Marilyn Monroe herself has already jumped out to being more than a charming Hollywood movie star, into a symbolic portrait of feminine beauty, a representation of materialistic women and the power of feminism, in regard of millions of men adoring her charm and begging for her affection.
The opening show of the film Gentlemen prefer Blondes, is straight forward and purpose-clear, trying to catch spectators’ eyeballs using visually comforting effect: Two charming girls dancing on the stage, voice sweet and one of them is blonde! This type of opening gives the audience a message of feminine power overflowing in this film, encouraging both males, due to the interests towards women, and females, due to the resonance towards feminine power, to continue watching the film.
There is one major contrast, or rather described as conflict in the film that is the different sense of worth on mate selection between Lorelei and Dorothy. One the one hand, Lorelei, represented as materialism, considering wealth, especially diamond as the major factor of mate selection; on the other hand, Dorothy only looks for the appearance aspect of a male. In this movie, Monroe creates the most successful image of a materialistic woman in the film history by acting like a pure innocent young lady whose only dream is to marry someone rich, with diamond mine for the best. She criticizes Dorothy “always fall in love with someone just because he is good looking”, indicates men’s wealth should be the first condition a woman think about marriage. Lorelei is such a simple girl, or stupid some times, she does not know how to put on a tiara, and she is definitely not familiar with economic jargons like credits. But as soon as she figure out credits represents money in this case, she quickly put the credit proof into her purse in a very obvious and deliberate way. The audience almost feel insane for her direct needs and apparent actions for money, thinking about how can she be liked by anyone who with a clear mind. This is one of the sarcasm that the director creates, for letting a man WITHOUT a clear mind to fall in love with Lorelei. A man who will experiences dizziness after Lorelei’s kiss. This relationship effectively emphasizes the word materialism, helping to portray such a young lady with distinguish characteristic.
Lorelei’s dumb husband has this pure love towards his fiancé, is a typical and extreme example of a wealthy man. He could not say no to Lorelei’s beautiful face, he cannot either write a poem or sing a song to her. The only thing he could afford to and attempt to catch Lorelei’s heart is money and gift. He even send her a “run-away” gift when Lorelei is about to go to a short trip to France.
To contrast with Lorelei’s dumb, rich boyfriend, men that Dorothy likes are full of typical male traits such as muscles and hero-like faces. The Olympic team is considered as the best male characters in the film for their highly trained bodies and same handsome appearances. They are energetic, noisy, easily being attracted by females and instinctively desirable for beautiful women. They are been selected so strictly as if they are produces from the same mounding template of a perfect modern male body. The significance of the Olympic team members is not to show masculine power, instead, the males are all around Dorothy. The way Dorothy gets those boys is an excellent demonstration of the rise of feminine power. She uses neither money, reputation or others’ help, but absolute physical attraction such as facial impression and dancing moves. It is undoubtful the most traditional and effective way for a female to get attention from males. Human are highly visual-dominated animals, a cleaver woman would uses this to get what she wants for the most simple and direct way. The eye contact and other deliberate boy-and-girl communication between Dorothy and those athletes become symbolic since that is one of the most popular scene in our society which present males being conquered (instead of women) by females’ charm.
For many years the masculine power has take the control of our society. This film by creating plots of many commonly considered perfect men surrounding two girls, indicating the take-over of the power. It shows the will for the feminine power to rebel in a soft, undetermined way. The girls in the film do not fight, do not argue, but use feminine strength to comforting, soften males’ power and finally get what they want. One of the most famous scenes in this film is the dance Dorothy with all the athletes. All the athletes are barely naked; the boxers they wear are identically the same and with a color very close to human skins, creating this illusion of them being real naked. They are muscular and healthy and strong and flexible, comparing to all the possible mates that Lorelei selects (dumb fiancé, old Piggy etc.) The athletes are with the same type of faces, very rigid and handsome. Especially when a group of people gathering together like this, the scene is really creating a new visual experience. Usually the lap dance are women’s job, in the film Dorothy is standing in the middle, surrounded by all the handsome athletes with their healthy, muscular legs swinging back and forth, is producing a rather softened masculine traits being dominated by the feminine power carried by Dorothy. The scene is almost absurd and even attractive for men! The sense of male being conquered and spiritually raped is rising through the men’s lap dance, making the male audience feel ridiculous and female audience feel satisfactory and exciting. The way the film presenting the feminine power is humorous and relaxing, but it does bring out the challenge for people to consider the inequality among men and women in the society.
