Now, I’m not actually saying I agree with this analysis (although, in the immortal words of Atrios, “you link it, you own it”), but I found Tanya Gold’s analysis of the latest Vanity Fair Hollywood spread interesting:
When Marilyn Monroe lay dying in Hollywood, I doubt she guessed her poisonous legacy. Marilyn lived in the era of wriggle, casting couch and actress-as-available-flesh, and she embodied it. No one seemed to care whether JFK’s “lollipop” could act; they just wanted the glistening pout. The planet may have changed since 1962 but Tinsel Town hasn’t. The proof will be staring out of the shelves in WH Smith on Friday when the March “Hollywood” edition of Vanity Fair – the glossy with a frontal lobe – will be ready for its close-up.
The cover shot, which was taken by Annie Leibovitz, has already been splashed across the planet, to much production of saliva, jealousy and despair. It features 10 successful and nearly successful actresses in an almost Last Supper-like tableau (except the apostles are thinner, prettier and less obsessed with Jesus Christ).
Like the William Thackeray novel it is named after, this Vanity Fair is a loveless world. It has imposed a brutal hierarchy on its exquisite models, who flew into Culver City, California in December for the shoot, that is enough to make a minger smile. Don’t be fooled by the puff that this edition of the magazine has 10 cover girls: the photograph has been divided into three smaller tableaux and folded over twice. Only Uma Thurman, Cate Blanchett and Kate Winslet pout out from the cover proper; they won the Celebrity Death Match and are in poll position. Claire Danes, Scarlett Johansson, Rosario Dawson and Ziyi Zhang are folded over behind it in a first runners-up cover. Meanwhile Kerry Washington, Kate Bosworth and Sienna Miller are stuck in the second runners’ up section of the triptych, a vacuous, lipglossed no man’s land buried between the handbag and perfume adverts.
Her descriptions of what the actresses on the cover are doing or look like are pretty funny. I will have to recheck this story when I receive my Vanity Fair. Yes, I still get it. Yes, most of it nonsense, but the glitzy stuff sells essays by the likes of James Wolcott or investigative reporting by Eric Schlosser. Also: glitzy stuff. It’s one-stop shopping!
She lost me at, “No one seemed to care whether JFK’s “lollipop” could act; they just wanted the glistening pout.”
It’s her imitators that fit that image. Marilyn was divine, and I can’t imagine movies like Some Like It Hot without her.
I do believe this is a case of twisted hindsight fueled by a sense of undeserved and jaded superiority. Bah. Humbug.
I’m a huge fan of Vanity Fair as well. I remember ages ago you had a definition of how you prepare a VF for reading. I’ve been doing the same thing for years, but now I call it “Vanity Fairing” while I’m ripping out all of the ads.
wow, talk about an oversensitive femminist trying to find the deeper meaning of a harmless photo!! The only thing pornographic about the picture is the article written about it.
We had to study that article for english. I don’t really agree with her view. I think she maybe jelous
it didnt really tell me about how marilyn monroe died. im doind a power point presentation for my history class and i need to know some information. and the information that i already have already explained what you kinda told me. i need some more information please.
thank you