Reframed: Marilyn Monroe

It's not "reframed", it's completely taken out of context.

I've been watching and enjoying Barbara Stanwyck playing strong, independent women in dozens of movies, but some misguided "feminists" are trying to convince me that Marilyn Monroe did something special. And Barbara Stanwyck is just one of many remarkable women in cinema history.

The truth is Marilyn Monroe lacked the talent and could only play one role: "the dumb blonde".

Her lack of talent is obvious in the scenes after the divorce from DiMaggio, where she doesn't quite know what facial expression to fake.

I've watched and read many biographies of Marilyn and this one takes the biscuit. There are women in the programme (and so many of them) speaking to the camera and each saying their piece as though they had their snippets of information directly from Marilyn herself. These woman are so desperate to believe that Marilyn was in control of 'her own destiny', and that SHE was the one who invented herself as self-made screen sex symbol - even her name. Everyone knows that Marilyn 'suggested' or was asked about Monroe for her new name - suggested mind you. These women state that she fought to keep her mother's name 'as a sign of strength'. We all know it was the studio who created her and yes (oh dear how shocking) it is MEN that head the studios. So eager to believe and tell audiences this 'story' of Marilyn as a strong, independent women just to suit THEIR needs.

We are told time and time again that the Marilyn on screen is not the real one. The real one is a woman who wants to be taken seriously as an actress and intellect (cue the photographer on standby every time she opens a book and pretends to read). They even believe her tale of posing for the nude calendar was for money to pay the rent/buy food; 'she had no one to support her'. She was still married to Jim Doherty remember. We are told that with Arthur M, she had a chance do things with a family she didn't have before - yet earlier in the series we are shown the age old footage of her prancing on the beach with her foster siblings. They are weaving their story of Marilyn. Yes, re-framing is actually re-telling in their way.

These women hate the fact Marilyn wasn't taken seriously by the great Laurence Oliver. Well, he was no different to any other actor working with her - he was exasperated by her unprofessionalism of forgetting her lines and frequently turning up late. She lost the respect of others with every film role. Yet these women all saw it as Marilyn 'showing him she can be bad'. By turning up late?? Have they seen the Billy Wilder footage of his complaints? Surely if she was so intelligent she would have proved herself by being early on set with lines ready and remembered. Just as a professional would have.

Silly Arthur Miller, a middle aged man is enamoured with a dyed blonde sex symbol and believes himself in love. Even after the sad miscarriage, there Marilyn is as usual posing, eyes lowered, smiling coyly, revealing dress, full make-up and yet still these women blame men 'the predatory feeling about the paparazzi'. If Marilyn was that intelligent, why agree to be smiling and laughing in the car - why not go out the back way. Ah, publicity of course. These women say she is a comedic actress too. Honestly - she's stinted, wooden and that quivery voice and movement of her mouth, plus the baby voice is just awful and makes it difficult to watch her.

Let these women believe she created her own destiny, they even think she was 'playing' with JFK. Honestly they are deluded. At her death one of these women (an actress/biographer?) is telling us that there was no tragedy in the latter years of Marilyn's life. Don't think her life as sad. Really? Mmm let me think. In her last film role she was ageing badly, she was sacked/replaced due to her lateness and forgetting her lines (yet again), she was ridiculed for her awful (drunken ) performance at JFK's birthday celebrations, no one wanted to be associated with her and she died alone. I think that's tragic.

Let's leave Marilyn in peace. Let's have no more attempts at trying to make her as something she wasn't. She was a B movie actress who made her way to stardom by her looks and figure (T&A as the women put it), none of her performances are great, they are just OK. She plays 'Marilyn' in every film role, except Bus Stop when she attempts a southern accent which isn't exactly hard to do.

This was shown on BBC2 last August. Initially looked interesting. However the more I watched the less interesting it became. Lots of talking heads,trying unsuccessfully,to conjure up her career in modern terms.

I have to say that the only film of hers that I actually saw whilst she was alive was Some Like It Hot. I have watched this numerous times and always find it funny. However she put the cast and crew through torture.60 takes because she couldn't remember one line. Nothing to do with Method acting,more to do with her drugs and drink intake.

Many of the claims made by the talking heads are fatuous and inaccurate..Rather a wasted effort.

I enjoyed how it explained the climate for actresses in the 1950s. They were virtually powerless.

The downside are the ridiculous comparisons of clueless commentators comparing Monroe with Katdashians or Jennifer Lopez. Give Us a break.

To start by giving 'Reframed: Marilyn Monroe' some credit, there is a serviciable account of the life of the woman is is arguably still the world's most famous actress buried within this documentary; and it does exactly what it says it does, in asking us to think about her life in a different way. Unfortunately, that means that much of the programme comprises other people telling us what we should think. This new framing is nominally a feminist one, but it goes too far. Firstly, every action she ever took is justified and glorified. Secondly, the case for feminism is mainly how society denies women agency; but if you watch this programme, you would conclude that the problem is actually that society refuses to acknowlege the agency that women actually have (which may also be a problem, but is surely a secondary one). Painting Marilyn as a wholly tragic figure may be misjudged; that doesn't mean that everything she did was a personal triumph. And thirdly, it's a strange sort of feminism that reduces itself to an account of an unusually gifted sister doing for for herself. In spite of sexism, intelligent and beautiful women have always been able to get at least some of what they want; the terrible thing about our society is that mediocre women have generally worse lives than equally mediocre men. Which is not to say that Marilyn's story is not interesting; but I would have prefered to be left to draw my own conclusions, rather than to be told what to think by contemporary commentators relentlessly pushing positivism on me.