Video will appear as you scroll through the story
Madonna · S3 E6
Material Girl
The Marilyn Monroe comparison: what she intended, what the media ran with, and why she couldn't shake it for years
A soundstage in Los Angeles, January 1985. Madonna is in a pink satin gown, surrounded by men in tuxedos handing her diamonds, re-creating Marilyn Monroe shot for shot, but the press will spend the next five years ignoring that the whole thing is a joke.
"Hollywood", official music video (2003). Eighteen years after "Material Girl," Madonna makes a song about the machinery of fame itself. A noir meditation on celebrity, glamour, and the distance between who you are and who the cameras say you are.
TAP TO REVEAL: What did Madonna actually think about the Marilyn Monroe comparison?
The Character She Cannot Escape
The problem with "Material Girl" is that it works too well. The Marilyn pastiche is immediately recognizable, and the public wants a simple story. It does not matter that the video has a framing device showing her character rejecting the diamonds. The image of her in the pink gown, surrounded by wealth, becomes the defining frame.
“I am not a Material Girl. I was playing a character. It's like saying Meryl Streep is really the person she plays in a movie. But nobody cares about that distinction when the character sells magazines.”
— Madonna
Material Facts
The "Material Girl" video recreates Marilyn Monroe's "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend." In that 1953 film, what is the name of Monroe's character?
Shoo-Bee-Doo
The album track nobody talks about, buried on side two. A sweet, unguarded love song that reveals the person behind the Material Girl image. No character, no pastiche, no Marilyn. Just a girl from Michigan writing about wanting to be loved.
The press thinks they have her figured out. Then a low-budget indie film called Desperately Seeking Susan opens, and Madonna proves she can act.
0 XP earned this session