In Search Of Marilyn Monroe - The Cancelling Of Universal Beauty And The Dull Downside Of Diversity

It is no surprise that of all the Hollywood beauties who have appeared on screen since the beginning of film, Marilyn Monroe has had the most interest.   She was not classically beautiful, but had an unmatchable sensuousness and sensuality.  She had allure, an immediate, unmistakable and undeniable sexual appeal.  She embodied sexual desire.  Men were drawn to her not to admire her beauty but to make love to her.

 

It has been over sixty years since Marilyn died, but no woman since has matched her in universal appeal.  There have been many Hollywood stars who have the same symmetrical features, the same equipoise, and the same perfection of beauty that has been the standard of female beauty for millennia, but all of them lack Marilyn's ineffable sexuality. 

Statues, masks, frescoes of Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Persians have portrayed the same perfectly proportioned face.  Whether such perfectly formed features and their harmonious composition signified health, wealth, and well-being; or whether there was some innate human appreciation for and valuation of harmony, the historical record is clear. Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder.  It is something innate, universally appreciated, and valued. 

Marilyn Monroe, the woman men have wanted and will want for decades to come is because of her sensuality, an internal, ineffable sexual difference that cannot be measures, quantified, or summarized 

Vladimir Nabokov in his book Lolita came the closest to describing this sexual ineffability.  The young pre-pubescent Lolita was in his words a 'nymphet', a girl who even before sexual maturity knew what sex and sexuality were.  Lolita's was an innate sense of allure and satisfaction that pre-dated mating or reproduction.  She was compelled by some complex of genetic wiring, high-octane XX chromosomal weight, some unexplained, heretofore unchronicled sexual demand that made her desirable to every mature male in her presence. 

 

Marilyn Monroe had the same innate, inexplicable desirability - a sexual allure that went beyond classical beauty and historical appeal. No man has been able to explain why she is so desirable. Disaggregation would be the wrong approach, the wrong alley, the wrong algorithm. No parsing of features, symmetry, or physical arrangement could ever explain her allure. 

And so it was that she became an icon of American culture, a symbol of pure, unadulterated sexuality.  There might have been some subtle cultural tint to her appeal - she had a certain cornflower, blonde, healthy good looks, the all-American girl - but that pure desirability went far beyond calico and gingham, braids, and milkmaid looks.  Men wanted her, wanted to sleep with her. Nothing less would satisfy. 

Lauren Getty was not a particularly attractive girl, but she had signs of maturing into a woman of classical beauty.  Her bone structure, facial symmetry, and the classical features that have been admired ever since antiquity would single her out as one in a million.  Her genes were configured with bits of her ancestors who were not themselves particularly handsome or beautiful, but who had physical traits which when combined with others, would contribute to Lauren’s golden mean.  The almond shape of her eyes, her aquiline nose, her fine mouth would all come from relatives long forgotten, but it was some other Mendelian miracle that sorted them out in perfect proportion. 

Yet, despite her classical looks, Lauren was dissatisfied.  Her beauty was so perfect that it was intimidating and unapproachable.  As much as men might admire her, they did not desire her.  Something was missing.  For all her perfect symmetry, she attracted men far less often than classmates who looked ordinary. She had been gifted beauty but not allure; and allure is what every man wants.

Lauren did her best to disguise her classic beauty to become more like Marilyn Monroe – she accentuated her lips, and eyes, adopted a pouty, come-hither pose, dressed provocatively, and made not-so-subtle passes at boys.  Of course none of this worked, for not only was Marilyn Monroe physically alluring, there was something about her personality which fit her body.  It was an indefinable, impossibly subtle, and completely irresistible quality of femaleness.  Men do not want to admire women.  They want them as sexual partners; and men for generations have wanted nothing more than to go to bed with Marilyn Monroe - not Ava Gardner, Hedy Lamar, or Vivien Leigh.

Eventually, she came to her senses, realized her good fortune, and had a very successful career as a fashion model, wearing the best designer clothes on the most prestigious runways of Milan, Paris, and New York.  Since beauty is indeed destiny it was no surprise that after her career she married a scion of Wall Street, lived in a Fifth Avenue apartment overlooking the Park, wintered in St. Bart’s, and skied at Gstaad. 

She was never remembered - really remembered.  Of course men and women in her circle admired her, found her stunningly classical looks remarkable, but they were everywhere - on the covers of Vogue, in the paintings of Leonardo, Botticelli, and Caravaggio - admirably beautiful women.  But when men dream at night, they dream of Marilyn Monroe. 

Ours is a diverse, inclusive culture - there can be no such thing as Marilyn Monroe and good riddance to this fancy of white male hegemony say progressive cultural reformers.  Let's celebrate the beauty of black women. 

However, as much media attention is paid to Serena Williams in frilly things, Armani things; no matter how many staged provocative shots are photographed; and no matter how many come-hither poses are captured, she is still so far from the accepted classical norm, that her image will simply not go viral.  If any black woman surfaces, it will be Meta Golding or Haile Berry, mixed-race black women with classically beautiful features. 

Asian women models and Bollywood stars are remarkably Caucasian in looks and styles.  Some say it is the distorting power of Hollywood that has squeezed race and ethnicity dry, homogenized women beyond recognition.  Others more rightly say it is innate, hardwired preference for a historical,  standard of beauty. 

In our multicultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-racial society, homogenization will inevitably occur, and all will hew to the middle - and that middle will always end up resembling Nefertiti, Dido, Venus, and Hedy Lamar. 

Diversity aside, there can be no accounting for the special, unique, irresistible sexual quality of Marilyn Monroe.  She is above and beyond, a universal icon, a fundamental, primitive, desirable woman.  There may be others in some dim, distant future, but for the time being essential, seductive, feminine allure has been demonized and derogated.  Yet Marilyn Monroe refuses to rest in peace.  Not a night goes by without some man dreaming of her.