The centenary of Marilyn Monroe’s birth draws hundreds of lookalikes to Hollywood Boulevard this weekend. Dressed in white halter dresses, platinum wigs, and red lipstick, they flock from as far as Tokyo and São Paulo. Yet beneath the surface of this glittering parade lies a quiet cultural truth: their idol’s hold on the collective imagination has loosened.
‘She defined glamour for my grandmother’s generation,’ says Clara Evans, 34, a lookalike from Ohio. ‘For me, it’s a costume. A fun one, but a costume nonetheless.’ Evans is not alone. A recent YouGov poll shows that only 12% of Americans under 30 consider Monroe an icon of femininity, compared with 68% of those over 65.
The shift is partly generational, partly technological. Monroe’s image was static, a photograph, a film reel. Today’s beauty standard is fluid, algorithmic, Instagram-filtered. ‘Modern celebrity is built on constant access, raw moments, imperfection,’ explains Dr. Helena Grant, a cultural historian at the University of Southern California. ‘Monroe was polished, airbrushed, kept at a distance. That distance once made her mythic. Now it makes her remote.’
Perhaps the greatest change is felt on the street. In Los Angeles, where the lookalike convention takes place, young women dress less for the camera and more for the smartphone. The pout, the wig, the emphasised curves – these are now seen as a ‘throwback‘ aesthetic, a vintage choice rather than a default aspiration.
The economic context also matters. Monroe’s glamour was tied to postwar prosperity, a time when Hollywood sold leisure and luxury. Today’s influencers sell hustle, side hustles, the labour of self-improvement. ‘Monroe didn’t need to be relatable,’ says Evans, adjusting her wig. ‘I have to be relatable. That’s how you make money.’
And yet, the lookalikes keep coming. The convention organisers report record numbers of participants this year, many of them from communities that Monroe never represented: black, Asian, transgender. ‘We’re reclaiming her,’ says Maria Chang, a 27-year-old from Seoul. ‘She’s not about a specific type of woman anymore. She’s about the desire to be seen, to shine.’
Perhaps the centenary is not a funeral but a metamorphosis. Monroe’s cultural influence, once a monolith, is fracturing into a thousand little mirrors, each held by a different hand. The image persists but its meaning is up for grabs. And on Hollywood Boulevard this weekend, the lookalikes are not just copies. They are the new authors.
As the sun sets, Evans poses for a photograph, her eyes tilted toward the sky. She smiles, then says softly, ‘I hope she would have liked it. Not just the dress. The whole messy, complicated thing.’
