Are Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn Overrated?

Because I seem to hear a lot of "Oh, they're famous" but don't get any reasons other than "Andy Warhol painted them, so they MUST be famous". I don't believe a lot of people have actually gone to the trouble of watching their movies.

I actually know somebody who doesn't own Marilyn Monroe DV Ds but has her poster on her wall. I have problems with this. Problems similar to how I feel about people not even born in the grunge era putting Kurt Cobain on their walls.

I know these two ladies have a large reputation for style and glamour but I can't for the life of me remember the last time I recall somebody actually admitting to seeing either a Marilyn Monroe movie or Breakfast at Tiffany's. All I know is that Marilyn Monroe is famous, but I at least watched Breakfast at Tiffany's and My Fair Lady, I can sorta see the appeal but these Old Hollywood ladies are so divorced from any sense of what shall we call it... "not rich people problems" that I can't relate to them at all.

In fact I've had similar problems with Zooey Deschanel as an IT Girl, but the problem with all IT Girls is that Hollywood tries to convince the maximum amount of people that one woman is awesome above all others.

No one has ever said Monroe was an amazingly good actress, although I think she actually was more competent than she's given credit for. But her worth is an iconic one, in that she redefined the Sexy Star concept. Think of Schwarzenegger; he's no master thespian, but you can't deny he has become the ultimate embodiment of Big Action Hero in pop culture because of his presence, rather than his acting skills.

I've seen bits of My Fair Lady, and I have seen a few Marilyn Monroe movies. Monroe wasn't a great actress, but she could pull off the soft spoken, sexy, dependent on a man role that the 50's crowd seemed to adore. It was as much her real life shennanigans as her acting that left their mark.

If it weren't for the success of those roles, and the peer presure in Hollywood, she'd have been even better. The REAL Monroe, the one who went by Norma Jean, was a strong woman. She worked in a factory and was somewhat of a shaker and mover in labor. If she hadn't been overwhelmed by success, the Marilyn Monroe we all remembered might have turned her fame and fortunes towards DESTROYING those stereotypes she portrayed so much, and struck an incredible blow for Feminism. Instead . . . meh.

^ What? No, you're confusing Norma Jean Mortensen with the character Norma Jean in the movie of that name starring Sally Field. Marilyn only worked in a factory for about a year, in a defense plant during the war, and there's no evidence that she was "a mover and a shaker" in the labor movement. By the time she was 20, she had signed her first contract with 20th Century Fox.

edited 28th Mar '13 9:07:59 AM by Madrugada

Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn were both fantastic actresses.

You think Marilyn Monroe was the dumb blonde stereotype in Real Life that she portrayed so successfully in films like "Some Like it Hot", "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and stuff like that?

No, no she wasn't.

Same deal for Audrey Hepburn. I saw her recently in "The Nun's Story":

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053131/

and she kept me spellbound for the entire time I was watching the film (I flicked on the channel out of boredom one afternoon and bam, there it was - I ended up pissed that I missed the start of the movie) which is something I rarely do for films with a religious theme that aren't sword and sandals epics.

Heck, I didn't even need to write all that. Just look at Miss Hepburn's page on wikipedia, particularly at the awards section.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audrey_Hepburn

So in answer to your question, OP, no, in fact, as Will Smith would say "AW HELL NO!"

Also Marilyn Monroe could pull off real life Clark Kenting at the drop of a hat so she couldn't be that bad an actress.

edited 28th Mar '13 10:37:51 AM by Canid117

Marilyn Monroe certainly isn't a bad actress. However, she's also definitely overrated.

Marilyn Monroe had incredible sex appeal. I don't mean in the Playboy way (well, that too). You have to look at her in the context of the day. She was this seductive, voluptuous, slightly vulnerable siren in a day when women rarely came in that combination. She wasn't Cate Blanchett in terms of acting ability, but she wasn't a bad actress. She was a fascinating, eccentric person too, which added to her appeal. Like advocating weight training for women (a WTF at the time).

Audrey Hepburn...not even going there. She was awesome.

She isn't rated as an actress. She had a public persona that she used on and off screen that was different to her real personality.

That's exactly what I mean, though. She's attributed all this importance for being a sex symbol, and somehow some people interpret that fame as fame for being an actress.

Hmm, I coulda sworn my film teacher had said that stuff about Monroe. Then again, my brain over the years probably added to what she did say. Which was the stuff I said that wasn't contradicted here.

Monroe really could have been more than a sex symbol. And supposedly, by my memory, she was into equality between men and women before Hollywood destroyed her. (The sex symbol stuff is NOT equality. It's women being held down again.)

I probably should have gone with a less provocative thread title, but I'm well aware that Marilyn Monroe was intelligent, and I'm not as familiar with Audrey Hepburn as I should be.

My main points were not whether they were overrated as in "bad/dumb actresses" but in the sense of "Uh... do you people in Newtown Bohemia even know who these people you hang on the walls in your lofts/shop displays actually are? Like, what is it that you VALUE about these women versus "Andy Warhol told me they were famous". Really explain to me why you think they're awesome."

Oh man, I think I just figured out my problems with the Che Guevara t-shirts too, only this is the Old Hollywood famous sex symbol version of that.

My problem might not be with these actresses as much as their... "fans" who might be misguided as to their actual accomplishments as opposed to "People say she's famous so I'mma adore her".

Andy Warhol by the way is the best non-TMZ barometer of how famous a celebrity is, not gonna lie.

There is a signifigant difference between Che Guevarra and Marilyn Monroe. I wouldn't use a time machine to go back and have sex with Che Guevarra if given the opportunity.

I wasn't even aware Andy Warhol painted them or anything.

Yup. My college had a print of the multi-color multi-portrait of Marilyn's face hanging in the dining hall.

edited 28th Mar '13 7:48:26 PM by Journeyman

Personally, I loved Audrey Hepburn in Robin and Marian. While both Hepburn and Monroe COULD act, they, much as with Bogart and John Wayne, are largely remembered for their screen presence (Bogart was a pretty good actor too, when given the opportunity). I'm not a big fan of "presence" actors; I prefer actors who can do more than play themselves.

Actually, though, why do you care whose picture anyone else has hanging on their walls? People are allowed to have a Monet print just cuz they think it's pretty, whether or not they know who Monet is or understand his significance. Possibly they don't know anything about the actresses, but so what if they don't? Other people's motives for how they decorate their personal space doesn't have to be explicable to everyone else.

edited 28th Mar '13 9:32:08 PM by Robbery

I think it's more so blind idolization of someone whom you know nothing about (and might even have very false conceptions about) that he is against. Which, to be fair, is something I very much agree on. Especially when you consider how pretentious these people can be about it.

Nitpick: Andy Warhol never painted Marilyn Monroe. He did silkscreen prints of her portrait. Look it up. Also, if Andy Warhol is a good barometer of how famous someone is...well, how famous would you say the superstars in his Factory are? Edie Sedgwick would like to have a word with you.

edited 28th Mar '13 10:26:39 PM by 0dd1

I do find it funny that even serious film critics will speak of Marilyn Monroe in hushed whispers, like she was some goddess who was too good for this world and not just one of a long line of celebrities who fell victim to their own fame. Like James Dean and a few others, her image has become iconic, completely independent of any actual film work she did. Perhaps it's just that icon that the folks you speak of are responding to.

And yeah, hipsters are going to be insufferable and pretentious. It's practically a requirement.

I recall one girl I'm friends with on Facebook blindly posting tons of Marilyn Monroe "quotes" that she never actually said. It was amusing to see the tons of people who would like those statuses for how "deep" they were. (Or maybe they just liked them because she was hot and those people desperately wanted her approval/vagina.)

Yeah, there's whole Twitter pages dedicated to Marilyn Monroe "quotes". I think she is overrated, way more than Audrey Hepburn.

Just out of interest, how many folks in the thread so far have seen more than one Marilyn Monroe movie?

I have watched Niagara, Some Like It Hot, and Don't Bother to Knock.

I've seen There's No Business Like Show Business. I may have seen Some Like It Hot too, but I can't remember.

I can see why people were/are crazy about her — I wouldn't call her overrated, but she's not the greatest actress ever.

Some Like it Hot and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

I haven't seen any, but, then, there's a lot of famous movies I haven't seen. They're on my list. My long, long, incredibly long list.

I have seen the Tommy movie, though, which has a statue of Marilyn Monroe in it. That count?