Madonna/Marilyn Monroe

[Régine Filange 2,583]

i've read somewhere that madonna gave a new perspective of marilyn monroe. ppl used to think of marilyn many different things before madonna started honoring marily'n image through her video. is it true?

[Erlend 165]

3 hours ago, Régine Filange said:

i've read somewhere that madonna gave a new perspective of marilyn monroe. ppl used to think of marilyn many different things before madonna started honoring marily'n image through her video. is it true?

This is true. In an article about Madonna (Guilty Pleasures) Pamela Robertson wrote this about the Material Girl video (wich was inspired by Monroes ' Diamonds ara a Girls Best Friend'  from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes)

"The video (...) reproduces elements of the Monroe image (blondness, sexuality,gold digging) and simultaneously recast that image in a potentially critical manner. (...) both Madonna's witty performance and ghe song's pointed lyrics attribute to the Monroe character a knowingness and degree of control absent from most nostalgic treatments of Monroe, which generally remember her as a witless sex object and/or tragic victim. Thus the video creates a dialectical constellation of Monroe-Madonna, revealing a stronger and more savvy Monroe in the image if Madonna."

 

 

[Mateusz Klimecki 91]

Maybe, but in 80s and 90s many critics said that she's going a little too far with MM inspirations, basically calling her reductive and unoriginal. The same with inspirations from Jean Harlow.

[Erlend 165]

3 minutes ago, Mateusz Klimecki said:

Maybe, but in 80s and 90s many critics said that she's going a little too far with MM inspirations, basically calling her reductive and unoriginal. The same with inspirations from Jean Harlow.

That's not quite the way I remembers it. The Madonna/Marilyn facinated the public, and while she no doubt was criticised for it from some quarters, there was also this feeling that Madonna embraced the old Hollywood glamour in a creativ way. Madonna lived out her fantasy and changed her looks frequently (from Marilyn to Mae West). Up to a certaint point this was seemed as something creativ, and it kind of embraced the notions of a post-modern society.

[Mateusz Klimecki 91]

Sure:)

[NowRadiate 3,331]

3 minutes ago, Erlend said:

That's not quite the way I remembers it. The Madonna/Marilyn facinated the public, and while she no doubt was criticised for it from some quarters, there was also this feeling that Madonna embraced the old Hollywood glamour in a creativ way. Madonna lived out her fantasy and changed her looks frequently (from Marilyn to Mae West). Up to a certaint point this was seemed as something creativ, and it kind of embraced the notions of a post-modern society.

When in fact, as Chris Ciccone states, her bigger inspiration was Marlene Dietrich. I do recall the criticism though too.

[Erlend 165]

8 minutes ago, NowRadiate said:

When in fact, as Chris Ciccone states, her bigger inspiration was Marlene Dietrich. I do recall the criticism though too.

One of Madonna's trademark as an artist was how she re-invented old Hollywood-myths and made society confront those myths. Yes, she was criticised, for not being original etc etc, but she also earned some respect because of it. Many of her videos alludes to old movies and moviestars, from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes to Metropolis. Madonna facinated because she was seen as "her own director". She took these cultural images and turned them up side down in a way. "I can be a sexsymbol", she once said, "but I don't have to be a victim".