#260 – Marilyn Monroe

16 04 2014

We have been harsh on the bogan, in the sincere belief that we were also being fair. We told you that the bogan is an empty vessel, a gaping maw just begging to have celebrity-of-the-month gossip regurgitated into it. We dared to suggest that the bogan stands for nothing, falls for everything, and possesses no enduring convictions beyond the urge to demonstrate its own loathsomeness.

Lies. All of these were lies. The bogan is actually a classicist; a person of timeless taste. The bogan is a… candle in the wind. Because the bogan likes Marilyn Monroe.

Monroe, born as someone else 90 years ago, turned a string of “dumb blonde” movie appearances into a brief tenure atop a subway air vent, a few better movies, three husbands, and an overdose death at age 36. But to the bogan, Marilyn is not a 1950s actress. She is evidence of how the bogan is a good person.

 

The 53.5kg Monroe, who represents a mandate to become overweight

The 53.5kg Monroe, who represents a mandate to become overweight

Firstly, Marilyn Monroe embodies the myth of the “real woman”. The female bogan will confidently inform you that Monroe’s size 16 frame represents “real beauty” in the “real world”, and that it justifies the bogan’s unwillingness to exercise its restraint at the dinner table, or regularly exercise its body away from it. Sadly for the bogan’s excuse-mongering, a British fashion journalist who had the chance to try on some of Monroe’s clothing confirmed that Monroe blew out from a size 8 early in her career, to size 10 at her biggest. Using Marilyn Monroe as validation of being size 16 is like using Oscar Pistorius as validation of wearing socks and sandals together.

But it gets better. Not only does the bogan use Monroe’s 23 inch waist as permission to let itself go, it also uses her as a philosophical mandate to be a shit human in a general sense. Monroe has numerous well-known quotes to her name, but one of them has been embraced with far more fervour than the others, infecting Facebook walls, Tinder profiles, and anything else with a text box that stays still long enough for the female bogan to mash the quote into its keyboard.

“I’m selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I’m out of control, and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.” When recited to a non-bogan, it might be interpreted as a message encouraging humility, pragmatism, and loyalty. But to a bogan, it’s a massive green light for any and every pig-headed thought, utterance, or action that can possibly be imagined.

Unfortunately, the bogan will rarely exhibit the “best” which lends some sort of balance to the quote, but why should it have to… the Marilyn Monroe in the bogan’s mind has already commanded it to eat another burger, start another fight, and cut to the front of another queue. The bogan likes Marilyn Monroe.


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29 responses

16 04 2014
Shirley M.

Now you guys are just reading my mind. I hate that farking bollocking quote. Haughty, arrogant nonsense.

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16 04 2014
James Hunter

Shirley M. I fixed it so they can not read my mind….It’s full of blank pages !!!

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16 04 2014
chellesh0ck

Bahahahahha, YES – THAT FUCKING QUOTE!!
I was with a male friend who was using Tinder the other day and it was a rule that every woman who put that fucking quote on their profile got a sturdy swipe to the left. And the size thing, FFS. All those “motivational posters” about how “beauty comes in all sizes, men only want women with curves like Marilyn Monroe, who was a size 16”. Um, you can CLEARLY see that she is nowhere near a modern size 16 in her photos!
Stupid fucking bogans.
PS Welcome back awesome blog, I missed you!

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10 06 2014
WhiskyTangoFoxtrot

“….men only want women with curves like Marilyn Monroe”

Only want? Really?

The popularist boganettes’ observations fails to explain why alpha males who can pick any woman they want (e.g.: Billionaire heroes of the bogan such as Donald Trump or Jamie Packer and, for the nationalist bogan, the future King) never seem to pick a plus-sized bird for their spouse.

Ms Monroe had a waist, that is what made her “curvy”. And she actually had far-apart breasts, not a cleavage. Both a waist and lack of cleavage are eschewed by the bogan. But, one thing is for certain, she was never, ever plus-sized.

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31 07 2014
Jesse Cohen

It’s not actually true that men pick any woman they want. I wish this were true! My studies in psychology and biology make it pretty clear that it is women who do the choosing and we blokes try and compete our hardest to be chosen. So instead of asking who rich men marry, you will learn more about the world by asking what type of man does a high-status woman choose?

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17 04 2014
mike gascoigne

Could “Bragging about their assertiveness” be added to the list?

Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve noticed bogans tend to happily volunteer stories about the tough stance they once took against someone, which will often include a direct quote of what they said during the height of the confrontation.

The bogan will want you to know it is tough, but will prefer to recount stories of its alleged toughness rather than actually display it. For instance, the bogan may tell you it witnessed a boy sustain a spinal injury while it was refereeing a junior rugby league game but nevertheless looked the distraught father in the eye on the field and said “You’re not touching him, mate”.

etc

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18 04 2014
Simon - Glasser at Arms

Surely you mean the rool world! Thanks boys for the article, very true.

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19 04 2014
marina72

That quote probably wasn’t said by Marilyn, as it only surfaced online a few years ago and can’t be traced to any reliable source. There are numerous other misquotes attributed to her. And so, like the Size 16 myth, it’s just another example of people turning Monroe into something she never was,and never wanted to be.

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31 07 2014
Jesse Cohen

I don’t know anything about dress sizes but my wife has been looking over my shoulder and tells me that size 4 in the US is about Australian size 10 so if Marilyn wore size 10 US clothing then that’s Aussie size 16. Also I don’t really get why Marilyn Monroe has got anything to do with anything. Does it really matter that much that she was curvy?

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19 04 2014
Shirley M.

You could totally do a post on ‘inspirational quotes’. Another Marilyn quote was spotted on my Facebook feed this morning – “A woman doesn’t need anyone that doesn’t need her.” Ugh.

But this one has to be my absolute favourite: Women are like apples on trees. The best ones are at the top of the tree. The men don’t want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of falling and getting hurt. Instead, they just get the rotten apples from the ground that aren’t as good, but easy.

So the apples at the top think something is wrong with them, when in reality, THEY’RE amazing. They just have to wait for the right man to come along, the one who’s brave enough to climb all the way to the top of the tree.

So all women in relationships are rotten, and all single women are amazing.

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23 04 2014
Urchin

Who cares?

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19 04 2014
p'bee

First time I’ve checked here in many moons and you have a new post! Hurrah!
Very glad you tackled the bogan vision of Marilyn Monroe. I’ve always noticed bogans comment on Monroe’s looks and (often misattributed) quotes, almost never on her films. But I guess those are old films and none of them were directed by Michael Bay – and not one superhero in any of them! – so they’re not really bogan viewing.
And just on the real women have curves/Marilyn was size 16 crap, as someone who sews, owns a bunch of vintage patterns, and is on the smaller size of stick, vintage sizing is completely different. A vintage 12 is close to a modern 6. But all of Monroe’s clothes were tailored, anyway, because she had a tiny waist but big boobs and hips – she was a style icon because her body was so unusual and accentuated. Not really someone you can hold up as any sort of norm.

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22 04 2014
martin

The ultimate trophy wife. Her boobs don’t look that big in the nudy playboy pics of her p’bee.

I’d still do her though.

But at least she was honest, ie Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.

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24 04 2014
Moo

Miss Bogan needs a suitably narcissistic quote for her fecebook and Marilyn’s was ripe for it. Considering someone like, say, Germaine Greer or Margaret Thatcher would be way above her simian intellect to grasp, and rarely those quotes contain the word “I” repeated multiple times to be genuinely appealing and relevant. Miss Bogan finds comfort in Zara’s size 16 as is her giddy belief that an iconic dead blonde’s size 10 is the same thing as her size 16. This makes it easy for her delusional myopic outlook to happily regurgitate to the world as sharp-witted content for her riveting social media posts.

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24 04 2014
KJ

“The Internet is a wondrous invention indeed, and the best thing about it is you can attribute a quote to someone and practically no one will question it.”

– Albert Einstein. Or was it Mahatma Gandhi or John Lennon? Maybe it was Oscar Wilde…

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24 04 2014
Moo

BTW: welcome back lads.

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24 04 2014
KJ

How ironic that all of these women are attributing that quote to Marilyn Monroe and therefore using her as an excuse to be everything she wasn’t. Ms Monroe might have had a bit of a naughty streak but she still behaved like a lady and always looked immaculate when she went out in public, and I’m sure she would be appalled that such an arrogant, self-indulgent quote would be attributed to her and used as an excuse to be a pig.

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6 05 2014
Terry

Perhaps we could do a post on the bogan voting Liberal because of slush funds and Rupie?

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21 05 2014
Davo

Bogans don’t vote liberal, never have never will. Bogans love populists like Shorten and Palmer. Bogans hate being told they can’t have free sh!t, they want everything they pay in tax back and more. Palmer is probably the best bogan polli since Gillard. Apart from not actually being a bogan like Gillard he definitely hits the right notes with the bogan masses. He bags “greedy” liberals, he sings, he twerks, he sticks up for battlers and he doesn’t bore the bogan with details like costings or policies. Watch the next few years as Palmer steals the bogan vote off labor, unless of course his litigious ways and his health catch up to him.

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18 07 2014
Carlos the Jackal

I don’t know about that. Tony Abbott was pushing plenty of the right buttons to get the bogan vote (“stopping the boats, axing the tax, blah blah blah…), while keeping somewhat silent about his neo-conservative agenda of austerity until after he was elected.

My favourite quote about bogans and voting Liberal goes to the two blokes I happened to be lined up behind at a polling station in Boothby on election day in 2004: “Yeah, John Howard is a bastard, but Kim Beazley is a fat bastard, so I’m gonna vote for John Howard.”
Some well-informed voters, right there…

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22 07 2014
p

Since Howard the bogan vote has moved heavily to the LNP. Howard appealed to both greed and xenophobia, which had a Pavlovian response from many bogans. And as for Gillard, come on! She was despised by most bogans – just look at all the abuse she copped from the Murdoch press, listen to the callers to Alan Jones et al, such as the one who suggested she be put in a chaff bag and drowned. The bogan response to Gillard was vicious.

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22 07 2014
p'bee

One more thing, Palmer is definitely more of a bogan than Gillard ever was. The only real reason Gillard gets seen as bogan is her voice.

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31 10 2014
Davo

Ok, some bogans do vote liberal, but I’d say the vast, vast majority of bogans vote labor. Just look at the “Fuck Tony Abbott” tshirts and “Abbott is a cunt” stickers. Pretty bogan if you ask me.

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19 05 2014
Derry Jones

Bogan shows the value of beauty and myth in real world..perhaps!!

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30 05 2014
Ash - Glasser of Carnts

I was surprised when I heard that this was the latest TBL. I always thought of Marilyn Monroe as a thing Tumblr Social Justice Warriors like (i.e. because she’s not “skinny” in the conventional sense and is therefore the ideal of female beauty). But I get it now.

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25 06 2014
BSWAM

The quote attributed to Ms. Monroe is certainly never anything said by her. Re: “A few better films” I’d call “Some Like it Hot” the best comedy of its era. She also had a small part in “All About Eve,” a great and thoroughly vicious satire of New York’s caustic theater/socialite set.

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24 03 2016
Clinton Keevy

My experiences with a vast number of the Australian population have finally been eloquently validated. I live vicariously through your words!

Great site! Thank you!

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1 04 2016
Nicki

The best part about dipshits using this quote is that Marilyn Monroe never even said it… It surfaced on the net somewhere during the past 10 years

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13 08 2016
Marilyn Monroe

That quote is fake. Like most Marilyn quotes online.

You may well be right. People use dead celebrities as vehicles for all sorts of agendas. TBL

Reply

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