Hollywood paused this week, not for a new blockbuster but for a ghost. Marilyn Monroe would have turned 100 on June 1, and her centenary has sparked a curious mix of tribute and tension. Dozens of her imitators – the platinum wigs, the beauty spots, the breathless ‘Happy Birthday, Mr. President’ – gathered on Sunset Boulevard. Yet beneath the gloss, a row simmers about who gets to remember her, and how.
For the working-class women who don the white halter dress, this was a day of pride. They are secretaries, waitresses, retired nurses. They saved for months for the costume. ‘She was one of us,’ said Linda, 58, a cleaner from Bury. ‘She came from nothing. The studios broke her, but she never forgot the tenement.’ Their Monroe is a symbol of grit. But others see something else: a woman reduced to a sex object, a victim of a system that exploited her. The modern censorship debate has landed on Marilyn’s grave.
Social media has been alight with accusations that the tribute was ‘sexist’ and ‘outdated’. One viral post called the lookalikes ‘a parade of male fantasy’. Another demanded the event be cancelled. The organiser, a local arts charity, faced a storm. They insisted it was about ‘celebrating her spirit, not her body’. But the argument reveals a deeper divide: between those who see nostalgia as harmless fun and those who view it as a tool of oppression.
For the women who took part, the backlash stings. They feel patronised. ‘I’m not a victim. I’m a grandmother who enjoys dressing up,’ said Pat, 67, a retired dinner lady. ‘They talk about empowerment. But they’re telling me I can’t wear a dress because it might upset someone.’ This is the real economy of memory: respectability politics versus lived experience. The women who admire Monroe are often the same ones who feel ignored by the metropolitan elite. They work in care homes, stack shelves, clean offices. They don’t have a platform. And now they are being told their hero is problematic.
The event itself was a hotchpotch of old Hollywood and modern commercialism. There was a lookalike contest, a screening of Some Like It Hot, and a stall selling ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’ keyrings. The winner, a woman from Essex, had spent £2,000 on her dress. ‘It’s my pension,’ she joked. But beneath the frivolity, serious questions loom. What is the price of nostalgia when it chafes against woke sensibilities? And who gets to police it?
Monroe’s story is a class story. She was a factory worker who made it in a world that consumed her. Her image has been used to sell everything from perfume to political agendas. The left claims her as a symbol of exploitation. The right claims her as an icon of traditional femininity. Both are right, and both are wrong. She was a woman who struggled with the same forces that squeeze working people today: the cost of rent, the need to be beautiful, the knowledge that your body is not your own.
In Bolton, where I grew up, the mills have closed. The women who worked them have been forgotten. But Marilyn Monroe is remembered. That says something about who we celebrate and why. The lookalikes are not just dressing up. They are grabbing a piece of a dream that was sold to them and making it their own. They are saying: we matter too. The censorship debate can rage, but on the streets, real people make their own choices. And right now, in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, a bit of Hollywood sparkle feels like defiance.
As the sun set, the women posed for photos. A man shouted ‘You look beautiful!’ A woman yelled ‘Put some clothes on!’ Both were ignored. The winner, a 45-year-old window cleaner from Doncaster, took her trophy and headed for the bus. ‘My husband says I look a state,’ she laughed. ‘But I don’t care. She’s ours.’
