How did Marilyn Monroe become a sex symbol?

The reason why Marilyn Monroe became a sexsymbol were the photographers, they focused their attention on her at a young age, so it did not come organically from the nature of Marilyn, but from the male gaze of photographers.

1. Photographer's Fashion

When Marilyn Monroe was still called Norma Jeane Mortenson, she was discovered by photographers and became one of the PIN-UP GIRLS to inspire the US Army.

This sexy and youthful image became Marilyn's label until the end of World War II.

In 1949, photographer Tom Kelley took nude photos of Marilyn Monroe. These photos traveled across the United States with the release of the Golden Dreams Calendar. In the picture, Marilyn Monroe looks sexy but pure, debauched but innocent.

Miss Monroe later sold these photos to Hugh Hefner, and they were published in the first issue of Playboy. By chance, Marilyn Monroe became the first "Playboy Playmate".

During this period, Marilyn took countless sexy photos, which made her become a symbol of sexual fantasy.

In 1954, she started to collaborate with famous documentary photographers instead of taking these sexy photos by herself.

Marilyn Monroe worked with John Vachon on the set of River of No Return. Through his lens, Marilyn Monroe was no longer captured as aggressively sexy but as everyday flabby.

Even though John Vachon still took pictures of Marilyn Monroe in a bikini in the later stages, these pictures are no longer related to the calendar girl.

From The Misfits in 1955 to Marilyn Monroe's death in 1962, photographer Eve Arnold worked with her during the last eight years of her life.

Eve Arnold's photos are not about looking good, but about being realistic. In her photos, Marilyn Monroe is integrated with the environment, emotions, and life.

In Eve Arnold's photo, she doesn't have to show off sexy to be sexy.

Marilyn Monroe by Eve Arnold

As a woman, Eve Arnold was able to photograph Marilyn Monroe in the bathroom. She photographed Marilyn Monroe waking up, washing her hair, changing her stockings, fixing her makeup, eating and being exhausted. Through Eve's lens, she went from a dumb blonde doll to a real person.

Even though these photos are quite famous, they were not nearly as exposed as her nude photos.

Because people are always willing to believe the mythical lies, rather than accept the truth.

Recently, Marilyn Monroe's latest biopic, Blonde, has done a lot of work on "R-rated" stuff. Director Andrew Dominic even added a "gang rape scene" to it. "People love this, don't they?" he said starkly.

This kind of rude and vulgar imagination is the intuitive impression left by Marilyn Monroe after being sexualized her whole life.

In fact, it was only when these photos, taken by John Vachon and Eve Arnold for Magnum Photography, were put in front of people, that they were willing to admit that it is salon photography, mass media and collective imagination that shaped Marilyn Monroe into what she is now.

2. Shaping of film and television roles

Her acting career is just a footnote to her actual job, which was modeling.

As an actress, Marilyn Monroe's performance was relatively monotonous. She did not take on difficult roles, nor contribute a high level of performance.

In How to Marry a Millionaire and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Marilyn Monroe sat the gold-digger template for future actresses.

In films like Bus Stop, The Big River, The Seven Year Itch or The Dragon and the Phoenix, the director is merely manipulating Marilyn Monroe as a puppet. In these films, she did not play any characters with unique personalities or emotions.

Especially in Seven Year Itch, Marilyn Monroe’s shot of wind blowing her skirt, pushed this kind of idiosyncrasy to the acme, which contains sex appeal, eroticism and beauty, and found a balance between concealment and non-concealment.

Later, this scene was reenacted by countless people, there's even sculptures and paintings all around the world.

If Marilyn Monroe had a special role,that would be her portrayal of femme fatale in 1953's Niagara.

In this movie, she tries to kill her husband alongside her lover. However, she ends up killing both her lover and herself.

Although the film is not well-known, it excavates Marilyn Monroe's deeper actor attributes besides her sex appeal. According to one tidbit, after watching the film, Hitchcock thought about working with Marilyn Monroe, but in the end he gave up because he was afraid Marilyn Monroe's temperament would bring disastrous consequences to his film.

People wanted her to be sexy, but they didn’t want her sexyness to be her only attribute. But when she showed other qualities, the market only highlighted her physical appearance.

Marilyn Monroe, who died at the age of 36, may not have waited for the day when she could pick complicated roles at will. What would a multi-faceted Marilyn Monroe look like nowadays? The answer will remain in the imagination of a small number of people forever.

She didn't get the appreciation she deserved while she was alive, but hey, at least now people see her for what she really was!

In the end, in the oppression of capital and the exploitation of popular culture, she lost the multi-faceted nature of a woman and was shaped into a sex symbol of a single blonde beauty.