Everyone Likes it Hot
Marilyn Monroe's 100th Birthday
If she were still alive, Marilyn Monroe would be 100 years old today. Her beautiful face would likely have become a beautiful, wrinkled one; her strikingly proportioned, camera-friendly body would have shrunk a bit; and her hair would no longer be peroxide blonde, but would shine with a proud white glow.
Perhaps she would have gone through a few more marriages, or might still be in the middle of a relationship. She always wanted children; perhaps her wish would have come true—when Monroe died of a drug overdose in 1962, she was only 36 years old.
More intriguing than speculations about her personal life, however, is the question of what roles she might have played: Would she eventually have moved beyond the showgirls, the “bombshells,” the gold diggers (on the hunt for rich men), the “ingenues,” the naive, unconsciously attractive seductresses? Would she, perhaps in the context of the second wave of the women’s movement in the late 1960s, have continued to strive for self-empowerment, for artistic self-determination? Would she have encountered (female) allies who shared her views—female directors, screenwriters, cinematographers, and producers—who offered a different perspective on her, allowing her characters their own development, motivations, and storylines that went beyond simply finding “Mr. Right”? Would she have escaped the covetous male gaze, the male restriction of her scope of action?
Some of her films followed this trend: In Bus Stop and The Prince and the Showgirl, both (co-)productions of her own short-lived company, there are relatively few traditional shots of her body; in the latter, she even saves a country from a political scandal. How to Marry a Millionaire, Misfits, and River of No Return (barely) pass the Bechdel Test, which evaluates the representation of women in films. Supporting roles, such as in Clash by Night or All About Eve, feature self-assured—or at least fatalistic—female characters; the now-forgotten B-movie Ladies of the Chorus, Monroe’s early first leading role, presents a warm mother-daughter relationship and a Marilyn who, when singing, does not yet breathe but vibrates with a bluesy quality. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes invites a queer reading and offers a female gaze on muscular men in skimpy briefs; in Niagara and Don’t Bother to Knock, Monroe delivers performances with the utmost psychological insight. Of course, the successful, perfectly timed comedies Some Like It Hot and The Seven Year Itch are also worth watching—even if her character in the latter isn’t even given a name, and this film is arguably the most famous case of upskirting.
Incidentally, peeking up a woman’s skirt—and thus sexually objectifying an unsuspecting woman without her consent—is now a criminal offense almost everywhere. Things have certainly changed. It’s a shame Marilyn Monroe didn’t live to see it. Jenni Zylka
Jenni Zylka is a writer, curator, journalist, and author of the book Marilyn Monroe: 100 Pages, published by Reclam Verlag in 2026.
We would like to thank Thomas Pfeiffer and Ömer Yalinkilic for supporting the retrospective.
