Marilyn or Norma Jeane?

‘Was “Marilyn,” the personality and persona brought to life by the star’s younger self, Norma Jeane Mortenson, a real person? Or was she simply a manufactured image?’ (This is a quote from Smithsonian magazine)

I once heard a story about her that stuck with me… Norma Jeane was out with a friend and asked her if she wanted to see “Marilyn”. Right then and there, she transformed – Norma Jeane became Marilyn. It wasn’t the hair, the clothes, the makeup… it was an attitude. The manner in which she carried herself. A way of being.

Sarah Churchwell, in The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe: “Monroe is not best understood as only an image, or as an ‘artificial creation of a woman.’ … Something that is not natural can still be real: It has been made. One of the questions the stories about Marilyn’s life beg, therefore, is how much any of us is natural, whether any identity is not made.”

This is the femme fatale philosophy – the “secret” identity the you (or I) create is real. It doesn’t look or sound quite like the “you” that people have come to know, but that doesn’t mean that embodying your femme fatale persona makes you fake. In fact, it is an opportunity to explore your fantasy image of yourself and your life. It is a way to bring that fantasy into reality. And in doing so, you shift your reality.

However your inner femme fatale shows up, it is going to take hard work to bring her fully into being. “I knew how third-rate I was,” Marilyn wrote in her memoirs. “I could actually feel my lack of talent, as if it were cheap clothes I was wearing inside. But, my god, how I wanted to learn, to change, to improve.” And so she did.

You have to really really want it. You will stumble, you will slide backwards. You will fail. And then you will fail again. And again. It’s hard work to build a person(ality). It means letting go of a bunch of stories about how things are and how they are “supposed” to be. It’s embracing those parts of yourself that polite society wants you to hide away. It takes strength and courage and resilience.

And then, after all that work, you will still face the same challenges and temptations. The same wants and needs and desires. That stuff doesn’t disappear. But it’s influence transforms into opportunities to be and do better. So you take the struggles that would have overwhelmed you before and you do better this time. And even better the next time.

Was/is Marilyn a role model as a femme fatale? Yes and no. She was very much human, and made some decisions that could have been better. But, to me, her ability to shift from Norma Jeane to Marilyn (and her ability to just BE Marilyn) is endlessly fascinating.