Dispatches from Under the Table

Psst, hey, Marilyn Monroe’s image as a freewheeling sexpot was a carefully constructed lie. The real Marilyn Monroe was a roiling tragedy and her life was an indictment of our society as a whole. She was orphaned after her mother had a schizophrenic breakdown, bounced around between foster homes where she was sexually abused, and married a 21-year-old at 16 to get out of being sent to an orphanage. Hugh Hefner published nude photos of her without her consent that were taken when she was 23 and desperate. She suffered severe anxiety and depression, which she coped with by drinking and using barbiturates, and was already a full-blown addict when she became famous in the mid-50s. Her career was one of exploitation, condescension and alienation, and she killed herself at 36. That Hugh Hefner, a man who was at best an unpleasant footnote in her life, felt entitled to be buried next to her is one more humiliation in a pop cultural landscape we should all be ashamed of.

She deserves better

Marilyn was a founding member of the Hollywood branch of the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy and had lifelong left-wing political views with a particular emphasis on racial equality. She formed her own independent production company that survived for several years and earned a credit as an executive producer on several films. Additionally, she was not only concerned for workers rights, she acted for them, using her own fame to stop staff being unfairly sacked from several of her films. She was a loyal, kind woman and her early death remains a great tragedy. Worse still, as OP notes, is the co-opting of her image by exactly the sort of people she would have loathed in life.

so you’re telling me that “stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni” would be like saying “wrote a G on his belt and called it gucci”

that’s…a pretty good analogy actually

Seeing my notifications get flooded with this every July 4th is the only thing I respect about America

KILLING STANCE: TEN SOUL RENDING CLAWS

i love sluts i love perverts i love dykes i love faggots i love aromantics i love freaks i love librarians i love ibuprofen

i cant believe that there's still gamergate STANK on games that women enjoy. NASTY misogyny residue. stardew valley is in fact a video game. animal crossing is also a video game. so are otome games and dating sims and twee little cozy games. sometimes a bitch doesnt wanna play bloodborne that shit's hard

guys who mainly play 2k and fortnite will still be like oh youre not a real gamer for having 1000 hours in stardew. mother fucker you're larping as a basketball player

I like when fic length/book length/movie length is its own punchline

Leave your mark on the world #throwup