Marilyn Monroe was a famous model and actress who was known for being sexy and beautiful. Some would be surprised to learn that when she was a child she was known to be shy and intelligent because she spent most of her adult life playing the role of the “dumb blonde”.
Well here on this blog we like to celebrate women, and I plan to tell my truth about an iconic woman who I fell sometimes is misunderstood, and that may be purposeful, because Ms. Monroe didn’t get where she was in her life by being stupid. Most would be surprised to know this woman was actually rather smart.
So if you are fan or just curious to get another perspective of the legendary Old Hollywood actress read on…
Marilyn Monroe was an avid reader…
We live in an age where the passion for reading is waning. Hence why many people are abandoning writing blogs and opting to produce videos instead. But there was a time where people couldn’t get enough of reading magazines, newspapers and books, and surprisingly, Marilyn Monroe was one of those people. It has been reported that she had hundreds of books in her possession and spent a significant amount of time reading them.
Among her collection of 400 books were some of the most difficult reads in the English language such as Ulysses written by James Joyce. This writer was known for including many riddles I his works and many readers shy away from reading it because it is known to be so brutally intricate of a story. But Marilyn Monroe fancied herself an intellectual and enjoyed the challenges of reading complicated books.
She was also known to read her husband Arthur Miller’s plays in their entirety as she often read the scripts of the roles she would play.
Marilyn Monroe was very political…
While many young women of today shy away from politics and aren’t very active in political matters, Ms. Monroe was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties. She educated herself o the struggles of the Black people and even went so far as to advocate for them. When many people were prejudiced and bigoted, which is a sign of low intelligence, Marilyn Monroe was an actually friends with many different types of people including Blacks.
One of her good friends was the legendary Jazz singer, Ella Fitzgerald. When she was discriminated at a very famous club who wouldn’t let her perform there, Monroe used her influence to get her booked so she could perform. At another venue, when Monroe saw that Fitzgerald was not allowed to go through the front door of the establishment, she refused to enter unless her friend was allowed to enter through the front.
Marilyn had strong convictions on the equality of Black people in America and had a strong hatred for racists, hence her dislike of people like J. Edgar Hoover who was a known bigot. Because of her beliefs he targeted her and labeled her a communist, which was career suicide back in the fifties and sixties. Yet, Monroe continued to speak out against racism despite people not agreeing with her views on segregation and rights for people of color.
She wrote journals that proved she had a way with words…
After her death her notebooks were published and what they reveal was she was a multifaceted person with quite a way of expressing herself as evident by her poetry and journal entries. This is not surprising to me because most avid readers can also write well due to them seeing how vocabulary is used and understanding the power of words.
So while she portrayed herself on film to be simple minded, she was actually quite complex. Her writing shows that she had a deep understanding of human nature and was very emotionally intelligent. You see in her writings she could be herself completely and delve deeper into her feelings. This is hard for a person who doesn’t usually think to do, which is further proof that Monroe thoughts were profound and intellectual.
One of her quotes that I love is, “Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are”. Another one is, “Always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don’t, then who will, sweetie?”
She was quite the business woman who advocated for herself…
Marilyn Monroe was not always taken seriously. It wasn’t just because she was a beautiful woman but because people who didn’t know her assumed she wasn’t very smart. For example, despite being one of the biggest money makers for a Hollywood studio, they refused to renegotiate her contract. But rather than accepting there was nothing she could do she did the unthinkable in her day. She founded her own film production company.
And rather than rest on simply being pretty, Marilyn wanted to be taken serious in Hollywood. She actually began to study method acting so that she could take on roles that challenged her and proved to everybody she was a woman who knew her craft. Her last role was critically acclaimed and some say her best work, “The Misfits” and was released after she died. It was her proof to the world that she had grown as an actress.
So I gave a lot of information that collaborate my claims that despite playing the role, Marilyn Monroe was a smart, intelligent and thoughtful woman. I hope that anyone reading this post who already had an opinion about her maybe saw her from another angle.
May you rest and find peace in your new place with the angels in heaven Ms. Monroe.
But what do I know? I’m just a bootleg sociologist who nobody will listen to so I started a bSo what do you think?
What are your thoughts?
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References:
Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe: Inside Their Surprising Friendship – Biography
The secret diary of Marilyn Monroe – BBC Culture
When This Woman Speaks 