The Misunderstood Legacy: How Marilyn Monroe’s Films Shaped Feminism Before Feminism Had a Name
I never expected Marilyn Monroe to teach me anything about feminism. I thought feminism came after suffrage marches, speeches, and protests. Money wasn’t just her legacy—it was also her mask. Yet behind that mask, her films whispered something urgent: a quiet insistence on being seen as more than a body.
She Filled Roles Others Wrote But Made Them Her Own
Take Sugar Kane in Some Like It Hot. On paper, she’s a trope—cute, ditzy, codependent. But in Marilyn’s hands, she becomes someone deeply weary of performance. She owns her sensuality with humor, but she's also emotionally aware. She laughs, yes—but she also shuts off the joke when it stops being fun.
That kind of layering in 1959? Radical. She shows a woman who sells herself, but also judges it. Who knows the game—and names it. That is early feminist reflex, translated through a comic blonde, but sharp as a needle.
Yet Everyone Saw the Glitter
The studio saw box office. The critics saw an archetype. But audience... they saw her flicker. That vulnerability. That half-glance. She wasn’t playing dumb—or didn’t seem to be. She was performing to survive. And in survival, she found a subtler power.
The Misfits: Grief as Resistance
Fast-forward to The Misfits. She plays Roslyn—a woman betrayed by love, ridiculed by society. The script asks for tears. What she gives is rupture. Grief layered with stubborn independence. She leaves. She stays. She remains even when the world tries to cast her aside. That’s resistance in plain sight.
She wasn't a martyr. She was steadfast. She understood her public life was both gift and cage.
How Today’s Feminist Readers Could Learn From That
I rewatched her films through a modern lens, but not to critique. I was looking for compassion. I needed to see her as someone navigating gendered expectations, paid attention for her body, dismissed for her brain. I wanted to find her agency where critics saw comedy.
Yes, she had good agents later. Yes, she demanded roles. But before that, she subtly refuted the script. She pushed back—not loudly—but with meaning. “I’m not just this icon," she seemed to say through every performance.
Related Conversations & Cultural Echo
Contemporary writers like Taylor Swift or Rihanna lean into their femininity as power—but Marilyn did it first. Her contradictions anticipate conversations about consent, visibility, and self-assignment before these terms existed.
Vanity Fair’s retrospective touched on her struggle with control. There's also insightful commentary at History.com about her legacy—but what fascinates me is looking at the performance as protest.
Cultural Impact that Still Echoes
“She used her vulnerabilities like punctuation—pausing the scream, softening the glare.”
It’s less about rewriting her. More about rereading her. Feminist scholars still study her life—and not just because she was famous, but because her fame was performative: she embodied the contradictions women face every day.
How I Practice This Now
- I watch her films not for nostalgia, but for realism hidden in gloss.
- I write about contradictions—how I'm both soft and sharp, anxious and ambitious.
- I refuse to remove doubt from my narrative. Marilyn never did.
✨ Share Your Take
Have you watched a classic film and suddenly saw it through a feminist lens? Did Marilyn or someone else flicker in the margins for you? Share your insight—email us at cpafor181@gmail.com. We may feature your thoughts in our Cultural Echoes section.
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