Last call for Marilyn.
Step right up. Point and shoot. Come Monday you won’t get another chance, not here in Chicago, to pose with those jumbo underpants.
Miss her?
Some people say they will. Monster Marilyn, with her giant legs and billowing skirt, her higher-than-high heels and her snug halter top, has become a local icon.
Her admirers came in both genders, all skin tones, assorted ages, various nationalities, and they came all day every day, through the summer, autumn, winter, into spring. In the past week, people have journeyed downtown just to share a final moment, or a first one, with her humongous presence.
It’s hard to argue with popular.
But miss her? Not everybody.
I’m still partial to the description by a young male blogger who, shortly after the Marilyn statue moved into Pioneer Court, dubbed it “downright creepy and sexist.”
And yet because so many people enjoyed it, I’ve mellowed on it, certainly more than one guy I know who works with a view of it out his window.
“I hate that thing more all the time,” he grumbled recently.
He said he couldn’t wait for the day he won’t have to look out and see yet more people gawking up between Marilyn’s monster legs.
Well, that day is almost here, and it’s worth taking a moment to try to unravel the allure of the Forever Marilyn statue. What exactly made J. Seward Johnson’s 26-foot-tall, 40,000-pound likeness of a dead movie star such a phenomenon? Here’s what:
1. She was big.
Human beings are psychologically wired to be mesmerized by giants, and even in a city of skyscrapers, Marilyn loomed large, towering like Goliath over David, like Gulliver over the Lilliputians, like Ginormica over her fellow earthlings in “Monsters vs. Aliens.” Anyone larger than life somehow makes life more exciting. “Giantess porn,” I’m told, is hot on the Internet.
2. She was Marilyn.
Marilyn Monroe was a woman tragically trapped in her own life, dead at 36, possibly by suicide. But it’s the myth of Marilyn that endures and seduces. The mythological Marilyn is a timeless incarnation of female beauty, the quintessence of a certain sexual fantasy. Sex always sells.
3. Everybody knows her name.
In a fragmented world, where few people watch the same movies, listen to the same music or get the same jokes, everybody recognizes Marilyn. She’s a tie that binds.
4. The underpants.
Human beings are psychologically wired from approximately age 4 (“I see London, I see France,” etc.) to find underwear, especially female underwear, fascinating.
5. She was unique.
Art or kitsch? Whatever it was, we’d never seen anything like it.
6. Location, location, location.
She sat on a big, open plaza next to Michigan Avenue and the Chicago River, visible from a distance and to the passing masses, easy to get to and congregate around.
7. She was a great photo
op.
People would have stopped to stare even before everyone had a smartphone camera. Now that everyone does, she was an instant souvenir to send to friends.
8. She was a rallying point.
In the bustling city, it’s pleasant to encounter a public place to stop, to laugh, to talk, to mingle with strangers. “The Bean” in Millennium Park does it more tastefully, but Marilyn gets credit for encouraging social interaction.
And now she’s off, headed to LA, and a million new jokes and photo ops.
Goodbye, Marilyn. Safe travels.
