroness von Freytag-Loringhoven, Dec. 1915, International News Photography,
in “The Art of Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven” (Courtesy of Naumann Fine Art)

The Baroness was one of the preeminent Dadaists in New York City. As Amelia Jones describes her in “Irrational Modernism: A Neurasthenic History of New York Dada,” she was a “poet, artist, and performative disruption to bourgeois as well as avant-garde assumptions…who paraded her vocal and bodily difference openly in the streets and artistic salons of World War I-era New York.”

And here’s how The Baroness herself describes an ensemble she wore to the French Embassy in Germany. In her own words, “I went to the consulate with a large-wide sugarcoated birthday cake upon my head with fifty flaming candles lit – I felt just so spunky and afluent [sic]! In my ear I wore sugar plumes or matchboxes – I forget wich [sic]. Also I had put on several stamps as beauty spots on my emerald-painted cheeks and my eyelashes were made of gilded porcupine quills – rustling coquettishly – at the consul – with several ropes of dried figs dangling around my neck to give him a suck once and again – to entrance him.”

Any of this sound familiar?

Like the Baroness, Lady Gaga wears the outrageous as easily as if she picked it up at her local Target. Would the Baroness have ever struck a deal in the first place with the ultimate superstore of the masses? Probably not. But then, Lady Gaga speaks the language of mass, modern culture. In a sense, she’s an anti-anarchist promoting a skewed aesthetic that nonetheless speaks to millions. Perhaps it is because she’s employing one of the most accessible means on the planet – pop music – to convey her own message of tolerance. At the moment, this is a message of gay tolerance. What it will be in the future remains to be seen, but undeniably, we’re all listening, and she knows it. All we have to do is sit back and wonder just how gaga will Gaga go.

This is the second installment in Katherine Butler’s column, Shade Grown Hollywood, where celebrity becomes conscious. “Shade grown” refers literally to shade grown coffee, a farming method that “incorporates principles of natural ecology to promote natural ecological relationships.” Shade grown is our sustainable twist on Hollywood.

Images: loritingey, 36292117@N00, Baroness von Freytag-Loringhoven, shankbone

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