Marilyn Monroe

            There exists one woman who dazzled the public as the sex symbol of entertainment, whose beauty and charm immortalized her: Marilyn Monroe. When looking back on her life and reputation, one would believe that she is famous not only for her acting career but because of her risqué actions, her childlike behavior and the puzzlement of her refusal of happiness. Refusal of happiness, for Marilyn, was the massive quest for love and a sense of belonging. These things, combined together, forced Marilyn a position of a role model and a feminist of her own kind. .
             Monroe was more than just a blonde bombshell actress; she was a person, a wife and most defining, a woman. She brought a whole new light to the streets of Hollywood. Think of her as a type of feminist, not the kind who fights for a woman's right to vote, or to have equal opportunities but the kind who opened the eyes of the world around her to a new way of thinking and believing. Sex was the unspoken action and being sexy was rarely heard of in the mid 1900's. Then, out of a factory during the infamous war, a woman emerged whose sheer looks knocked the wind out of anyone who encountered her.
             Unfortunately, most people picture Marilyn as just a good looking empty headed blonde who happened to make it big. But what about what is inside her head, her intelligence? She proved, by the decisions of working in a factory, doing movies and divorcing her three husbands, that she was a smart, strong woman. Think, just for a second, if she had not chosen to work in a factory and stayed as a housewife, waiting for her first husband, twenty one year old Jimmy Daugherty, to come home from the war. She would have never been discovered by a photographer who changed our history forever. If Marilyn had chosen not to do 1953's "Niagara-, would her stardom remain in the hearts of movie goers? By her choices, according to Yona Zeldis McDonough's All the Available Light: A Marilyn Monroe Reader, Marilyn took the film industry and the people of her time by the hand and led them through a new way of looking at not only women in general, but the way a woman can change society.