Taking Sides: Judy Garland vs Marilyn Monroe

Hahaha.

too much emphasis on mutable signs leads to neurosis, even though mutability does promote sensitivity. duality, two-faced women, never still, intellectual aspirations, similarly entombed by iconicity (sex/symbol:: adolescent optimist-girl), forever unhappy with the one twin that was projected, since the other was ignored. i think marilyn was even more empty, since at least judy experienced motherhood and it changes a woman. judy was the better singer, but marilyn was splendiferous in most of what she did, so i'd pick her

gemini women never fully grow up, and inside they remain little girls, even though a part of them always wants to

and a part of them doesn't

uh...have you ever seen Marilyn get TOSSED (and i mean tossed)by Richard Widmark in Don't Bother to Know after the cat fight?

which is a hell of a lot more physical than that slap Judy got!

i love both, but Judy was a singer, Marilyn never was a 'singer' she never wanted to be, that was never her goal(although she was a good singer, if you don't think so listen to 'Ev'y Baby Needs a Da-Da-Daddy' then listen to 'After you get what you want you don't want it') it was part of the training, she wanted to act, which she did very well....

I agree with you though, Judy was a singer foremost but her great gift was her acting in the songs, she didn't just sing the notes she put across the words which made her a better actress than Monroe.

classic

I just saw "A Star Is Born" for the first time last night, and though Garland has never meant anything to me, I am finding myself totally captivated by the icon that she is. I can't really put my finger on it...

Kind of like how Mary J. Blige always seems to be physically under the burden of a heavy, heavy sadness -- Judy is like that, too.

http://204.50.24.183/bewitched/asherinterv/judy.jpg
http://www.cinematical.com/images/2005/06/JudyGarlandPhoto.jpg
http://www.nobby.de/images/movies/star/cjudy.jpg

And yeah, I agree about Judy trying too hard and vote for Marilyn.

She has her moments, The Pirate (which otherwise isn't very good) and the pre-tragic stuff in Star Is Born come to mind. There's a hilarious clip of her on an old Jack Paar show re-enacting Marlene Dietrich at a party playing a record of one of MD's live performances -- consisting entirely of applause.

It's too bad they got rid of the Biography clock in Columbus Circle.

The roof of my old building used to stare straight at that Biography clock. It wouldn't even seem like...Columbus Circle, now. I mean, there isn't really much to lose about that area of town now but c'mon. :(

I used to love how it'd interrupt the weather forecast to announce who they were Biography-ing that week. "78 F WITH A CHANCE OF...HANK AZARIA AT 8PM WEDS...SHOWERS"

this one?

OTMest thing ever said, by the way. Probably my new favoriute musical number of all time.

there's no such thing as objective beauty!

(and perhaps i'm being purposefully obtuse in a sense in saying that i don't know what a hwood std of beauty is, but in another sense i'm really not - there's hardly a single mold that "beautiful hollywood stars" fall into these days, and i think that's been true for quite some time)

I don't really find Judy Garland to be personally attractive but I don't really understand the idea that she doesn't meet the general standard, and she's certainly by no means an ugly woman, and I really don't understand perfectly intelligent, well-read, educated people arguing with me on the idea that societal/Hollywood benchmarks of "objective" attractiveness exist, whether or not the individual agrees with them.

Granted Ken L OTM re: retroactive effects of aging badly.

I agree with Allyzay.

If Marilyn is the standard, I don't see how Judy fits it.

I mean for heaven's sake, if this standard didn't exist and wasn't pretty well accepted as a general realm of "acceptable," where on earth do you get off placing yourself in "the minority" on the subject of what is beautiful, and why would supposedly ugly people feel they fell short of--NO!--some arbitrary standard?

I admit that I'm not trying very hard, and am going on 3 hrs sleep, but I don't know what this means.