It should not come as a surprise to say that the sexualization and objectification of women has been around for many years. Whether it be in movies, books, poems, advertisement, etc. women are seen as objects or things that are not to be taken seriously. Women are just the pretty distractions that need to be saved by the hero (a man of course). Throughout the years many women have tried to fight back against this phenomenon. In this blog, I wanted to focus on one poem by Judy Grahn called, "I have come to claim Marilyn Monroe's body" In this poem, Grahn addresses the sexualization of Marilyn Monroe and how she wants to handle it. She does this throughout the entire poem, but we are only going to focus on a few different lines. The first lines are, “Look at those luscious long brown bones /that wide and crusty pelvis /ha ha” In this stanza Grahn writes about the dead Marilyn Monroe’s bones as beautiful features of the dead woman like as to make fun of the people who only adored her for her body and saw her as a sex object. It is as if she says, “Why don’t you want her body now? Look how amazing her bones are!” She is pointing out that if people crave her body they might as well crave it now, too. Another topic Grahn seems to keep going back to is the irony of her beating the people that wanted to have Monroe’s body for themselves, with Monroe’s body. Grahn writes, “but when one of the reporters comes too close /I beat him /bust his camera with your long smooth thigh /and with your lovely knuckle bone /I break his eye” and “’How would you like to see Marilyn Monroe, /in action, smiling, and without her clothes?” /We shall wait long enough to see them make familiar faces /and then I shall beat them with your skull. /hubba. hubba. hubba. hubba. hubba.” Each of these lines shows how the thing that these people think they have the right to have, in this case Marilyn’s body, is the one thing that is going to destroy them. She is also making fun of these people again by using a common catcall for the time (“hubba”). These people wanted so desperately to have Monroe when she was alive, and they only saw her as a body to be claimed.
1 Comment
Jeremy C
10/13/2019 07:28:03 pm
I focused on this poem too, and you gave me a better understanding. I liked how you analyzed the first few lines because when I read them I actually didn't pick up on it right of way. Overall we had a pretty similar view of this poem, that being the objectification of women. I think you did a great job analyzing this poem, with this post I think it should definitely help make the poem more clear for readers. Great post.
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