The Other Side of Marilyn Monroe

 

The more I think of it, the more I realize there are no answers. Life is to be lived. Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you’re a human being, you feel, you suffer.

~ Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) was a far deeper and more interesting person than the persona most of us are familiar with. The following quotes are taken from her Biography page on IMDb.

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.

The truth is I’ve never fooled anyone. I’ve let people fool themselves. They didn’t bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn’t argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn’t. When they found this out, they would blame me for disillusioning them—and fooling them.

We are all born sexual creatures, thank God, but it’s a pity so many people despise and crush this natural gift.

I’m for the individual as opposed to the corporation. The way it is the individual is the underdog, and with all the things a corporation has going for them the individual comes out banged on her head. The artist is nothing. It’s really tragic.

[on stardom] It scares me. All those people I don’t know, sometimes they’re so emotional. I mean, if they love you that much without knowing you, they can also hate you the same way.

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

The more I think of it, the more I realize there are no answers. Life is to be lived. Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you’re a human being, you feel, you suffer.

A sex-symbol becomes a thing, I just hate being a thing. But if I’m going to be a symbol of something I’d rather have it sex than some other things we’ve got symbols of.

I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.

[In her memoir about the sexual predators in her industry] I met them all. Phoniness and failure were all over them. Some were vicious and crooked. But they were as near to the movies as you could get. So you sat with them, listening to their lies and schemes. And you saw Hollywood with their eyes, an overcrowded brothel, a merry-go-round with beds for horses.

I’ve never liked the name Marilyn. I’ve often wished that I had held out that day for Jean Monroe. But I guess it’s too late to do anything about it now.

[on drifting in and out of orphanages when she was little] The world around me then was kind of grim. I had to learn to pretend in order to – I don’t know – block the grimness. The whole world seemed sort of closed to me . . . [I felt] on the outside of everything, and all I could do was to dream up any kind of pretend game.

For the first family I lived with, to go to a movie was a sin. Every night I was told to pray that I would not wake up in hell.

The other girls rode to school in a bus. I had no nickel to pay for the ride. Rain or shine, I walked the two miles from my “aunt’s” home to the school. I hated the walk, I hated the school. I had no friends. The pupils seldom talked to me and never wanted me in their games.

Nobody ever walked home with me or invited me to visit their homes. This was partly because I came from the poor part of the district where all the Mexicans and Japanese lived. It was also because I couldn’t smile at anyone.

Boys think girls are like books, If the cover doesn’t catch their eye they won’t bother to read what’s inside.

[on James Joyce and the character of Molly Bloom in Ulysses] Here is Joyce writing what a woman thinks to herself. Can he, does he really know her innermost thoughts? But after I read the whole book, I could better understand that Joyce is an artist who could penetrate the souls of people, male or female. It really doesn’t matter that Joyce doesn’t have…or never felt a menstrual cramp.

[on Sigmund Freud] I read his “Introductory Lectures,” God, what a genius. He makes it so understandable. And he is so right. Didn’t he say himself that [William Shakespeare] and [Fyodor Dostoevsky] had a better understanding of psychology than all the scientists put together? Damn it, they do.

People always ask me if I believe diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Frankly, I don’t.

What the world really needs is a real feeling of kinship. Everybody: stars, laborers, Negroes, Jews, Arabs. We are all brothers. Please don’t make me a joke. End the interview with what I believe.

posted on March 29, 2023, by Christopher Chase at creativesystemsthinking.wordpress.com