the problem with being comfortable + Marilyn Monroe

Babes and bots, 

I've cracked it. Everything bagel french toast, batter with oat milk yogurt, egg, oat milk, cinnamon, ginger, and turmeric, soak that bad boy for a WHILE, french the toast, cover in butter/margarine & maple syrup, enjoy. You're welcome. I'm tempted to end this blog post right here. 

One of my housemates got 712 More Things to Write About: Write in Me so now we have that lying around the house. I, a stressed rabbit, haven't written more than 1,000 words since joining this MFA program, said to myself, "sure, let's do it." I open the notebook/book/journal/successful marketing ploy to several random pages. 

Describe the nighttime sounds in your childhood home.

Too complicated. That will require writing. 

What does dripping water from a faucet sound like?

It sounds like dripping water, you fool. There's no way I'm describing that. 

If you could pick a new nickname for yourself, what would it be? 

Dumbass. I actually wrote this.  

After the riot, we went out for pizza...

at Slyce. The pizzas were $26 a pop, which we couldn't afford, so we made pasta at home instead. 

I've decided I won't be bested by this silly little book. I won't share my deepest darkest secrets with the anonymous writers on other pages. I will write defiantly, taking nothing seriously, embracing my truest asshole form for the purpose of absolutely nothing. I'm afraid something beautiful might come out, and then I will have to create the world around it. I find world-making remarkably uncomfortable and, instead, rely on what I've already created. I find comfort in what I've seen before, and allow myself to steep in that comfort too often. I am, by all means, a self-saboteur. 

Blonde

Has anyone seen it? It's on Netflix. I suppose I'm frustrated, yet again, by the premise of the whole thing. Why do we allow this continued obsession with the tortured artist trope of Marilyn Monroe, a sex symbol, a woman in the film industry who was made an orifice for male-centered pleasure to take up so much of our brain space? Would it not be beneficial to tell the story of Marilyn Monroe accurately? Would it not be better to open her genius mind to the world? Why do we continue to consider her humanity through exploitation only, rendering her, yet again, devoid of any intellectual agency? In spite of the industry tyrants, managers and directors who allowed her body to be coveted and absorbed, and deplorable family members who abused and neglected her, she had power! She still does. Why is that not the focus? 

Manohla Dargis wrote in the New York Times, 

Given all the indignities and horrors that Marilyn Monroe endured during her 36 years — her family tragedies, paternal absence, maternal abuse, time in an orphanage, time in foster homes, spells of poverty, unworthy film roles, insults about her intelligence, struggles with mental illness, problems with substance abuse, sexual assault, the slavering attention of insatiable fans — it is a relief that she didn’t have to suffer through the vulgarities of “Blonde,” the latest necrophiliac entertainment to exploit her.

And even here, I have questions. Why "indignities"? We allow the experiences of brilliant minds subject to exploitation to be called "indignities"? Is that not reinforcing the harm the author is criticizing? You tell me. Dargis' critiques, however, are exponentially more honest. 

Dominik [the diretor] is so far up Marilyn Monroe’s vagina in “Blonde” that he can’t see the rest of her. It’s easy to dismiss the movie as arty trash; undoubtedly it’s a missed opportunity. Monroe’s life was tough, but there was more to it than Dominik grasps, the proof of which is in the films she left behind — “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” “How to Marry a Millionaire,” “Some Like It Hot,” “The Misfits” — the whole damn filmography. To judge from “Blonde,” her performances were shaped by her agonies and somehow happened by chance, by fate, or because she’s a mystical, magical sex bomb. That’s grotesque, and it’s wrong. But if Dominik isn’t interested in or capable of understanding that Monroe was indeed more than a victim of the predations of men, it’s because, in this movie, he himself slipped into that wretched role.

How is it that movies like this continue to be made? There is a market for them. We are told there is a market for them. We are made to be drawn to sex and glamor as though they were new, salacious concepts, slightly shameful to watch and therefore all the more pleasing. Should I bring this up to the head of 20th Century Fox, they might ask me to be more critical of what I watch without being critical of what they advertise. Personal responsibility. You didn't have to watch it, they might say. For the most part, I didn't. 

Let us, instead, engage in a more realistic portrait of Marilyn...

She had a number of female friendships that lasted throughout her life, a fact so carelessly left out in Blonde. 

She was incredibly ambitious and thoughtful. She was curious and radical with her politics.  

She was an award-winning actor and she did, in fact, know what she was doing. 

We could criticize Marilyn all the same. We could and should question her, her involvement in a problematic industry, her radical politics, and the ends they supposedly met. Or we could give her some peace, and leave her alone. We could choose to funnel our efforts toward what is uncomfortable, we could choose to be more generous, ask more questions, be more honest, and make better fucking movies. 

That's all for today, folks. Thanks for taking a bite out of the sandwich with me. 

xoxo 

BLT