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Events
Apr. 7 | MAASA Joint Conference—April, 2011
Joint conference on material culture, April 7-11, 2011, UW-Madison
Resources: Abstracts of American Studies Dissertations
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Dick, Lesley. "'I Just Want To Be Wonderful': The Cultural Legacy of Marilyn Monroe," Bowling Green State University, August 1985. Advisor: Michael T. Marsden (9, 18, 22)
Using methodologies from hero, women’s and film studies, this dissertation analyzes, within a sociocultural framework, the evolution of Marilyn Monroe. The archetypal American beauty narrative and the American Dream narrative and its feminine equivalent are delineated. Monroe’s 1950s star image, both on-and off-screen, is examined, demonstrating Monroe’s dramatization of these narratives and her image’s relationship to society. The posthumous biographical and visual evolution of Monroe’s image in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s demonstrates an assimilation of an archetypal American narrative with each decade’s dominant cultural issues. The Monroe narrative is thus revealed as a metaphor for postwar America.
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