The Death of Marilyn Monroe
Aidrey Hunt
Who, What, When, Where, Why
Marilyn Monroe was an iconic sex symbol in the 1950s and was known for her good looks and some drama between her and the Kennedys. She was a famous actress and model but on August 5 of 1962, she was found dead in her room by her maid. There are many rumors of how she died but one of the main reasons people think is because of an overdose of barbiturates. But then some people think that maybe the Kennedys or the government killed her. There are many stories to this death and I'm going to share some ideas about it.
Marilyn Monroe New York Times article
Media Portrayed Perspective #1
In the first website, the media portrayed is the people that think Marilyn Monroe was murdered. It talks about how John W. Miner was an investigator for her case and still to this day doesn't believe that it was a suicide. He has tried to reopen the case to find the criminal but they didn't have enough information to do so. So this is aimed for the audience that believes that she was murdered and not suicidal and they come together and celebrate for her. This isn't for the crowd that thinks is was suicide.
Media Portrayed Perspective #2
In this history website, the media portrayed is that the fact of her death is that she committed suicide. They say that there are conspiracy theories of her being murdered by one of the Kennedy brothers but that the facts don't add up to it. They talk about how successful she was and how her mother was often entered into an insane asylum and how in 1961 she had to take medicines for her depression. But during her depression, she was regularly seen by her psychiatrist. So this article is aimed for the audience that goes with what the facts state and that is that she committed suicide by overdosing from barbiturates.
Media Bias
So in the first story/article, the people that were talking about Marilyn were strong believers that she was murdered. The guy that was in the investigation said that there was only a slight poisoning from barbiturates and that she wouldn't be naked on her bed for no reason, while being face down and drugged to death. He is against the idea that she committed suicide because he apparently knew that she wasn't even suicidal. So his bias is against the fact. But in the second article, it went through her entire life and how she was a foster child for the first part of her life while her mother couldn't take care of her. It also talked about how she became and actress and model. Then it got into how she became depressed and started taking a barbiturate to help with her depression. She was being seen regularly by a psychiatrist but there is no real proof of how she felt other than that. So when detectives came and there was an autopsy performed on her, they found out that she had over dosed on the medicine she was voluntarily taking. So their bias is for her committing suicide and sticking with the facts. So both of these articles used bias of selection or omission because they talk about what they think happened and nothing else. They want other people to think what they want them to think.
Criticism #1
The first criticism that comes to mind for me is the feminist point of view. She was and iconic sex model and boys wanted to take advantage of her because of her beauty. She was having love affairs with the Kennedys and that was their choice. They didn't have to do anything with her and then they go and blame everything on her anyways. The government was more for the Kennedys than Marilyn because they are ruling men and she was just some slutty actress to them. So I can definitely see how they would think it was a suicide and that she killed herself because I honestly think that she didn't commit suicide and that the government is hiding who the real killers are and that is one of the Kennedy brothers.
Criticism #2
I can also see how the marxist criticism comes into play here too. She was a famous woman and she made a lot of money but people talked poorly about her because she was making money from being a "whore". The poor people didn't like how hard they had to work for their money and how she could just take her shirt off and make 5x more than they do. The other women especially probably didn't like that because if any other woman were to do that, they would get slut shamed and not get the same reaction of Marilyn did. So I can see how the poor thought how she was an awful person which could have been a leading reason to her "suicide".
The Mysterious Death Of Marilyn Monroe