On Authenticity
I'll admit it. I'm a pop culture addict. It all began as a kid when I started worshipping Marilyn Monroe. She was one of the first stars to die early and tragically in my life. As a little Catholic kid, the story I remembered was how sad her life was because she had had to divorce the man she loved, Joe DiMaggio, for her career. When I got older, I spent hours reading about her and researching her life and death. I remember seeing how big her obituary was. It took up half a page in the Washington Post.At dinner one night, I said that's what I wanted when I died - one big, honking obituary for me. My brother Jimmy shot back how stupid that was. That he didn't care if there was just a little box in a column about him. Which is good, because when he died a few years later, that was exactly what he got, so he was wise and unimpressed with fame.
When Norman Mailer's book came out about Marilyn, I got it in both hardback and paperback. I think I still have one of them somewhere in the boxes I cart around with me when I move every few years (or less, these days). Marilyn was a damaged person, but also incredibly strong. She was the first Hollywood star to have her own production company and tell the studios to fuck off after all the years she acted as their slave. She was screwed up. She had drug and man problems. But she had an inner strength and beauty that is hard to beat.
Maybe that's why I find it so irritating that an idiot like Lindsay Lohan tries to pretend she's Marilyn in a new photo shoot. The difference between the actual Stern photo shoot and the pretend Lohan one are obvious. Maybe Marilyn had had a few drinks before taking her clothes off for her shoot, but no amount of loosening up will bring the same vulnerability to Lindsay Lohan. Fake hair. Fake boobs. And such a lack of knowledge about Marilyn that she doesn't even know she should try to fake the openness.
In the end, it was Marilyn's willingness to open herself up and display all the good, bad and ugly that made her a star. It wasn't just the body, the voice and the hair. It was her ability to face herself and put it out there. That's something that's hard to do for any of us (me included - and I might as well be a "never nude" a la Arrested Development).
Every time one of the old Hollywood stars dies, I lament a little more because I don't see anyone worthy of replacing them coming up in the ranks. Lindsay Lohan? Gwyneth Paltrow? Jessica Alba? Yuck. If they didn't have drug addictions and bad relationships, we wouldn't even pay attention.
Art is about being vulnerable and real. Artists are those who take the chance. Marilyn did and didn't survive the experiment. She shouldn't be mimicked by idiot children who want to pretend to be her.
posted by dcnative @ 8:41 PM
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