Marilyn Monroe: Icon of Desire

Irina Pino

HAVANA TIMES — On August 5th 1962, you were declared dead, alleged suicide, due to your long history of suffering bouts of depression. The sex icon, the woman split between loneliness and loss, was just a naked body, a beautiful body that rotted on the inside, like it was her inevitable fate.

The pose of desire which became a manipulated body, a strange end which left so many unanswered questions in its wake, with her troubled story in the background, which – up until now – we still don’t know.

It seems that adversity stood in your way and wanted to erase your name, dark horsemen didn’t want you to continue on living, they tried to silence you with barbiturates and alcohol, they were your allies in the past.

All of your films have your personal signature, even though you were hard to work with, you forgot lines from the script, you arrived late on set or you failed to show up because of real and imaginary illnesses; however, you managed to film in the end, and your legacy remains intact.

Your films were also doors that allowed you to escape to another dimension, into an environment that film created, to be another woman, cheekier, the glamorous woman in luxurious surroundings. There, you didn’t suffer, you were able to reach the state of freedom you needed, you held onto love, the attention that you were tirelessly seeking.

Getting dressed, putting on your make up, that was your process to get into character, flirting was a part of this imaginary game. Did you dream of anything more?

You were very good at appearing vulnerable, but you weren’t so fragile like you led us to believe, you captured the intangible, a blink, a flash with your strength… which remains in the eyes of those of us who still look at you.

Marilyn Monroe, you’re important, not just because of your physical beauty, there was something more in your ambition: complicity, wanting to be friends, to please others. A lot of the time, you gave without receiving anything in return, like a present which you gave in silence.