Marilyn Monroe - a mixture of glamour and fragility

Erica von Moeller, director and professor of audiovisual media design, and her student Mona Keßler on the 100th birthday of a Hollywood icon

Norma Jean Baker, better known as Marilyn Monroe, was born 100 years ago on 1 June 1926 and remains an eternal icon to this day. How is that?

Erica von Moeller/Mona Keßler: In the 1950s, Marilyn Monroe embodied the American dream: youth, glamour, sensuality. Scenes such as her appearance in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" or the song she performed, "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" - characterised an image that is still considered the epitome of classic Hollywood aesthetics today. This image was deliberately curated: blonde hair, red lipstick and sparkling costumes.
Her public image stood in stark contrast to her real life, which was characterised by an unstable childhood and psychological stress. She grew up in changing foster families and homes in an environment characterised by mental illness, neglect, abuse and constant relationship breakdowns. These early traumas formed the core of her later emotional vulnerability and lifelong mental health problems.
This mixture of glamour and fragility, fame and transience, etc. made her a figure with whom people could identify and who also functioned as a projection screen. From Madonna to Ikkimel, many artists still refer to Marilyn Monroe today - as an icon, as a myth, as a symbol of femininity, fame, vulnerability and media staging. In this sense, she is a cultural symbol that embodies glamour, tragedy and the power of the media. Her history, her images and her artistic treatment (particularly through Andy Warhol screen prints) have inscribed her in the collective consciousness. Her image functions in fashion, art, advertising, feminist debates and pop culture alike. Every generation rediscovers "their" Marilyn - sometimes as a sex symbol, sometimes as a victim, sometimes as a feminist figure, sometimes as a pop icon.

Even 64 years after her death, Monroe is still present in the media landscape. Where can we find her?

von Moeller/Keßler: That's right, Marilyn Monroe regularly appears in new documentaries, biographies or series about the 1950s and 1960s - often as a reference figure for fame, glamour and the mechanics of the media. The Netflix film Blonde (2022) shows how strongly Monroe functions as a projection screen. It is far more than a classic biopic and tells of violence and exploitation with a haunting visual design that revives real photos of Monroe with scenes from her life, emphasising the dark and voyeuristic.
Monroe is also regularly the subject of major exhibitions. Currently, the exhibition "Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon" at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles (31 May 2026 - 28 February 2027) is particularly visible. Original costumes, photographs, letters and personal items are on display here, shedding light on Monroe as a strategic shaper of her own image. It becomes clear just how much she was able to utilise her public relations as a total work of art with fashion and performance with remarkable sophistication. Far from being merely a product of the studio system, the exhibition positions Monroe as a visionary co-creator of her own image.

There are various aspects of her life that are repeatedly taken up in the media at different times. The "blonde" effect or her fashion and style. Is that timeless, so to speak?

von Moeller/Keßler: Exactly, Marilyn Monroe is not just a historical figure, but a permanently reproduced cultural symbol that can be reproduced endlessly. Her face has been graphically simplified, emotionally charged and culturally coded, making it memorable as a brand. This makes her a motif that appears again and again in art, advertising and social media - much like Elvis, Che Guevara or Audrey Hepburn.
Marilyn Monroe has also managed to inspire many artists to reference her. Her style continues to inspire the fashion world. Monroe is regarded as a vintage and fashion icon whose outfits and silhouettes are repeatedly revisited in contemporary collections. She is therefore not a static monument, but a cultural chameleon that changes with the times without losing its recognisability.
Moreover, many of the films in which she has appeared and the images she has been portrayed in are often prime examples of the "male gaze". The term describes the predominant heterosexual, male narrative perspective in film, television, advertising and art, which relegates women to the role of passive objects and focuses more on the appearance and attractiveness of women rather than making them deeper, capable subjects.
In this sense, Marilyn Monroe functions as a mirror in which every era recognises its own themes. In the wake of the #MeToo movement, Monroe's story can also be seen as an example of the abuse of power and male domination in Hollywood. Along with this, she functions as an example of media criticism, precisely because she was exposed to a massive paparazzi culture. She was constantly followed by photographers - on film sets, in public, outside her home and even in vulnerable moments such as after hospital stays. This early form of modern celebrity stalking strongly characterised her public life.
A culture that has changed in the age of social media, as many celebrities and artists can now share insights into their lives themselves, taking the wind out of the paparazzi's sails to some extent. Overall, however, the problem remains of how to protect personal rights if images of celebrities continue to be produced and published using questionable means.

Many brands continue to use the Monroe core or their beauty trend. However, these days we often talk about rebranding because her brand and image have changed. She is no longer just the blonde ditz and vulnerable victim, she is also a smart businesswoman with her own production company. That also enhances a brand, doesn't it?

von Moeller/Keßler: Exactly, the old Hollywood narrative - naive, sexy, vulnerable - is no longer relevant today. Brands that want to continue to use Monroe have to retell her: as a woman who consciously steered her career. As one of the first actresses who rebelled against studio contracts and even actively negotiated her roles and fees. This perspective fits in perfectly with modern brand values such as empowerment, self-determination and professionalism

In 1954, she founded her own film production company "Marilyn Monroe Productions" with the aim of freeing herself from the gagging contracts of the major studios and having more influence over her artistic work and her roles. A step that more and more female filmmakers are also taking today in order to change the male-dominated structures of the film business and to be able to tell their own perspectives. Parallels to these developments can also be recognised in the world of music, with pop icons such as Taylor Swift taking back the rights to their work.
However, parts of this should also be viewed critically. For example, Monroe and her style are also very popular on the internet with so-called "tradwives", whose style is often strongly orientated towards the 1950s and who are frequently associated with conservative to right-wing movements. In their world view and the messages they convey to their audience, feminist positions usually have no place due to clear, "traditional" role allocations and a binary gender system. They are an observable symptom of a time in which feminist perspectives and lifestyles that have been fought for are not a matter of course, but values that have to be upheld and strengthened every day against right-wing and misogynistic forces.

She is actively marketed on social media by the Authentic Brands Group (ABG) as the official estate manager. It has millions of followers on Instagram and TikTok. 60% of its target group is between the ages of 18 and 35, so there's a lot of money to be made from the dead, right?

von Moeller/Keßler: A living celebrity can have scandals, make unpopular decisions or go out of fashion.

A dead icon, on the other hand, is stable, controllable and perfectly curatable.

After the death of Lee Strasberg, Marilyn Monroe's main heir, the rights passed to his wife Anna Strasberg and were later sold to the Authentic Brands Group. As a result, Monroe's "estate" is now in the hands of a corporate organisation with no personal connection to her. ABG operates official social media accounts that use Monroe's image, voice and personality to promote products, brands and campaigns.

In doing so, ABG has turned her legacy into a contemporary lifestyle brand that works for young target groups as well as nostalgic fans. It is a cultural symbol, an aesthetic brand, a digital influencer and therefore a commercial machine that harbours no risks. This makes it extremely attractive for brands.

In 2024, an AI-generated, 'hyper-real' version of Marilyn Monroe was unveiled, capable of chatting to fans in real time, smiling and responding in Monroe's voice. Personalised AI films are coming, but they're every cinema fan's nightmare, aren't they?

von Moeller/Keßler: Yes, the idea of an AI-generated, hyper-real Marilyn Monroe who smiles, talks and chats is indeed a cultural shock and an ethical nightmare for many people. We are at a point where we have to decide what film art is and who owns a face when the person behind it is long dead.

Because when dead actors are resurrected, a dangerous precedent is set: who decides which roles they "play"? Who decides what they say? Who decides how they are portrayed? And who can instrumentalise this person for their own purposes and messages? The deceased person behind it can be given roles and positions can be put into their mouth that they themselves might never have held. This raises the question of which ethical boundaries are being crossed and to what extent a person can be posthumously robbed of their own positions and their work for economic purposes. It is no longer the artist - it is a company.

Film is an art form that has always been closely interwoven with craftsmanship and the technical advances of its time. This can be seen in editing, set design and, of course, camera work, for example, when it became possible to shoot digitally rather than on film stock and when practical effects were increasingly replaced by CGI (Computer Generated Imagery). Each of these developments naturally brought with it its own debates and criticism, but at the same time, as a creative filmmaker, you had and still have the choice to consciously decide in favour of or against certain design options.
The fact that AI in film will greatly change and influence so many different creative areas and professions means that we are perhaps dealing with a kind of novelty here, the consequences of which cannot yet be fully assessed and which will require us to rethink the concept of creative work. Here, too, there must be no pressure to move and it must remain possible to consciously decide against the use of these techniques. This year, for example, the Cannes Film Festival announced a ban on AI for films in the official competition. And of course, cases of directors and actors whose copyrighted works are used by companies to train their AI models without their consent are also worrying.

Marilyn Monroe is still a lucrative name for licensing today and regularly appears in documentaries, films, biographies and art exhibitions. What significance does she have in the world of filmmaking today?

von Moeller/Keßler: Marilyn Monroe is no longer an active star, she is a reference point and a touchstone for how we talk about fame, femininity, staging and Hollywood itself. Her significance is not nostalgic, but structural.

This makes Monroe a model case that can still be used today to illustrate central mechanisms of the film business:

how studios create stars, how images are constructed and controlled, how sexualisation and marketing work

and how fame and psychological pressure are connected.

Uwe Blass

The director and author Erica von Moeller studied fine arts in Mainz and communication sciences in Frankfurt before graduating in film at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. She has been making films in various genres and formats since 2001. As a media artist, she develops exhibition projects at the interface between moving image, space and sound. After various teaching assignments in Cologne, Berlin and Trier, she has been a professor of audiovisual media design at the University of Wuppertal since 2011.

Mona Keßler is a research assistant in the audiovisual media design programme.