How Kim Kardashian Contributed Controversy to Marilyn Monroe's Legacy

An expansion of my moment with Newsweek!

Megan Cartwright from Newsweek UK reached out to me yesterday to ask for comments on the controversial relationship between Kim Kardashian and Marilyn Monroe. Below you’ll find the little ditty I sent back, and here’s the final piece she made from it! Thank you Megan!

I wouldn't say Marilyn is controversial as much as she's situated as a prevailing American icon. Still, doing my research, I did discover that Marilyn was a bit more controversial during her time than a lot of people talk about today. Laurence Olivier, one of her co-stars, was quoted as calling her "the stupidest, most self-indulgent tart."

Her birthday song to JFK was pretty scandalous too. But ultimately, Marilyn is a beloved and global figure, known as the "most photographed woman in the world." That's what makes the controversy that a divisive figure like Kim Kardashian brought to Marilyn's beloved legacy so interesting. Kim may have replaced Marilyn's pop culture status as "the most photographed woman."

Which, by the way, might be one of the answers to the question of what makes an icon an icon: a figure's ability to be effectively reproduced by evolving forms of media. We see Marilyn in Warhol's work, on tee-shirts, embodied by impersonators out on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (my personal theory is that if you have inspired mass impersonation, then you're an icon); we hear Marilyn referenced in TV shows and songs to this day.

I think all the same could be said of Kim — my friend, Natalie Franklin, has called Kim the "cheat code" of social media, meaning her image and her name alone can trigger instant engagement or virality — yet Kim's self-conscious alignment with Marilyn's importance really upset people. 

One thing I saw in a lot of my TikTok comments was a complaint that this is another