Marilyn Monroe and the Sexual Politics of Hollywood

General histories of Hollywood have under-represented the hidden sexual system that motivated Hollywood behavior in these years.  Focusing on Hortense Powdermaker’s description of the studio system as a “patriarchy” akin to plantation slavery, this paper investigates the functioning of that system in the case of Marilyn Monroe.  It will draw on Banner’s extensive interviews with Marilyn’s friends and her associates, on her “deep” reading of documents and memoirs about Hollywood, and on an analysis of Marilyn’s autobiography, unexamined thoroughly by previous authors on this major star.