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American Morning
40 Years Ago Today Marilyn Monroe Died
Aired August 05, 2002 - 09:47 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Believe it or not, it was 40 years ago today that Marilyn Monroe died. But you wouldn't know it with her legion of loyal fans and famous Marilyn wannabes. To mark the anniversary, "Newsweek" is publishing a series of photos taken before Marilyn was Marilyn, when she was simply Norma Jean Baker. Why has this talented, but troubled young woman become an icon for the ages? And is her influence a good thing?
We're joining by "Rolling Stone" contributing editor, and author of "The Portable Promised Land," Toure.
It's so nice to meet you in person.
TOURE, "ROLLING STONE": Nice to meet you.
KAGAN: Quite the following out there. I'm making you establish already. Let's continue that and put up the Marilyn Monroe pictures. You're with "Rolling Stone." These pictures are "Newsweek." Little admission, you haven't seen these pictures.
TOURE: No one in the world has seen these pictures.
KAGAN: That's how rare they are. Even our guest haven't seen these pictures. But let's take a journey together and watch them. What this -- as I said when she was Norma Jean Baker, supposedly out of these pictures, you get the sense how she developed into Marilyn Monroe.
TOURE: I mean these are beautiful pictures. She's dainty, she's beautiful, she's sexy, she's curvy, she's blond. America loves blonds, we all know that.
KAGAN: Yes, don't I know that. Thanks, Toure.
TOURE: But I mean, Marilyn gets at something really deep in the hard wiring of man.
KAGAN: And what is that?
TOURE: Just the whole damsel in distress, the whole beautiful, blond, curvy girl. I mean, just the whole thing of a woman that a man could rescue. And women know that, women see that, and that's why you still respond to those pictures. Beyond the fact that the bone structure is still beautiful. KAGAN: She's a beautiful woman. And will forever -- she looked very young in those pictures, but will never be more than 36 years old.
TOURE: Right, right, right dying at that certain point immortalized her beauty in way Liz Taylor will never get to have.
KAGAN: In the images that we see here, what do you -- where do we see this today? We wouldn't see somebody -- unless you count Anna Nicole Smith, which a story for a different hour. You don't see a voluptuous, big woman like that being idolized as a sex symbol.
TOURE: But you do see a lot of women who are making a lot of money imitating sort of -- or doing an impression of Marilyn.
KAGAN: Such as?
TOURE: Britney, Anna Nicole Smith, Pam Anderson. Even like Lisa Kudrow on "Friends," right. Loni Anderson, Goldie Hawn, just sort of playing that Maryland nest (ph) to the hilt. Early Madonna, absolutely, was totally giving you a bit of Marilyn back to you, and people totally responded to that.
KAGAN: Are you saying that these are woman who they kind of visit that, as part of their image, because when I think of Britney Spears, I'm not necessarily thinking of Marilyn Monroe.
TOURE: No, but she's blond, she's curvy, she's giving you like a little bit of, Oh, me, oh, I did it again? I mean, that's so Marilynesque.
KAGAN: And with Madonna early, but you think that she kind of morphed past that.
TOURE: She's a little too strong to be Marilyn now. I mean, the thing that bothers me about her is there's something very cartoonish and pathetic about her. I mean, when you talk about take our daughters to work day, and woman athletes and smart, self-assured women like you, like Paula, that's not -- that's living down the what Marilyn taught us. That's -- you don't want your daughter to grow up to be Marilyn Monroe, do you?
KAGAN: No. But even I grew up in a different time with different role models. But even if you look at kind of the television shows we watched, whether it was "I Love Lucy," where Lucy wasn't allowed to do anything unless she had Ricky's permission, or if it was "Bewitched," where, ooh, it was a powerful woman, but she better not use her powers because her husband might be offended, that didn't necessarily affect us that we couldn't grow up to be strong, powerful women ourselves.
TOURE: Well, I mean, those messages are going out all the time, this is what you can be, this is how you can be successful, if you can act, you know, dainty and in distress, in need of rescue, you know, you'll get a man, you'll be successful, people will love you. And now we have role models like you that we can watch and you don't have to be like that. You can be strong and self-assured and sit at home and watch C-SPAN on Saturday night and be successful.
KAGAN: It happens Toure, let me tell you. More Saturday nights than you would like to know.
TOURE: Pull this all together, how do you pull these things together that we do have -- these role models with strong, successful woman out there, but at the same time, Marilyn Monroe is still very popular, kind of like a buffet of images.
KAGAN: If you put that sufficient out there, men are going to respond.
TOURE: I mean, even I, in my heart, I see those images, I'm like, wow. But logically, you think about it, and you're like, this is not the images that really we want in society. This is not the kind of woman that I would want, who's sort of sexy and brainless. That's not what I would marry.
KAGAN: You're on the record with that, when you bring that special woman here to meet us, we're going to go, Toure said...
How is the book going?
TOURE: It's going very well, thank you.
KAGAN: Very good. Go check it out. Toure, thank you so much for joining us.
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