Consumed (2022)
Nikta Hashemian
Digital painting animation
"I'll be whatever you want me to be." -Marilyn Monroe (Don't Bother to Knock)
Consumed is a short 31 second animation featuring the most iconic woman in pop culture, Norma Jeane Mortenson, professionally known as Marilyn Monroe. Throughout her career, she was always expected to maintain the same persona, just like how James Harvey writes in his journal regarding Monroe's cinematic career "she was slightly grotesque. Like a walking dirty joke- too outrageous for the politer company of the leading players, and so most of the time she was cast as the generic dumb blonde." The people and the media demanded more of the same persona and in order for Marilyn to stay successful, she played the same role over and over again to the point where she became the role to the eyes of the audience to this day.
For the past few weeks, I have finished digitally painting Marilyn's photo, which is considered to be one of the most commercialized and famous photographs of her and decided to create a short story showing how media's "demands" and "expectations" continue to stay the same even after her tragic death. Suddenly, what was thought as her life became way more interesting and moving as any other "dumb blonde" role that she has played in her movies. As Harvey states in his essay "The public grief was extraordinary. And it was only then, in a sense, that the real Marilyn Monroe movie began." The public to this day has a huge appetite for her pictures and the media still demands more of her and makes profit out of her image.
As this video starts, one can see the "creation" of Marilyn Monroe and a very short summary of the process of painting her, but the rest of the video mainly focuses on the consumption of her and how her beauty objectified her by poisoning her and taking away her voice. In a way, the viewer is also consuming her by watching this short video. Do you feel guilty?
Don't Bother to Knock, Roy Ward Baker, 20th Century Studios, 1952.
Harvey, James. “Marilyn Reconsidered.” The Threepenny Review, no. 58, Threepenny Review, 1994, pp. 35–37, Accessed Feb 16th 2022. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4384336.