Tracked by a blinding spotlight, Marilyn Monroe trotted across the otherwise dark, cavernous stage to wolf whistles and cheers; a huge bubble of white-blonde hair and wrapped in a white ermine stole, she wiggled her way to the podium to reveal a glittering, full length, Jean Louis nude illusion gown that hugged her famous curves so tightly, she apparently had to be sewn into it.
It was 1962 and Monroe’s sensational appearance was part of President John F Kennedy’s star-studded 45th birthday celebrations at Madison Square Gardens. In true Monroe style, she was late to the stage, having to be introduced three times. Once she was at the podium, expectation of some sort of performance reached fever pitch and the star further built that anticipation. First, she cockily flicked the windscreen of the microphone, to check it was on, then shielded her eyes as she looked mischievously out into the crowd of 15,000 audience members, before sighing cheekily and then launching into a slow, swooning and extremely saucy version of perennial classic, ‘Happy Birthday,’ to the leader of the free world.
In 2022, the celebrity socialite Kim Kardashian caused another sensation when she wore that same dress, 60 years later, to walk the red carpet at that year’s Met Gala. According to their website, the dress’ owners, the American transmedia oddities franchise Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, ‘acquired the dress at a Julien’s Auctions event in 2016 for $4.8 million. With taxes and fees, the dress’ value surpasses $5 million, making it the world’s most expensive dress ever sold at auction. Believe It or Not! the gown is now valued at over $10 million.’ Despite, or perhaps because of the sheer amount of money spent on the dress, Ripley’s, who are experts in showmanship, entered into a deal with the equally media-savvy Kardashian, where she was granted permission to wear the gown for the high-profile, Manhattan fashion event.
The stuntsparked outrage, dismay and unfortunately, a torrent of (potentially racialised) body shaming against Kardashian, which only got worse when Ripley’s promotional footage appeared, featuring a team of white gloved-helpers struggling to squeeze Kardashian into the dress, before having to settle upon tying the dress at the small of her back to secure it and hiding this ‘fix’ with a white fur coat, which hung off Kardashian’s shoulders and over her rear, as the zip could not be closed. A month later, the debate ignited once again when alleged ‘before and after’ images of the dress emerged, posted on Instagram by private collector of Monroe’s property and archives, Scott Fortner, that suggested considerable damage to the delicate dress, accompanied by the following text, which scornfully referenced the company’s press statements assuring the public the utmost care was being taken with the precious garment: ‘So much for keeping “the integrity of the dress and the preservation.” @ripleysbelieveitornot, was it worth it?’
The issues this episode raised for many are not unique. Particularly when it comes to preserving entertainment history. This media incident, a promotional escapade apparently gone awry, is one of many examples of the troublesome ethical history of museums and sideshows, especially those dedicated to the entertainment industries.Whilst museums and historic collections may be sites of education, many, not just those dedicated to the entertainment industry have also traditionally been sights of prurience. For example, the ‘greatest showman’, P.T. Barnum made his fortune, exhibiting ‘freaks’ and to educate, one’s curiosity must be piqued. But we all know what curiosity did to the cat.
Equally though, to curate and hold a collection requires time, expertise and perhaps most importantly, funds. Collections are prone to deterioration and as such, a key responsibility of a museum is preservation and even restoration, and this also comes at a cost. The reality is that a collection must be able to ‘wash its face’ andchoices are constantly made as to whether a piece can be taken into a collection, how it will feature and indeed, if it will even remain there. A relatively recent news story regarding proposed curator and conservator redundancies at London’s V and A Museum, due to the financial impact of enforced Covid-19 closure and the accusation, by unions, that this severance process was part of a damaging ‘hollowing out the expertise of the museum’ is evidence of how even established and seemingly imperious institutions, and the priceless artefacts they are responsible for, are sadly still subject to potentially detrimental bottom lines.
Hence Kardashian makes a financial donation, and in return receives the ultimate access to an iconic piece of Hollywood history; a literally immersive experience that any Monroe fan would die for. Ripley’s rationale for undertaking this exchange is understandable (it provided funds and promotion for the dress and Ripley’s more broadly), but is it right? And so, once again we return to the ethics of exhibition and the seemingly oppositional imperatives of revenue generation and institutional integrity.
If we consider that museums, as institutions, are concerned with the preservation, analysis and display of objects of cultural value, then as a piece of ideological apparatus, these establishments help set the agenda for what constitutes a culturally valuable object.Equally,when discussing the value of museums, Mead (1941) highlights a common, good-faith assumption that an underpinning principle of such an organisation would be integrity, and that once that integrity is undermined, the institution and what it signifies is diminished. She suggests it is therefore a curator’s responsibility, when considering how to use particular artefacts when preparing a collection for exhibition, to ask themselves the question; ‘Is this true?’ rather than, ‘Will this make a hit?’ And it is the dichotomy upon which these two questions pivot that is useful here.
Obviously, the dress in question is authentic(indeed, for many that is precisely the issue. The dress was changed for a replica dress later in the evening anyway, so many have asked why would the socialite be granted permission to wear and potentially damage the genuine article in the first place?), so here I suggest subtly adapting Mead’s former question, from ‘Is this true?’ to something akin to ‘Is our engagement with or use of the artefact in good faith and underpinned by integrity?’ and given that the dress in question was loaned by Ripley’s and worn by Kardashian as a mutually beneficial promotional stunt, clearly the intent here was indeed, to ‘make a hit.’
But Hollywood’s tendency towards showmanship has always been regarded as tasteless, vulgar and gimmicky by nature, problematically harking back to the industry’s boisterous, ‘shameful’, lowbrow past in carnivals, sideshows, medicine shows. As Burton and Chibnall (1999, 83) observe, such antics were ‘often perceived to be vulgar demonstrations perpetuated by charlatans. Robert Herring, writing in Close Up in 1928 dismissed publicity as a “parasite” and “a bad habit grown up out of the exuberance of a class whose means are beyond their need.”’ So, whilst the promotion of any precious artefact from a collection necessarily treads a fine line when it comes to integrity, it could be argued to be even more applicable when that artefact directly pertains, not only to Hollywood, but that industry’s broader endorsement and exploitation culture.
Throughout her career, accusations of illegitimacy were actually regularly levelled at Monroe herself, due, no doubt, to her coming to prominence as a pin-up model who then became a starlet, rather than entering the public consciousness as a ‘serious’ actress, (a charge she persistently sought to address throughout her career, through close work with acting coaches and her training, with the Strasburgs, in the method) but also due to her tendency to arrive at publicity events in revealing clothing, or find herself subject to exposing clothing mishaps and malfunctions, perhaps most famously evident in the promotion for The Seven Year Itch. Like Kardashian, several decades later, Monroe was a master of self-promotion, or, if you excuse the pun; exposure. The nude illusion dress, worn to serenade the president, was precisely that; designed to be as revealing as possible and draw maximum attention, without quite showing all. So should Kardashian’s wearing, and Ripleys’ loan of the dress be of such concern then?
Perhaps not surprisingly, as a film historian, whose interests lay in what the material cultures of Hollywood in the first half of the twentieth century can tell us about the broader culture of that time, I’d argue yes, because several other factors need to be considered.
Firstly, the President’s birthday event wasone of Monroe’s last public appearances before her fatal drug overdose just three months later, whilst her tragically early and lonely death is part of a broader star narrative, of enduring exploitation, abuse and suffering.
Whilst Monroe’s position as a cinematic style icon has been consolidated in the intervening years since her death, making an iconic gown, worn by her an obvious costuming choice for the ‘Gilded Glamor and White Tie’ themed 2022 Met gala, the dress itself is to all intents and purposes, a palimpsest of multiple, layered signs and signifiers (to which Ripley’s and Kardashian have now added) and as such, comes with significant baggage, pertaining to vulnerability, linked not only to the stars’ death shortly after wearing the dress, or to her narrative of mistreatment within the industry, but also to ongoing speculation surrounding an extra marital affair between Monroe and the then President, which returns us once more to the topic of emotional exposure and potential harm, a harm(or more realistically, disregard or disrespect) which is then compounded by not only allowing intrusive and potentially injurious access to the dress, but actually monetisingthat access.
Just as items of clothing often function as sartorial gestures for their wearer/s or removeable assertions of one’s self, it is logical then that such items can also potentially function as repositories for emotional and ideological investment on an individual or a much broader, cultural level andin the case of this garment, even prior to its Met Gala outing, it was clearly already imbued with connotations of human frailty and maltreatment. It was in short, a piece of memento mori; a metonymic signifier of Monroe and a recognition, via Monroe’s persona and its tragic legend, of the precarity of success and contentment in all our lives, whatever our experience. With these broader factors in mind then, whether deliberate in intent or not, the exchange of the dress, with its attendant significations, can logically be seen to be part of a larger mediapractice of repeatedly stripping agency from a performer who notoriously struggled to establish and maintain career and personal autonomy throughout her life and therefore raises ethical issues of a kind that many international historical institutions have recently begun to engage, surrounding appropriation and the suitability of exhibiting and exploiting appropriated treasures from vulnerable minorities or individuals.
Meanwhile, that this was a high value financial transaction (though the Ripley’s website states that‘Kim Kardashian did not pay Ripley’s Believe It or Not! to wear the dress, nor did the company pay her. Rather, Kardashian made a charitable donation to two charities in the greater Orlando area on behalf of the company.’) that the dress was put at risk through wear and that despite claims of ‘great care’ being taken, the dress still supposedly sustained damage, would seem to suggest a concern for monetary value over any emotional and cultural worth, reinforcing the predictable and deeply problematic culture versus commerce binary, that Hollywood product invariably falls on the ‘wrong’ side of.
I have myself advocated for personal, experiential encounters with historic cinematic artefacts due to a well-chosen object’s ability to ‘speak’ to (in my case, film history students, but also) members of the museum or exhibition going public and reveal broader truths and ideas that resonate with that audience (Wright, 2021). I firmly believe that historic items absolutely must be made to matter, and also that there are always access concerns around museums, galleries and exhibitions and the treasures they hold and who actually gets the opportunity to engage with them, how and why. I am also aware also that a claim can be made here for bringing Monroe (and all she signifies) to a new audience. However, this process of making matter, must be firstly be facilitated responsibly, as such encounters cause wear and tear to said artefacts as a matter of course (hence many museums keep handling collections), and secondly, they must be undertaken in good faith, thus justifying any potentially resultant harms. This notion of harms extends not only to direct physical harms sustained (or not) by the item but to the perceived worth of the item, and the resulting way the item and items like it are subsequently perceived and accordingly treated.
If this dress really was worth the reported $4.8 million that Ripley’s paid for it, as a historian, I am inclined to ask, surely it should be treated with the requisite level of care? What constitutes respectful treatment of such an item and how and why does this instance differ from the conduct of other museum and exhibition institutions who operate as guardians of other objects of public worth and significance? In short, we return to the notion of integrity. Such risky treatment of an artefact is indicative of a lack of regard, and troubles that vital notion of integrity. This results in the institution’s loss of authority, but worse still, this inevitably prompts a broader, public disregard, not only for the artefacts held, but the cultures, industries and histories such items reveal.As Chief Conservator at the Cleveland Museum of Art and a former conservator at the Met’s Costume Institute, Sarah Scaturro, told the L.A. Times on May 3rd 2022; ‘I’m frustrated because it sets back what is considered professional treatment for historic costume.’ Similarly, this incident encourages further disregard of or even disdain for cinema history as being ‘just entertainment’ and that for me is the crux of why I found the episode so very alarming.
References:
Alberge, D. (2021) ‘Vast staff cuts imminent at V&A, insiders say.’ The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/feb/25/vast-staff-cuts-imminent-at-va-insiders-say [accessed 08/06/2021]
Burton, A and Chibnall, S (1999) ‘Promotional Activities and Showmanship in British Film Exhibition.’ Journal of British popular Cinema. 2. 83-99
Everything You Need to Know About Kim Kardashian’s Met Gala Look (2022, May 2) https://www.ripleys.com/weird-news/everything-you-need-to-know-about-kim-kardashians-met-gala-look/ [accessed 14/06/2022]
Mead, M. (1941) ‘Museums in the Emergency.’ Cited onhttps://carnegiemuseums.org/magazine-archive/2008/winter/article-116.html [accessed 11/08/2022]
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Debunks Allegations of Kim Kardashian Damaging Marilyn Monroe Dress (2022, June 16) https://www.ripleys.com/weird-news/debunking-dress-damage/ [accessed 30/06/2022]
Saad, N and Vankin, D. (2022) ‘Conservators ‘speechless’ that Kim Kardashian wore Marilyn Monroe’s dress to Met Gala.’ Los Angeles Times https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2022-05-03/kim-kardashian-marilyn-monroe-dress-2022-met-gala-conservators [accessed 12/05/2022]
Wright, E (2021) ‘Exploring Film History by Using Fandom as a Pedagogical Tool’ Transformative Works and Cultures.35. https://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/1969
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