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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 21, 1986)
\ K I A i \ 1 I K I \ I \ V I \ I BOOKS A Feminist’s ‘Marilyn’ Gloria Steinem explores the real woman that hid inside the bombshell persona For many, Gloria Steinem remains the most risible feminist of her generation At 52. she still edits at Ms magazine, which she helped found in 1971. Recently Steinem published her third book, Marilyn (Hen ry Holt 1X2 pages $24.95), a biographical essay on Marilyn Monroe with accompany ing photos by George Harris. Paula Chin of Newsweek On Campus spoke to Steinem about her recent work and about the current status of the women s mocement. NEWSWEEK: What attract** you to Marilyn? STEINEM: Where to begin? There were many fascinating questions and mysteries. Why is she so appealing, and as well known now as she was during her lifetime, even among young people who may never have seen one of her movies? She is a cult figure whom we see in advertisements, memora bilia, imitators like Madonna. She's very current—why? Why do men and women feel so protective toward her? Why this obsession—and not just here but in r.u rope'.’ There were all these public ques tions, and there were also private ques tions I am certainly old enough to have seen many of her films, and I wasembar rassed by her: she seemed u victim, vul nerable, a joke; she was what 1 feared a woman had tube It wasn't until later— and courtesy of whatever you wunt to cull the change and understanding that comes from feminism—that I began to realize that to blame her for that was blunting the victim, that she was play ing a role women were rewarded for playing So I became much more curious about the real person, the real Norma Jeane inside Marilyn. Do you consider this kook to ko a feminist response to largely sosist biographies? Yes, though 1 hasten to add that men can be just us feminist us women for instance, Norman Rosten, a poet and friend of hers, wrote a very good book But on the other end of the spectrum is the Norman Mailer book, which is more about Norman and his fantasies of a sexual goddess than about Marilyn. While that is part of her appeal, that isn’t the reason women have rescue fantasies about her We tend to wonder if we might not have helped her, what would have happened if she had had women friends, if she hadn’t died before there was some kindofsupport for women being individuals. She wanted so much to be taken seriously; her last words in one of her last interviews were exactly that: 'Don’t make me a joke'.” Don't you tool, however, that there are contradictions between the sexy photos in the hook and yoer feminist text? I don't think there is as much acontradic tion as there would have been if we'd used some of the photographs of her that have appeared in the past. These are 'Don't make me a Joke': Monroe THOMAS VICTOR Icon on icon: Steinem analyzes sex goddess somewhat more sensitive and pensive. There is some contradiction—but there was for her, too; her insides and her out sides were different ... I can only hope that if people pick the book up for the wrong reasons they will come away with a different understanding of her. In the lest chapter ot the book you ask who might Marilyn be now. What is your answer? If she had lived to be 60, which she would have been now, she would have had to grow beyond, or lose some of her dependency on, her external, artificial self. Who would Norma Jeane have be come is the question ... 1 hope that the women's movement would have helped her refuse to be a victim. How do you regard tho state of the American women's movement today? I will generalize and take a histori cal view . . It was only half a century ago that women were still objects, were ownable, were still chattel. That is an extraordinary victory. Having won a legal identity, now we’re trying to get legal and social equality. I We're about 15 years into this wave, I we're just beginning In this beginning I we have accomplished a lot. First of I all, we have pretty much disproven the notion that women's |inferior| position