Two Sex Symbols, One Dress, & The Question of Who Owns Women's Bodies
Marilyn, Kim, sex, abortion, and the commodification of women
NOTE: While this piece largely discusses abortion, commodification, discrimination, and autonomy in relation to women’s bodies (through the lens of two specific women), I want to be crystal clear that these issues also profoundly affect trans and nonbinary people. As we fight for equal rights under the law including but not limited to life-saving medical procedures such as abortion, it is imperative that cis women include trans and nonbinary people and not dominate the conversation around bodily autonomy. We all represent a threat to white heteropatriarchal norms that enforce a rigid gender binary and gender roles and thus must work together to ensure we all are able to freely choose what is best for our bodies and not what the State wants to force upon us.
On a May evening in New York not unlike many other May evenings in New York, the most famous woman in America sauntered in front of the blinding lights and flashbulbs of hundreds of press wearing, for lack of a better term, a naked dress. The garment clung tightly in all the right places, emphasizing her iconic figure; a symbol of both desire and envy. The dress and its wearer oozed sexual power, which was entirely the point. You were supposed to look at her, to marvel at her, to have any kind of reaction at all. But that was because she wanted you to. It was her choice. She was sending a message of ownership; over her body and her sexuality.
For Kim Kardashian, this moment on the First Monday in May of 2022 on the steps of the Met Gala was not only another viral moment in a long public career of them and a carefully coordinated bit of image craft, but perhaps a perfect symbol of how America commodifies women and our bodies. Because Kim wasn’t just wearing another dress, she was wearing the dress; that is, Marilyn Monroe’s famous naked dress. The very same one she wore 60 years ago on May 19, 1962 as she sexily cooed “Happy Birthday Mr. President” to JFK at Madison Square Garden.
For Marilyn, that night would be her last public appearance before she died later that summer. Her dress and performance stirred as much emotion as it did gossip that the blonde bombshell and President of the United States were having or already had an affair. The dress, a one-of-a-kind custom gown designed by Jean-Louis was so perfectly fit to Marilyn’s body, she had to be sewn into it that night. Made of souffle, a fabric so delicate and flammable it was banned in the U.S. not long after (though Bob Mackie made Cher’s famous “Naked Dress” from it in 1974) and hand-embroidered with thousands of beads, it is quite possibly the most important dress in 20th century U.S. history. It’s also the most expensive one sold at auction; most recently acquired by Ripley’s Believe It or Not (who is not museum but rather a for-profit attractions company) for $5 million. In order to wear it, Kim not only engaged in disordered eating to fit into it but made a donation of an undisclosed sum to charities of Ripley’s choosing in Florida.
When Marilyn wore the dress in 1962, the Pill had been approved by the FDA but it would be another 3 years before Griswold v. Connecticut would make it available for all married women. It would be 10 years before Eisenstadt v. Baird would make it available to all single women. And it would be 11 years before Roe v. Wade would make abortion legal in all 50 states. Marilyn wasn’t just a sex symbol, she was the Sex Symbol. Prior to the later Sexual Revolution of the 1960s, there was Marilyn to signal to women and men what sexual power looked like. She knew how to wield it as well as the people who sought to exploit it and her. That night in 1962 would be a kind of public merging of politics and sex in a way that would hint at the sexual revolution to come as well as the certain backlash to women owning their sexuality and bodies publicly.
60 years later, while I and many other women once again fixed our eyes on another woman in a naked dress—Marilyn’s naked dress—with a mix of awe and horror, the political backlash built over decades of maneuvering by vicious, prudish, misogynistic politicians finally arrived. While billionaire Kim stood in the most famous dress in 20th century American history, belonging to the most famous and commodified woman in America, the news leaked that the Supreme Court is set to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending abortion rights.
For a night of fashion themed around “The Gilded Age,” a period of deep inequality where the rich could do as they please while social and civil rights barely existed, it was all a little too on the nose. After all, what could be more American than reminding women our bodies are just commodities for the benefit of others?
You can argue that Kim Kardashian and Marilyn Monroe have a lot in common, and in some ways, they do. Marilyn and Kim both had young first marriages, and then were married to athletes (Joe DiMaggio and Kris Humphries) and wordsmiths of a kind (Arthur Miller and Kanye respectively). They both had nude images from their 20s leaked to the press that helped increase their popularity and fame. Both women have made a huge impact on the culture both in terms of beauty standards and as sex symbols.
But that’s pretty much where the similarities end.
Because while Kim and Marilyn both made themselves the most famous women in America, the differences between them are pretty significant in a variety of ways.
Marilyn, born Norma Jeane Baker, spent her childhood poor and in and out of foster homes, orphanages, and occasionally living with her mother, Gladys, who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and institutionalized. Norma was sexually abused multiple times (and at least once by one of her legal guardians). It was for these reasons Norma became interested in acting, spending all day at movie theaters to avoid being home with people who might take advantage of her. She married her first husband, James Dougherty, at age 16, which kept her out of another trip back to the orphanage, but they divorced in 1946 because he didn’t approve of her burgeoning career as a model and actress.
Before reality TV turned her into a wealthy star, Kim was born into privilege. Her father, Robert, had already amassed a not-insignificant amount of wealth from various businesses (including his invention of playing music between movies) which he sold for huge profits. Of course, he was also close friends with and served as lawyer to O.J. Simpson during his 1994 trial. Though Robert often made Kim and her siblings “work” to earn money and cars, their life was one of California luxury (Kim even attended a private all-girls Catholic school in Bel Air where tuition currently costs around $40k/year). When Robert died in 2003, he allegedly left his children $100 million in an estate trust. Kim worked in retail from age 16 until 20 when she married her first husband, Damon Thomas. Though her parents divorced when Kim was 11, her childhood was stable, safe, and free of many of the kinds of hardships Marilyn faced even into adulthood.
Oddly what tends to get lost in the conversation is that Marilyn was first and foremost an actress, and a very good one. A lover of poetry and literature, Marilyn was as devoted to the craft of acting as any of her male contemporaries, studying in New York with Lee Strasberg and at the Actors Lab in Los Angeles and doing extensive research and preparation for many of her roles. Her sex appeal may have gotten audiences to the theater, but her comedic chops and sheer charisma kept them coming back. Marilyn’s dumb blonde persona was perhaps her greatest creation; a role she played onscreen and off that allowed her some sense of privacy away from cameras. Though she didn’t have much in the way of education, Marilyn was incredibly smart and quite the bookworm, preferring to spend her free time tearing through a pile of books at home. As an actress, her work clearly drew on her own real-life vulnerability, which is what makes her so compelling and good to watch. She didn’t get nearly as many opportunities to do dramas as she wanted (and desperately wanted to move away from sexpot roles), but in each of her films, you can’t tear your eyes away from her. Her performances are utterly alive.
Perhaps the biggest difference between Kim and Marilyn is that only one of them has actively had a choice in how her body is commodified by the public and largely controlled the narrative around it and her life. Like Marilyn, Kim—and her family— has dominated and reshaped beauty and body standards for American women, but the people who benefit the most from that commodification are the Kardashians themselves, raking in billions of dollars from endorsements, their makeup and beauty lines, shapewear, supplements, and all other manner of products meant to sell their specific brand of womanhood/beauty. It is possible that had Marilyn lived longer, she could have potentially found ways to re-shape her own public narrative and image the ways Kim has to great personal benefit, but in the cruel world of the Hollywood studio system and prudish 1950s, Marilyn the person was left to flounder. Her success in Hollywood came with strings attached; namely studio execs expecting casting couch sessions, bullying from misogynistic directors, a growing dependence on prescription drugs, hounding from a misogynistic press, and abuse from DiMaggio who disliked his wife’s body being constantly on display. Nearly every time Marilyn tried to exert some measure of control over her life and body, she was met with exploitation, condescension, and abuse.
In death, Marilyn is a lucrative business. Her body and face emblazoned on cheap souvenirs as well as expensive pieces of clothing, posters (we all know at least one college classmate who had her up in their dorm room), and all other manner of products that make other people a lot of money. When she died, Marilyn’s net worth was somewhere around what amounts to $7-10 million today and much of that was left to close friends who she considered family, including her acting teacher, Lee Strasberg and his second wife Paula. Strasberg’s third wife, Anna, inherited Marilyn’s estate when Lee died in 1982 and promptly sold it to CMG Worldwide for licensing opportunities. Strasberg also sold many of Marilyn’s personal items at auction at Christie’s in 1999, against the explicit wishes of her will. What was left of the estate she sold to Authentic Brands Group (ABG) for somewhere around $30 million. Strasberg has continued to financially benefit from the image and possessions of a woman she never personally met and has, on several occasions, refused to comment on such matters to the press, including her late step-daughter Susan Strasberg’s assertions that a significant portion of her father Lee’s estate was actually 75% of Marilyn’s.
“Marilyn Monroe is one of a few international icons who will transcend time along with Elvis, Babe Ruth, and the Beatles. She is always a great investment for collectors. She’s just gonna increase in value.” - Robert Schagrin, co-owner of the New York shop Gotta Have It! who originally purchased the infamous “Happy Birthday Mr. President” dress at auction in 1999 for $1.26 million
Licensing and image rights is a thorny legal issue, especially when it pertains to public figures. The late Carrie Fisher frequently talked about signing away her likeness at age 19 for Star Wars joking, “Every time I look in the mirror, I have to send [George] Lucas a couple of bucks.” The truth is that Lucas has made billions off Star Wars merchandizing, including many, many, many items featuring Fisher’s likeness and body (that metal bikini forever haunting her). Fisher couldn’t have predicted the film would be such a cultural force, but it doesn’t change the fact someone else has reaped rewards off her physical features while she never saw a penny of it.
Photographers own the rights to the images they take (which is how paparazzi make big bucks), but celebrities and their legal teams have to give permission should those images be licensed on merchandise. Typically, those celebrities also negotiate royalty fees so they’re earning a cut of the sales. For images of Marilyn, those licensing rights become even thornier. The family of the late Sam Shaw—a legendary Hollywood photographer who regularly took photos of Marilyn, Marlon Brando, Audrey Hepburn, and Elizabeth Taylor (among others)—sued Marilyn’s estate (managed by CMG Worldwide) for six years to wrestle back control of licensing rights. Shaw’s photos, which include the iconic image of Marilyn in the white dress over the subway grate, were and are extremely valuable, but still Shaw Family Archives LTD was forced to declare Chapter 11 Bankruptcy after CMG Worldwide lobbied for laws to pass post-mortem image rights back to celebrities. They wound up taking a $3 million deal from CMG via Marilyn Monroe LLC to grant the latter exclusive rights to Shaw’s photos of Marilyn. But the one person who legally should be able to give consent to the use of her face and body to sell a bunch of crap is—very conveniently ($$$$) for all involved—dead.
But let’s be clear that even though Kim Kardashian and her family are making money off their own images and bodies, there’s also a question of their appropriation /commodification of Black and Brown women’s bodies. The Kardashians have been accused of blackfishing (that is, where people alter their appearance to appear Black) and appropriation for over a decade. While they’re certainly not the only white celebrities to be accused of adopting Black aesthetics (see also: Ariana Grande), they are certainly the wealthiest and most influential. Kim has addressed it head on saying “I would never intentionally try to appropriate the culture in that way,” but even if that is true, she and her family have still established a lucrative business and pattern of beauty practices built on the perceived aesthetics of groups of women whose bodies are not only highly scrutinized but discriminated against on a daily basis. The Kardashians reap the benefits of Black and Brown culture and beauty without facing any of the discrimination. Blackface author Ayanna Thompson argues this is the ultimate white privilege, “There’s a reason why they’ve done this and why they have made money on this. That’s the ultimate power of whiteness, right? That I can like these things, which we may want to denigrate, but I don’t have to stay there. I get to come back to the safety of whiteness.”
When abortion rights are curtailed or banned, the people most affected tend to be these same groups: lower-income Black and Brown women (and of course, trans and nonbinary people) who do not have the same access to resources many white women like Kim have that would allow them to still exert some control over their bodies. Without those resources, unwanted pregnancies often force people into poverty, to stay in abusive relationships, to lose dreams and opportunities they might have otherwise. These women simply do not have the same choices. The underlying message from the State is always the same: your body is not yours but ours. In Capitalism, the womb is a precious commodity (necessary for supplying an endless stream of workers), but the person is disposable.
As many of us once again are forced to contemplate what life will be like with infinitely less choices—especially with regards to our bodies—it has also been upsetting to see how little we still contemplate the humanity of Marilyn Monroe. Despite years of thinkpieces, biographies, documentaries, and feminist analysis, Marilyn cannot escape the greedy, grubby hands of a fame-obsessed public who mistake actual respect with their warped, self-serving version that always puts the Sex Symbol first and woman last as they divide up her body, image, and possessions with dollar signs in their eyes. Not only did Ripley’s allow an enormously wealthy white woman who is likely rarely ever told “no” to wear Marilyn’s delicate, perfectly-tailored, important historical gown but they also gifted Kim some of Marilyn’s own hair. Think about that for a second. At some point, someone cut off some of this dead woman’s hair in hopes of making money off of it.
Fashion and textile conservators have rightly been horrified that Ripley’s allowed Kim to actually wear the dress. As Sarah Scaturro, chief conservator at the Cleveland Museum of Art and formerly a conservator at the Met’s Costume Institute told the L.A. Times, “it sets back what is considered professional treatment for historic costume. In the ’80s, a bunch of costume professionals came together to state a resolution that historic costume should not be worn. So my worry is that colleagues in historic costume collections are now going to be pressured by important people to let them wear garments.” Even though Ripley’s assured the press no damage was done to the garment—which despite her crash dieting and corsets, Kim couldn’t even completely fasten, forcing her to wear a fur wrap that covered it/her derrière—it still speaks to a lack of concern for history, Marilyn’s history, and Marilyn herself. As it’s not a museum and is for-profit, Ripley’s most certainly saw this as a major advertising opportunity, considering they will be displaying some of Kim’s and Marilyn’s items at their Hollywood location starting Memorial Day weekend.
What bothers me so much about this whole ghastly business—and make no mistake, this is a business transaction involving three parties where one is dead and cannot speak for herself—is that it is a perfect example of how this country treats so many of us. We empathize with women only so far as when they demand to be valued on their own terms. The wealthy will always have special access and power to demand whatever they want even and especially when the answer should be “no.” It’s not that Kim too hasn’t been subjected to misogynistic treatment and a victim of stalking and intimidation by her own ex-husband (Kanye) and former boyfriend (Ray J), it’s that in the long run, she has been freer and more privileged to make choices and define herself on her own terms in ways Marilyn never did and still can’t even in death. For Kim, wearing Marilyn’s dress is just another in a series of commodifications of other women’s styles and ideas where they become symbols she can try on before moving on to the next one that will make her $$$. I’m not sure there has ever been a savvier businesswoman than Kim Kardashian, and that is both a compliment and criticism. When business demands ruthless valuation, there’s never room for humanization. Regardless of her “respect” for Marilyn—and I do genuinely believe Kim means that in her own way—her actions, Ripley’s actions, the actions of Anna Strasberg and CMG, and Marilyn Monroe LLC tell a different story. One that never truly considers the person behind the Sex Symbol with the platinum hair, red lips, and come-hither look. Marilyn Monroe is good business; who cares about Norma Jeane?
Most of us actually paying attention knew they’d probably overturn Roe v. Wade at some point, America re-valuating us for our ability to produce a healthy product (babies) to make other people—mostly wealthy white heterosexual men—money. What we want doesn’t matter, because we do not matter. Marilyn Monroe is an enduring pop culture symbol in this country precisely because she is both valuable and disposable; a perfect sexpot whose image can be reproduced over and over for endless dollars. Marilyn the Product asks no questions, makes no demands, is always sexed up, and reinforces the myth that Marilyn the Person was exactly the same despite a lot of inconvenient evidence to the contrary. If there’s one thing America loves, it’s a non-threatening, beautiful white woman whose sexuality is available on demand to the men around her regardless of what she might want.
So while I’m also disgusted by this whole Dress Ordeal, I can’t say I’m surprised. The commodification and disposal of women is the one trend that’s always in fashion.
Just ask the 9 judges wearing black dresses in Washington D.C.
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Dear Emmy,
Great column, and you clearly have put a lot of research into it. You touch on the question of agency in self-commodification, so I wonder what your thoughts are on this column, which I just published yesterday: https://zapatosjam.substack.com/p/american-pop-music-culture-are-women (It's a short read.) FYI, I dedicated my column for the rest of of 2022 to women in music, as my tiny protest against Dobbs.