Core Post 1 - Lauren Sullivan

I found it interesting how the star images of Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, and Marilyn Monroe were all carefully cultivated during the same time, yet were so distinctive from one another. Thomas Harris outlines the different personas of Kelly and Monroe in “The Building of Popular Images.” Kelly was genteel, elegant, and ladylike, while Monroe was known for her breathiness, voluptuous body, and sex appeal. Hepburn, as discussed in Brown’s “Audrey Hepburn: The Film Star as Event,” came across as gamine, European, androgynous, unique, and of ambiguous nationality. Both readings outline the importance of how the star’s images were publicized to men, and in this regard, too, the three women differed: Grace embodied “man’s ideal longings within family structure” (Harris 43), Monroe was the “symbolic object of illicit male desire” (Harris 43), and Hepburn possessed a “European frailty” that “attracts older, American men” (Brown 137).

The star images of Hepburn, Kelly, and Monroe all fulfill very different societal needs in America in the 1950s. What is similar are the tactics used in creating these images. All three used real, biographical information for their publicity. Hepburn grew up in wartime Europe, which was used to make her an embodiment of the world’s lasting memory of the war. Monroe had no family, and this was used to make her seem attainable to men. Kelly came from wealth; this bolstered her genteel nature and, when emphasized that her family’s money was the product of hard work, was used to appeal to traditional American ideals. These stars were also built by careful, intentional publicity by their studios. While Monroe and Kelly followed a controlled timeline of being “discovered” by a studio and appearing in publications prior to their filmic debuts, Hepburn was discovered by more “genuine” means, but her image was no less crafted and marketed.

I feel Marylin Monroe embodies American 1950s sexuality, Grace Kelly embodies a traditional ideal of femininity and respectability, and Audrey Hepburn departs from both notions in some way, identifying with individuality and androgyny as permitted by America’s increased fascination with Europe. A distinction between high and low class forms between Hepburn/Kelly and Monroe. Hepburn (haute couture, European, holy) and Kelly (wealth, purity, elegance) were able to last and age, warranting respect and admiration. Monroe’s image, conversely, was objectified and limited to her sexuality. She never received this respect or admiration; this can be seen in her roles like in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. In this film, she is painted as simultaneously ditsy and dumb as well as materialistic and conniving. She is always a series of contradictions (like sexy and childlike), but none of these contradictory traits are ever deemed positive or respectable. While the three stars' personal lives contributed to their personas, some aspects of Monroe, like her intelligence, could not be embraced or coexist with her image. While Hepburn deviated from some traditional American ideals of femininity, Monroe shows how limited this framework of femininity, and female sexuality, truly was.