realityisalways Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 I know Madonna has used Marilyn imagery as an homage and also to make a point. Is there any interview on video or in magazine where Madonna has talked about her use of Marilyn imagery? I'm tired of haters accusing Madonna of copying Marilyn when I know that she has done it intentionally in order to make a statement, so I would like to gather receipts in this thread where Madonna speaks about it so I can use it. I know the Vanity Fair Shoot where she recreates Iconic Marilyn photos was done on intentionally but does she speak about it during the interview? Has she ever spoken about why she channeled Marilyn during 'Material Girl' or her Oscar's performance? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
le smoking Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 yeah I think that Vanity Fair interview is on allaboutmadonna.com. I think she talks about Marilyn in her 1987 Rolling Stone article too, but I can't really remember Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realityisalways Posted April 21, 2014 Author Share Posted April 21, 2014 Rolling Stone 1987Those who come in close contact with her not only have to adjust to the resonance of her beauty and fame – which can be considerable – but also to all those past images that her beauty echoes. There are moments when Madonna can recall Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich or Jean Harlow – blonde legends with whom she clearly shares a bit of aura and purpose.like Monroe, Madonna is bent on epitomizing and championing a certain vision of female sexuality, and also like Monroe, she is often damned and dismissed as an artist for doing so. Whether this connection is apparent to the audience gathered here in Tokyo is hard to say, though this much is sure: in that instant in "Live to Tell" when Madonna rises from the floor and stands with her head erect, a decidedly feminine yowl – in fact, the loudest roar of the evening – greets the motion. It is an acclamation that will be repeated on several other nights in the weeks ahead, as the tour makes its way around America. Madonna will still have her detractors, but somehow little girls across the world seem to recognize a genuine hero when they see one.[/size]The next evening, aboard a plane en route to Los Angeles, Madonna seems surprised, even a tad miffed, to learn that her performance of "Live to Tell" may be seen as a commentary on Marilyn Monroe. Apparently, she never intended for the portrait that accompanies the song onstage to bear such a striking resemblance to Monroe."Actually," she says, "I think ‘Live to Tell’ is about something very different. It’s about being strong, and questioning whether you can be that strong, but ultimately surviving."But she’s aware, isn’t she, that many people see certain similarities between her and Monroe? After all, she was the one who deliberately evoked Marilyn in the "Material Girl" video. And both artists inspire arguments about sexual values and share a certain allure."Oh, sure," she says. "I mean, at first I enjoyed the comparisons between me and her. I saw it all as a compliment: she was very sexy – extremely sexy – and she had blond hair, and so on and so forth. Then it started to annoy me, because nobody wants to be continuously compared to someone else. You want people to see that you have a statement of your own to make."But yes, I do feel something for Marilyn Monroe. A sympathy. Because in those days, you were really a slave to the whole Hollywood machinery, and unless you had the strength to pull yourself out of it, you were just trapped. I think she really didn’t know what she was getting herself into and simply made herself vulnerable, and I feel a bond with that. I’ve certainly felt that at times – I’ve felt an invasion of privacy and all that – I’ve felt an invasion of privacy and all that – but I’m determined never to let it get me down. Marilyn Monroe was a victim, and I’m not. That’s why there’s no comparison." http://allaboutmadonna.com/madonna-interviews-articles/rolling-stone-september-1987 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSD Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 9:58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J24Mlh2hf0M Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IsaacHarris Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 "I’d love to be a memorable figure in the history of entertainment in some sexual, comic, tragic way. I’d like to leave the impression that Marilyn Monroe did, to be able to arouse so many different feelings in people." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realityisalways Posted April 21, 2014 Author Share Posted April 21, 2014 Thanks. Interesting, In all of them she doesn't really acknowledge the obvious drawing from Marilyn imagery, which is kinda weird. I also skimmed through the Vanity Fair article where she recreates the Marilyn photos and there's no mention of it http://allaboutmadonna.com/madonna-interviews-articles/vanity-fair-april-1991 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzy Jan Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 From Time Magazine in 1985, Madonna mentions Marilyn as one of her idols. IDOLS. Growing up I thought nuns were very beautiful. For several years I wanted to be a nun, and I got very close to some of them in grade school and junior high. I saw them as really pure, disciplined, sort of aboveaverage people. They never wore any makeup and they just had these really serene faces. Nuns are sexy. I also loved Carole Lombard and Judy Holliday and Marilyn Monroe. They were all just incredibly funny, and they were silly and sweet and they were girls and they were feminine and sexy. I just saw myself in them, my funniness and my need to boss people around and at the same time be taken care of. My girlishness. My knowingness and my innocence. Both. And I remember Nancy Sinatra singing These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ and that made one hell of an impression on me. And when she said, “Are you ready, boots, start walkin’,” it was like, yeah, give me some of those gogo boots. I want to walk on a few people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryan Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 I don't see why you need to prove anything. Just let those kids be. Who cares. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realityisalways Posted April 21, 2014 Author Share Posted April 21, 2014 I don't see why you need to prove anything. Just let those kids be. Who cares. I don't see why you need to judge what I do, I simply want to know, let me be. I care. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realityisalways Posted April 21, 2014 Author Share Posted April 21, 2014 From Time Magazine in 1985, Madonna mentions Marilyn as one of her idols. IDOLS. Growing up I thought nuns were very beautiful. For several years I wanted to be a nun, and I got very close to some of them in grade school and junior high. I saw them as really pure, disciplined, sort of aboveaverage people. They never wore any makeup and they just had these really serene faces. Nuns are sexy. I also loved Carole Lombard and Judy Holliday and Marilyn Monroe. They were all just incredibly funny, and they were silly and sweet and they were girls and they were feminine and sexy. I just saw myself in them, my funniness and my need to boss people around and at the same time be taken care of. My girlishness. My knowingness and my innocence. Both. And I remember Nancy Sinatra singing These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ and that made one hell of an impression on me. And when she said, “Are you ready, boots, start walkin’,” it was like, yeah, give me some of those gogo boots. I want to walk on a few people. Thanks, I just want to find something about the 'blonde bimbo' stereotype, I know she's mentioned it, maybe not directly mentioned Marilyn but it's obvious who she was talking about, I think it might be in one of those VH1 specials, 'Driven' perhaps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LikeAPrayer Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 10:00 in When I'm dead, they'll finally kiss my ass. Isn't that how it works? When Marilyn Monroe was alive, they were so vicious and cruel to her - they ripped her to shreds. They wouldn't give it up to her in any way, shape, or form. Then when she died, it was just like "Oh, she's a comedic genius!" I mean, excuse me? I mean, they do that to everybody, they did it to Vincent Van Gogh. I mean, history just repeats itself over and over that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzy Jan Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 Whoopie is right though, there is nothing you need to prove. Stars often do photo spreads imaging other stars. I mean there have been plenty of girls doing the same thing - channelling Madonna. Lindsay Lohan, Skye Ferreira, Georgia May Jagger and Kaley Cuoco are a few just off the top of my head. So many stars have done photo shoots using Marilyn imagery. Also imagery of lots of other stars as well. Only recently Jennifer Lopez did a photo session for W magazine channelling Elizabeth Taylor for example. Brigitte Bardot is another star who frequently has many other women use her image in photo sessions. Re the Material girl video, it was never hidden that Madonna was doing a version of Diamonds are a girls best friend from Gentlemen prefer blondes. It was entirely appropriate and a clever intelligent way of bringing out the meaning of the song Material Girl which criminally went over some people's heads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s@ndz Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 Madonna is a pop artist, creating music, movement and, of course, visuals as how a true pop artist does it. Referencing pop culture and its myriad of images both indelible or disposable or even the seemingly ordinary is at the core of pop art. The Marilyn image and its representation of beauty, glamour, vulnerability-- and even its ironic power-- and, ultimately, its symbolism of victimhood.. was ripe for a pop artist to explore. Warhol did it famously with his silkscreens, but only a pop star like Madonna can really explore it by "being it" (looking like Marilyn) and yet upending its established meaning/meanings thru the infusion of her (Madonna's) own personality or brand identity or aesthetic message. (Or even with yet another iconography-- Marlon Brando's-- as what she and Ritts fabulously did in the True Blue images) Thus, in the person of Madonna, the Marilyn image is drastically recast for the public creating a new representation. In Madonna, the Marilyn (or should I say, the JEAN HARLOW) archetype becomes a new, now self-empowered, self-gratifying, super smart (not dumb), yet still alluring and feminine (or partly masculine?) sex symbol. Thus Madonna is not just doing "homage", she's creating something new from something stock. This is what the others don't really get or understand, or if they do, they can't quite DO. Miley doing a Madonna in a magazine is just that, doing a Madonna, just dressing up (or down, lol); a verified NOTHING like Gaga for all her talk of pop art, cant even begin to walk it. All they do is mimicry or doing Halloween, which is not art. Maybe you know this already and I know you want direct quotes from Madonna on the modus of her art (esp. the use of Marilyn) and I dont have them, but just try saying to those people that Madonna does not copy but references Mariyln to come up with a new symbol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s@ndz Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 Madonna is a pop artist, creating music, movement and, of course, visuals as how a true pop artist does it. Referencing pop culture and its myriad of images both indelible or disposable or even the seemingly ordinary is at the core of pop art. The Marilyn image and its representation of beauty, glamour, vulnerability-- and even its ironic power-- and, ultimately, its symbolism of victimhood.. was ripe for a pop artist to explore. Warhol did it famously with his silkscreens, but only a pop star like Madonna can really explore it by "being it" (looking like Marilyn) and yet upending its established meaning/meanings thru the infusion of her (Madonna's) own personality or brand identity or aesthetic message. (Or even with yet another iconography-- Marlon Brando's-- as what she and Ritts fabulously did in the True Blue images) Thus, in the person of Madonna, the Marilyn image is drastically recast for the public creating a new representation. In Madonna, the Marilyn (or should I say, the JEAN HARLOW) archetype becomes a new, now self-empowered, self-gratifying, super smart (not dumb), yet still alluring and feminine (or partly masculine?) sex symbol. Thus Madonna is not just doing "homage", she's creating something new from something stock. This is what the others don't really get or understand, or if they do, they can't quite DO. Miley doing a Madonna in a magazine is just that, doing a Madonna, just dressing up (or down, lol); a verified NOTHING like Gaga for all her talk of pop art, cant even begin to walk it. All they do is mimicry or doing Halloween, which is not art. Maybe you know this already and I know you want direct quotes from Madonna on the modus of her art (esp. the use of Marilyn) and I dont have them, but just try saying to those people that Madonna does not copy but references Mariyln to come up with a new symbol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s@ndz Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 Can somebody pls erase my doubled post? Using mobile, i cant.. tnx! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roland Barthes Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realityisalways Posted April 21, 2014 Author Share Posted April 21, 2014 Madonna is a pop artist, creating music, movement and, of course, visuals as how a true pop artist does it. Referencing pop culture and its myriad of images both indelible or disposable or even the seemingly ordinary is at the core of pop art. The Marilyn image and its representation of beauty, glamour, vulnerability-- and even its ironic power-- and, ultimately, its symbolism of victimhood.. was ripe for a pop artist to explore. Warhol did it famously with his silkscreens, but only a pop star like Madonna can really explore it by "being it" (looking like Marilyn) and yet upending its established meaning/meanings thru the infusion of her (Madonna's) own personality or brand identity or aesthetic message. (Or even with yet another iconography-- Marlon Brando's-- as what she and Ritts fabulously did in the True Blue images) Thus, in the person of Madonna, the Marilyn image is drastically recast for the public creating a new representation. In Madonna, the Marilyn (or should I say, the JEAN HARLOW) archetype becomes a new, now self-empowered, self-gratifying, super smart (not dumb), yet still alluring and feminine (or partly masculine?) sex symbol. Thus Madonna is not just doing "homage", she's creating something new from something stock. This is what the others don't really get or understand, or if they do, they can't quite DO. Miley doing a Madonna in a magazine is just that, doing a Madonna, just dressing up (or down, lol); a verified NOTHING like Gaga for all her talk of pop art, cant even begin to walk it. All they do is mimicry or doing Halloween, which is not art. Maybe you know this already and I know you want direct quotes from Madonna on the modus of her art (esp. the use of Marilyn) and I dont have them, but just try saying to those people that Madonna does not copy but references Mariyln to come up with a new symbol. I understand this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nikki Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 she talked about marilyn and the MG video when it was out.. it was online somewhere a year ago or so.. but she directly mentioned marilyn and the movie and the whole ironic point of it. so yes she has directly credited her and the movie. but im not even sure she needed to as it was so obvious. there's a difference between copying things & denying it or doing it in a way that's so obvious that most people won't need explanation to get it. some movies or moments in pop culture are so well known that references are made and most people get it without further info. (unless they're culturally anal or hate M and use it against her like the monsters. who im sure you're referring to and why you're posting this.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coco Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 02:45 “Of course I’m fascinated by her like everybody else, but it’s more me paying homage to her. I don’t want to be Marilyn Monroe, I mean I want to live first of all and I want to be happy. […] I think her sexuality was a big part of her persona, I think people were rather obsessive about that and I can relate to that, so that’s why I make references to her in my performances and stuff.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coco Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 01:40 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shine Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 12'28" in : "She's dead and I'm alive" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scamper Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 About Madonna and Marilyn... Well, I grew up knowing who Marilyn Monroe was and when Madonna made "Material girl" everbody knew Marilyn was the inspiration for that video. Same when she played Marlene Dietrich or many other actresses so I think there's no need to say "Hey, this video is inspired by "Gentlemen prefer blondies" and things like that. The problem for me, now, is that people doesn't have the same culture we used to have. People forgets everything fast and anyone can say "Look, I'm very original" and Young people will believe it just because they don't know that it was done before by others. I think Madonna doesn't talk about it much because there's no need to do it. Everybody knows she was inspired by Marilyn, so why does she have to say in every interview that she did? If someone asks her for "Material girl" video she would say "It was inspired by "Diamond's are a girls best friend", she doesn't have a problem to recognize it. Same with the rest of her work and inspirations. I know Young people prefer to think that she "stole" her ideas from others, but that's not the point. She watches something that she likes and she makes her "Madonna versión" but she never says that her work is original when it isn't... That's why I respect her so much, because she doesn't try to make us believe that she created things that are just a new versión of something done before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bluejean Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 When have haters accused Madonna of copying Marilyn? What is this? 1987? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeakMaker Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 (edited) Every time i hear people trying the Marilyn Monroe talk again i just have to yawn.. i'm sorry but people have to put into their head that Marilyn Monroe was an actress and Madonna is a pop star. It's like comparing Martin Luther King to William Chruchill.. i mean Madonna would play up to the Marilyn Monroe image to make a point... but if you take away the bleached hairdo Madonna is still Madonna! And i lost counts how many times Madonna was asked about this Marilyn Monroe thing during interviews, etc.. and she was always gracious and sincere about it.. she certainly never said the comparisons were retarded! Edited April 21, 2014 by MeakMaker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nikki Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 01:40 ah that's the one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madonnasuperfan01 Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 Every time i hear people trying the Marilyn Monroe talk again i just have to yawn.. i'm sorry but people have to put into their head that Marilyn Monroe was an actress and Madonna is a pop star. It's like comparing Martin Luther King to William Chruchill.. i mean Madonna would play up to the Marilyn Monroe image to make a point... but if you take away the bleached hairdo Madonna is still Madonna! And i lost counts how many times Madonna was asked about this Marilyn Monroe thing during interviews, etc.. and she was always gracious and sincere about it.. she certainly never said the comparisons were retarded! So true. Madonna did say at some point that the comparisons annoyed her at some extent but she never denied it. Also this whole "Madonna copied Marilyn" is so ridiculous by now. The haters like to act as if she got a career ONLY because of Marilyn when she has done SO many things that clearly weren't inspired by Marilyn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
your-madgesty Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 It's been bugging me too! There's this one interview (I think it's the 1991 Molly Meldrum interview or one of her Truth or Dare promo interviews) where she pretty much went into detail how she associated the Marilyn image as being objectified by males, but mentioned how she wanted to take that image and reverse it into strength and female ownership of the sexual image. I'm so mad I didn't bookmark that but it sounded so eloquent and smart. >_< Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realityisalways Posted April 21, 2014 Author Share Posted April 21, 2014 Thank you everyone for your input! It's been bugging me too! There's this one interview (I think it's the 1991 Molly Meldrum interview or one of her Truth or Dare promo interviews) where she pretty much went into detail how she associated the Marilyn image as being objectified by males, but mentioned how she wanted to take that image and reverse it into strength and female ownership of the sexual image. I'm so mad I didn't bookmark that but it sounded so eloquent and smart. >_< OMG this sounds like the one! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
promise to try Posted April 22, 2014 Share Posted April 22, 2014 The only thing that i remember about it is that she likes her,but she made very clear that wereas marylin was a victim,she wasnt.also i dont remember it well?but wasnt mg's video supposed to be indpired in netropolis? Whovdecided to change the topic?it was a good desition,zespecually because queen also did it the same year with radio gaga Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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