“Monroe was no meek studio star. She tested the weakened boundaries that governed star contracts in the early ‘50s, and fled Hollywood, formed her own production company, and chose her own projects. Monroe also “acted out what mattered” to people in the 1950s — which is to say, she acted out sex — and did so in a manner that seemed to heighten and soothe anxieties about sexuality during the era. As a result, she also proved a singular challenge to the gossip industry, which had little experience in processing an image of which sexuality was so forthrightly a part.”
A fascinating look at Marilyn and the gossip rags, part of a thesis on ‘Problem Stars’ by Anne Helen Petersen
