March 22, 2011
-
A Stern Lesson
Not long ago I happened upon a site that offered a side-by-side comparison of Bert Stern’s famous photos of Marilyn Monroe at the Bel Air Hotel in 1962 and his 2008 “recreation” of that shoot with Lindsay Lohan for New York Magazine. The audience was encouraged to give their opinions on both photo sets and decide which they preferred. Almost every comment left at the end of the post was some variation of “Lindsay Lohan is no Marilyn Monroe.” But I think everyone missed the point – because once you stop comparing the two, the most interesting contrasts emerge.
I was in my 20s when I first saw the original images; I found a handful in a magazine the year Stern’s book, Marilyn Monroe: The Complete Last Sitting came out in 1992. The thing that surprised me about the photos was how joyful they were. Monroe never struck me as a particularly joyful human. She always seemed so on, living up to the image she’d built (or had thrust upon her). Her Monroe-ness kept me at arm’s length; the energy necessary to maintain it was vicariously exhausting. But in Stern’s photos she seemed unaffected, playful and relaxed. She looked like she was having fun and it made me grin.
When I look at Lohan’s photos, they make me uncomfortable. She poses herself so carefully, contriving the “sexy” expression you see on little girls playing at Movie Star. She is struggling to put on Marilyn; one actress assuming the persona of another actress who had constructed a persona. It’s all very Victor Victoria and her anxious eyes belie the confidence of all that skin. And Stern captures it all, making his photos as remarkable as ever.
Of course Lohan is no Monroe. Seriously? Neither am I, neither is Dita Von Teese. How is that even worthy of remark? What Stern has done is juxtaposed two women: one an adult, one barely out of her teens; one captured in an organic moment of confidence, the other in a painfully self-conscious act of mimicry. Each has lived a life weird enough to give them layers with or without clothes. Commenter’s seemed outraged that Lohan would presume to invite the comparison – but no one asked why. Why was the only question I had.
What was it that motivated her to put on shoes she had to have known she couldn’t fill?
g.
Comments (2)
I like these kinds of moments–moments where an artist has a sort of inside joke with himself, and whoever is observant enough to pick up on it. I hadn’t seen the photos before I read this, so I looked them up… and in the process, found this article, which was interesting, because you get a bit of Lohan’s perspective on the shoot:
http://nymag.com/fashion/08/spring/44247/
If anything, it just confirms what you’re saying–that Lohan must have known she was no Monroe, but, I think, desperately wanted to feel like she could be… for some reason.
h.
@sixacross - And yet, the very first comment on that piece is “Lohan looks awful IN COMPARISON.” Monroe is interesting, I guess, like Sylvia Plath is interesting. People are fascinated with self-destruction – especially in those who are, ostensibly, smart enough to know better. Is it the Death Wish? We’re horrified, we’re condescendingly sympathetic – and we’re secretly weirdly envious. (Or at least some of us are.) I think maybe people mistake surrender for freedom.