Blog #1

Marilyn Diptych: A Feminist Analysis

Subservient, dependent, soft-spoken, well-groomed housewife. This description would likely come to mind when picturing an American woman of the 1950’s. Then comes the image of Marilyn Monroe, the face of the American film industry of mid twentieth century. She was youthful, voluptuous, blonde, flawless, sexy. To society, she was everything a woman could dream to be and everything a man could dream to be with. From her Hollywood career, she seemed to defy the typecast of the stereotypical, confined female. Nevertheless, at the core, she was a typical woman, exploited for her looks, dehumanized, and driven to madness from society’s expectations of her.

Racy film posters from throughout Marilyn Monroe’s career are blatant examples of how Monroe was advertised as a sex symbol to attract audiences to the films she starred in. However, unlike these photos, Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych, created in the 1960’s shortly after the actress’s tragic suicide, paints a picture (both literally and figuratively) of the troubles that Monroe encountered. This piece is a silkscreen consisting of fifty identical headshot photos of Monroe wearing her signature smile, meant to symbolize the fact that the film industry stripped her of her unique personality and instead displayed her as a beautiful object. The first twenty-five images on the left side of the diptych are of Monroe’s “Barbie doll” face, made flawless with excessive makeup, a perfect haircut, and her signature smile. Warhol feels that she appears so falsely perfect that he transforms the photo that he copies into an image that looks painted and cartoonish. The photos on the right side are the opposite: drab, blurry, unglamorous, and overexposed, just like Monroe’s private life. The left panel is how Monroe is portrayed in the media, and the right side her without the mask of perfection forced upon her.

Marilyn Diptych is a classic example of popular culture meeting fine art, a major characteristic of the American “pop art” movement of the 1960’s. Andy Warhol’s first silkscreen paintings were of products like Campbell’s soup cans and bananas. In this piece, as well as the numerous others Warhol pieces featuring her, Marilyn Monroe is nothing more than a reproducible product off the grocery rack. Although the piece does have a deep meaning, the male artist chose her as a subject in part because of her beautiful, famous face that would bring his works great attention. This fact ties with the concept of male gaze and ideas of popular culture and society toward women. At the time, young women were faced with two paths onto which they could steer their lives: being a working-class housewife or a marketed sex object. Both options involved living under the expectations and eyes of a male-dominated society. Monroe experienced both during her short lifetime, and grew so overwhelmed by the physical and psychological expectations that men and society had of her that she ultimately committed suicide.

How does Marilyn Diptych’s portrayal of Marilyn Monroe’s life connect to modern popular culture? According to Erin Johansen, an modern American feminist activist, “Marilyn puts a face on the hardships that women have to face every day in this country - sexual abuse, unwanted pregnancy, abusive relationships, sexual objectification. I think in this way, a lot of young feminists see her as a sort of martyr for modern feminism, as a shocking example of how a woman can be torn apart by the greed, lust and coercion of the men in her life" (Guardian). Numerous waves of feminism since the 1960’s created new educational, political, and job opportunities for women, yet females continue to be portrayed as objects to be looked and undergo male-induced atrocities. In modern media, images that showcase pieces of women to advertise totally unrelated products are widespread, and, likewise, the film industry and artists exploited Marilyn Monroe for her face and figure. Furthermore, although Marilyn Diptych was not directly meant to have a feminist connotation by the artist, the time period and context that it was created in give it many parallels to the spark of the feminist movement. Monroe epitomizes the woman whose short life was crushed by gender confinements and the effects of the male gaze. Her experiences included multiple marriages, divorces, abortion, affairs, and sexual abuse. These are the situations that the earliest feminists rose to overcome, and Monroe’s life circumstances and death were the final stretch of the slingshot before many women began standing up against a male-dominant society. Monroe posthumously became a symbol of the rise of the feminist movement, and the message of Marilyn Diptych contributed to this association.

Marilyn Diptych, along the story of Monroe’s tragic life, precisely exemplifies the effects of the merging of low and high culture on perspectives toward women. The effect of the piece is two-fold: it makes an anti-media, feminism-inspiring statement, mourning Monroe’s life and death, yet is a pure example of pop art that utilizes an appeal to the male gaze by incorporating Monroe’s image. Perhaps it is more than coincidence that Valerie Solanas, a woman who attempted to murder Warhol, was a die-hard feminist (Andy)?

Works Cited

"Andy Warhol." Wikipedia. Web. 20 Sept. 2011.

Krum, Sharon. "Marilyn Monroe: Feminist Icon?" Guardian.co.uk. Guardian News and Media Ltd,

29 May 2001. Web. 18 Sept. 2011.

Image Sources

"Marilyn Monroe." Meansheets – Vintage Movie Posters. 19 June

2011. Web. 20 Sept. 2011. .

Warhol, Andy. Marilyn Diptych. 1962. Tate Liverpool, Liverpool,

England. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. Web. 20 Sept. 2011.