Jill Lynne: Marilyn Monroe's Complicated Legacy to Women

Marilyn Monroe and moi shared a bed.

... Well, not really. During a brief affair in East Hampton, I wound up in the one-time rented cottage of the late great Playwright Arthur Miller and his then-wife, the one and only Marilyn Monroe. As she might whisper "Some Like It Hot", and so for one steamy night we did experience that infamous ambiance.

Yes as a young'un I, too, was beautiful, they said, but also "brainy," and coming from a feminist-oriented Mum, I wanted to play it "straight" as in straight-forward. No "Dumb-Blonde" was I!!!

I didn't want to allure men -- or anyone -- by my curvaceous torso, ample "girls," tiny waist, large baby blues or naturally platinum blonde hair. I wanted to be appreciated for who I was, what I knew, what I might contribute, my intellect, my spirituality and my God-granted talents -- my visual art, my writing and my serious aspirations to make the world a better place.

Marilyn made it tough for women like me. It was an ongoing struggle -- especially with men -- to be taken seriously. I would attempt to engage in deep vis--vis, eye-contact conversation, only to notice meandering eyes no longer fixed on mine but having drop-down to boob-level.

The very sensibility Marilyn displayed -- alluring but devious and manipulative, infantilizing, playing the wounded one, wide-eyed innocent, helpless and hapless, that of a baby babe -- were the very behaviors that we, the young'uns of my generation, were protesting against, striving not to be. Her very behavior reenforced the abhorrent sexist stereotypes of women! She was the very antithesis of what the newer Women's Movement and Gloria Steinem embodied.

A side-casualty of "Marilyn" was that many of our fine feminists still inculcated the insidious belief that a woman might only achieve great things through her appearance. The secondary effect? that Green-Eyed-Devil, Jealousy! Women metaphorically stabbing each other in the back (or, perhaps a more fitting metaphor, directly in the chest). D! ivisiven ess instead of unity!

I poignantly recall that even as late as the 1980's, during the opening of my solo exhibition at the International Center of Photography following a "Popular Photography" cover featuring my 3m Photo-Art, someone I considered to be a dear girl-friend, accosted me saying "And who did you sleep with to get this!"

Stilettos treading across my very heart!

I almost absurdly (perhaps foolishly, in retrospect) went out of my way to never sleep with anyone who might assist me professionally. I had my self-respect, my pride and I intuitively knew I was good. I never wanted to be accused of "sleeping my way to the top!" (Wherever that might be ... ) My friend's remark set me back years. Made me back-up out of the spotlight.

Marilyn also perpetuated the myth of the languid, languishing, tragically ill female, the beautiful, ailing women gracefully sprawled accross beds and divans - a la reclining Odalisque. In Marilyn's world, the image was changed to the pill-popping Star, always a bit sleepy, horizontal in bed with that barely audible hushed voice.

They say that if it were not for her untimely death at an early age, Marilyn, who was deemed intelligent and an excellent "Method" actress, might have become an even bigger "Star"... Well, perhaps. She certainly exuded some rare magic that made her fascinating to the masses and more.

For all these reasons, the film "My Week with Marilyn" reinforces my skepticism about her legacy to women.