Marilyn

“Boys think girls are like books. If the cover doesn’t catch their eye they won’t bother to read what’s inside”.” – Marilyn Monroe

 “It’s all make-believe, isn’t it?”

A few days ago on HBO, I watched a movie on Marilyn Monroe. In the movie, Mira Sorvino who plays Marilyn has an alter ego, Norma Jean Baker, played by Ashley Judd. This alter ego represents the Marilyn before she became a star. She also represents Marilyn the insecure, the unloved, the questioning. This take on her biography was intriguing because now we are able to see and hear what was really going on in her mind and in her heart. And honestly, I didn’t really know much about her life so I was hooked.

Very early on, Marilyn had the makings of a star. Married early at the age of 16, she caught the admiration of the public by posing for an ad while working in a parachute factory. Her marriage, which was doomed from the start, quickly dissolved. After that, she went on to make a new name for herself, dyed her hair blond, and became the Marilyn Monroe that people know her now.

What really drew me to her was her candidness and vulnerability which she never tried to hide from the public. Considered a sex symbol, she said, “A sex symbol becomes a thing. I hate being a thing.” Her widely-publicized romances were her avenues to quench the feeling of being unwanted. Never having known her father, and being brought up in foster homes, she attached herself to marriage, to men and to short-lived affairs, to replace the longings of having a father and a mother. “I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.” She was battling with her inner demons, calling herself cheap, only good for one thing, and loved not for her talent. “Some people have been unkind. If I say I want to grow as an actress, they look at my figure. If I say I want to develop, to learn my craft, they laugh. Somehow they don’t expect me to be serious about my work. ” 

Her life on the outside shone, but deep inside she felt empty and insecure. She was not shy in saying she needed someone who would accept her for who she was. “I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.” 

At the age of 36, Marilyn Monroe was dead.

Hers was really a tragic story. What I got from the movie was a girl who hurt like everybody else. And her needs were very real and human to the core: the need to be loved, to be understood, to be taken seriously and not treated as a thing. Her fame brought her a sense of helplessness in that people were making her out to be some character which wasn’t really her. “I’ve never fooled anyone. I’ve let people fool themselves. They didn’t bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn’t argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn’t.” 

She aptly summed up her life with this statement, “Hollywood’s a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents.”

Tragic, isn’t it? I don’t doubt her difficult childhood led her to become like this. She saw the world differently because she grew up in a place of lack, of need, of want. But the same thing could be said for all of us. None of us have perfect childhood memories. I come from a broken family myself. It is only by God’s grace that I am who I am now. And I owe a lot to how my mom brought us up, in the midst of separation and paternal abandonment. She brought us up in a godly home, led us to know who Jesus Christ is, and gave us the freedom to discover the world on our own.

Despite that, I feel for her. Her longings are the same longings all of us express, whether to the world, or just to ourselves. Everyone has an inner battle going on. I only wish people would turn to God and find in Him what the world will never be able to give: security, love, joy, peace and eternal happiness.