my marilynity, part 2

My identification with Marilyn Monroe, I explained earlier this week, helped contain the dizzying, fizzying power of my vulnerable sexuality. But she is not the only Marilyn at whose altar I have pressed my fevered brow.

The other is this, lesser known, one; the other is Marilyn Munster.

As an American figure, Marilyn Munster is a D-grade icon at best--her real last name isn't even "Munster": it's "Blake," for she's the daughter of Lily Munster's unnamed sister. The Munsters may have had a better theme song and vehicle, but it was 98 Degrees  to The Addams Family's *NSYNC. Both shows debuted the same week in 1964—The Addams Family on ABC and The Munsters on CBS—but while The Addams Family was the legendary mordantly witty Charles Addams’s acknowledged child, The Munsters had a coat of arms with a bar sinister to show its place as the bastard offspring.

Marilyn, though, she was The Munster’s original creation. Herman, Lily et al were not merely knock-offs of Gomez and Morticia, but also strange amalgams of Frankenstein/Dracula/Werewolves and their wives and children, yet Marilyn in all her Sixties sorority glory ironically stood out in her uniqueness. Poor cousin Marilyn, she of the alabaster skin, Sandra Dee haircut, matchy twinsets and eternal matriculation at Westmore College, was the abnormal one, the sport genetic freak twisting in the breast of the Munsters’ family.

She was pitied for her paradoxical abnormal normality. She was, to them, the ugly one, the inconceivable offspring, the one who with some caring, loving tenderness could be gently shepherded back into the family fold to eventually take her place, hanging upside down, sleeping in the coffin, wearing gossamer black, sprouting pointy fangs, just like everyone else, just as she should be.

I know how she felt, I think, for I have been the poor cousin Marilyn in the nest of the ostensible freaks, over and over again in my life.

The first time it came to me, my second Marilnynity, was in the early ‘80s. I came home from work to my apartment in Dorchester, Massachusetts that I shared with my roommate Lauren. There was a party going on, and as a drunk, noisy testament to the status of Lauren’s and my relationship, not only had she not asked me if it was ok if she had a party, but she also had neglected to inform me that she would be throwing one.

And so I came home at about eleven at night to find my apartment filled to the rafters with punks, for Lauren and her compulsively LSD-taking Mohawked boyfriend, like Sheena, were punk rockers. Everywhere were Bobby Smith and Siouxie Sioux look-alikes, dripping black eyeliner and wafting Aquanet. To the blaring audio backdrop of The Cramps and Scraping Foetus off the Wheel black murders of raven-haired punks glommed together, drinking some cheap beer or another, smoking cigarettes to their bitter ends, talking ceaselessly about Art.

I wended my way through the groups, aware of my relatively natural blonde hair, my clothes that had matching pastel colors, my distinct lack of pointy make-up. I was the freak in my normalcy, proving that normalcy is nothing if not mutative and relative.

As I look back on it, that moment, that ‘80s punky epiphany, might have been the first moment I could see my Marilynity2, but it was not the first time I felt like the paradoxical freak of normalcy in the company of freaks. The first time was while in the company of my parents and their hippie friends. Surrounded by adults who, wearing fanciful costumes and performing their own private fantasies, were acting like children, I took the role of the little adult: I dressed with care; I sat with my back straight; I used knives and forks with Victorian precision; I left the room to fart.

I had to hold it all together in my little body or I felt that I would spin out of control with the centrifugal force of pure permissiveness.

And this role of poor cousin Marilyn, the pitiable carrier of the stanchion of dominant culture, fell to me again when I was stripping. I was the good girl, as I’ve said; I was such the good girl. In the fragrant augmented bosom of stripculture, I defined myself as the one who was most like everyone else outside the stripwalls, even though I knew I was not. For in that other world, I was a big freak myself, and I knew it.

Always betwixt and between, I find myself. Neither able nor willing to join whole-heartedly the two camps of culture, I ride the space between to this day.

Recently, another sex blogger asked me in an email how many people I’ve had sex with at once. Only three, I responded and heard the word “poseur” hiss in my ear. If I were a real sybarite, if I were really truly committed to this life of sexual excess, some niggling voice insists, nothing would be out of bounds. Everything consensual would be permitted.

I would sing the praises of enema art. I would join in promiscuous mixing, happy couplings with couples and singles of peoples of both genders and those in between. Gleefully I would do the thing with the belt, the banana, the hat.

In my imagination, I see the happy, supportive sex-positive folks talking about me. “Poor Chelsea Girl,” they say to one another and shake their heads significantly over their cups of tea.

“She’s a little repressed,” they say, and add conspiratorially, “Did you know that she’s only ever had a threesome? And not very many of them, either.” Sad, really, they say, and move on.

In real life, I’m sure they don’t. They have better things to do than to talk about me, but I fear being judged for my lack as much as for my excess. I fear being judged as much for being Monroe as I do for being Munster. And I fear that I will always ride that space in the middle the two, betwixt and between, never either one or the other, and always slightly suspect by both.

Comments

[Dacia]

I say "bah!" to sexual one-ups-manship. Yes, stories of sexual excess are fun to tell and (sometimes) fun to live. But you have to make your life livable for you, and be honest with wherever you're at right now. Hell, I've celibate for a month, and that's what I need to do right now. Whoever says I'm a poseur can go fuck themselves.

Not to be all book-pimpy, but my piece "My First Fetish, or How I Fought Mediocrity" in *Everything You Know About Sex is Wrong* is about exactly that - the feeling that I should be having more outrageous, awesome and kinky sex. Be true to yourself, its more interesting that way.

[KtotheE]

When my eldest daughter began to develop a personality of her own, beyond the baby-to-toddler-to-preschooler quirks (of which she had many but as friends remind me over and over, my kids being odd should not surprise me), we found that, contrary to expectations, she was the sweetness and light, the good-little-girl, the friendly, cooperative, obedient one. The child who looked askance as me when I used such strong language as 'darn' or 'butt'.

And the description I always used was this - we hoped to get Wednesday Addams. Instead, we got Marilyn Munster.

The second one, though, born and raised on a diet of Resident Evil and zombie movies, is goth to the core, so we have one of each, one Wednesday, one Marilyn, and they make a fine set.

And the big one just used the F word for the first time. I was proud.

[VJ]

You know, I think both of the shows were unique for their own reasons. They were actually written well, and had funny character actors playing in them. (We'll miss that old Vaudevillian Al Lewis as Grandpa Munster too!)Both shows probably might be examined profitably in various theses, but I think the Munster's & the Addams'actually played into the arguments then swirling around desegregation, in particular the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act. Here they were these very strange white folks, who were as tolerant as they were supremely goofy, who enjoyed being indulgent with kids and strangers alike, and seemed to be enjoying life. It would be almost another decade before we regularly saw Black faces on TV in sitcoms, but these folks were actually showing the rest of America that integration need not be all that scary. And that yes, crazy Addams' & Munster's were just as strange and 'crazy' as any immigrants or Blacks were supposed to be in the larger culture. Marilyn was naturally a part of that and I thought Pat Priest did a fine job at it too. Everyone was in on the joke, and Marilyn did her part to supply the requisite 'eye candy' role too. There was a gothic horror flick theme to both shows, but they always played it for laughs. Ancient sight gags were just huge in both too. I'll also make the same basic pitch for the 'Beverly Hillbillies' and their role in the LBJ's 'War on Poverty', and the formation of the still extant Appalachian Commission on improving development for the poor communities of the Southern mountains. Valuable roles to learn from.
Cheers & Good Luck! 'VJ'

[figleaf]

Dear Chelsea Girl,

I'm wondering why you chose to hide this particular Marilynity behind a jump. I mean, I can think of whys and make up reasons: self-consciousness, a policy of putting not-strictly-salacious posts behind jumps, a suspicion this particular confession isn't as interesting to us, a shy suspicion that you'll be judged anew once we know, maybe just for the hell of it. I'm more comfortable just wondering without imagining up my own answers and waiting for your next installment.

Also dear mother of God why do we always judge ourselves against the few people in the room who exceeds us in whatever dimension we're most horrified/fascinated with? Poor thing, we say, we know American letters but have never fully plumbed Dickenson as so and so has. Poor thing, we say, we’ve published eleven texts but we’ve never tenured as so and so has. Poor thing, we say, we’ve mastered the stage but never made it to the screen as so and so has. Poor thing, we say to ourselves, we've never done a Dirty Sanches, we've never fur-suited, we've never turned a trick. We say we’ve waxed every hair from head to tail... but never had the courage to pluck our eyelashes so we've never been really committed to hairlessness. We've never gone *all* the way. What must they think of us, how can they think of us at all?

My sweet ugly duckling, when people think of you at all they say what an astonishing swan.

Not that swans fit in either, you know. Only sultans roast them. Their eggs find their way neither into McMuffins nor nouvelle cuisine. Few realize that when they abandon from their fountained pools they soar not from Brooklyn to Boylston but from North Carolina to the Yukon.

I remember Marilyn Munster very well. I had a desperate pubescent school-boy crush on her. I could never comprehend why her unworthy lettersweatered swains would look away from her for a moment, let alone notice Uncle Herman, let alone flee when he emerged to meet them. Talk about a perfect metaphor for shallowness! (I mean the swains, not the swan.)

I wonder what her major was at Westmore. The convention (and lack of imagination) in the show would dictate something unearthly bland such as business or lesser math, but I imagine otherwise.

Cool post, CG.

figleaf

p.s. it might interest you to know that while nestling swans are vulnerable to weasles and foxes, an adult swan can ward off and even injure any predator short of a mountain lion and almost never retreat. A swan raised among geese and ducks might not realize this...

[skyboy]

stanchion?

[chelsea girl]

Dacia, yeah, sexual brinksmanship is a truly empty occupation, and I thank you for the reminder.

KtotheE, how lucky of you to have one Marilyn and one Wednesday. I'd be very proud too.

VJ, I can't believe I never saw these shows this way. I think I identified so strongly, I couldn't "read" them. Very groovy.

Fig, thank you for the swan plumage. I actually gave the piece a jump because I thought it was really long. When I reread it, I realized it wasn't, but I don't really feel like republishing.

Skyboy, it's called a dictionary. Hug it.

kissykiss,
cg

[VJ]

Yep, they're still sneaking all sorts of social commentary into them TV shows. MASH was not about the Korean war of course, but a wholesale commentary on the futility of 'Nam. Similarly the new 'Big Love' has less to do with Mormons than you'd care to believe. See:
[http://www.viridiancity.com/polyblog/archives/2006_03_16.html#000251]

Cheers & Good Luck! 'VJ'