Marilyn Monroe: From Cultural Icon To Corporate Whore

Marilyn Monroe lived and died in an age blissfully free of the tawdry taint of social networks, but that hasn’t stopped some chancer opening a Facebook account in her name and recruiting over millions of  fans under the banner of the Monroe brand.

Fifty years after the Hollywood icon’s death and it’s still very much a case of goodbye Norma Jeane and hello sacred cash cow. Since her untimely demise at the age of 36 in 1962 the tragic starlet has been prime product for the money men who continue to milk millions from the 21st century pop culture phenomenon

Monroe also has 242,000 Twitter followers, which is kind of ironic considering she never wrote a tweet and if she was alive today she would be an old lady in her 90s.

Who’s responsible for the latest round of perpetual pimping of Marilyn Monroe as the world’s most profitable corpse? The Authentic Brands Group and its partner, NECA who purchased Monroe’s estate in late 2010, that’s who.

The Authentic Brands Group also own the Elvis Presley brand and have this to say on their website.

“Elvis Presley speaks to the rebel inside all of us – the rebel that defies convention and strives to forge a path of truth, passion and individuality. The Elvis Presley brand is ever-evolving and constantly redefining itself in relationship to contemporary culture.”

Yes indeedy, do, do. 

As far as Monroe is concerned, her hourglass figure, platinum locks, cherry red lips, bedroom eyes and breathless wonder are all prime assets in a marketing strategy which involves developing Marilyn-themed cosmetics, spas and salons, sportswear, swimwear, footwear, handbags and more, much more.

Yet as we all know, Marilyn’s biggest source of revenue is her legend. As far as the money machine’s movers and shakers are concerned, the sex symbol’s mysterious death was a perfect career choice. Not only did she become fixed for all eternity in the public’s perception as forever young, forever fragile, and forever free of anything that could harm her future image, such as age, regret, wisdom, or her big brassy mouth, but the murky nature of her death has kept Monroe fans buzzing with conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory – and as all dizzy blondes know, you can’t beat a drama!



Marilyn is a frozen goddess in a white dress with a wiggle in her walk and a giggle in a her talk.
She was the most photographed person of the 20th century and each individual image of her is forever waiting and continually yearning for the viewer to invest it with a new meaning and deeper significance.

The cult of Monroe attracts new disciples with each generation. Most of them are keen to emulate their icon but are not so concerned about finding out what it actually takes to walk a mile in Monroe’s shoes and there is a big difference.

The sort of empty-headed and vain little vamps who pepper their Facebook accounts with such worn and tired Monroe quotes as, “I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am 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,” want the image but not the intellect, the glamour but not the grind, and the fame without the tragedy and vulnerability which made the troubled girl from California so unique.



On what would have been Marilyn’s 86th birthday, Lady Gaga tweeted “Happy Birthday Marilyn – They’ll never take our blonde hair and lipstick”, along with a picture of herself.

Lady Gaga was wrong, if you grow old, age will take your blonde hair, and either embarrassment or dignity will take your lipstick. If on the other hand you die young, they’ll take everything, including your image, memory, legacy, legend and if you’re not careful, your very soul, before rubbing their hands and using it all just to turn a buck.

Patients Before Profits: Let’s Stand-Up For The NHS

With the gory Tories up to their brassnecks in the bloody carnage of destructive healthcare reforms here’s why the NHS is a great British institution we should not let Cameron’s cronies put to sleep.

If people in other countries regard the UK's National Health Service as something of a miracle, that's because it is. It's easy to be blase and critical of something which is familiar to most Britons as fish and chips and the Beatles, but the simple fact is without a free-at-the-point-of-use NHS, adequate healthcare would be the sole preserve of the wealthy.

Former Labour MP and son of a coal miner, Aneurin Bevan, who spearheaded the establishment of the NHS in the 1940s, would no doubt be turning in his grave to see the plans the current crop of multi-millionaire MPs have in mind for the NHS.

Whereas your average person equates the NHS with healthcare and rightly praise it as one of our country's greatest achievements, a large majority of movers and shakers in the corridors of power equate it with pound signs and that dreaded word - 'commodity'.

Bevan once wrote, "The collective principle asserts that... no society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means."

Defenders of healthcare reforms hide behind throwaway phrases such as “modernisation of services”, a “cost effective service,” and plead like two-bit touts that as a country we can no longer afford the NHS, but in reality the bottom line is a purely philanthropic enterprise such as the NHS, is impacting on the money men's profit margins. Consequently it keeps them awake at night as they ponder on how they could turn things around without any real resistance and turn a profit out of other people's misery and ill health.

It may all sound a tad cynical but Bevan hit the nail on the head decades ago when he said, "The National Health service and the Welfare State have come to be used as interchangeable terms, and in the mouths of some people as terms of reproach. Why this is so it is not difficult to understand, if you view everything from the angle of a strictly individualistic competitive society. A free health service is pure Socialism and as such it is opposed to the hedonism of capitalist society."

Now just look at the damage Cameron, Osborne, and Smith have wreaked upon the Welfare State and imagine what sort of plans these lame ducks are busy hatching for the future of the NHS. It's not looking pretty is it?

We the people fund the NHS but the government are telling us there's not enough money in the pot. Anyone else smell a tangible odour of bull dung? Billions of pounds of taxes remain uncollected and unpaid, while even more is kept offshore by the fat cats of commerce. Instead of collecting these taxes, the government chooses to adopt the stance of Wall Street's Gordon Gekko and snarl pompously, "Greed is good! Let's turn the NHS into a big player in the world of business."

High on a hill above his native town of Tredegar you'll find four standing stones which act as a memorial to Aneurin Bevan, the current Chancellor of the Exchequer and fast food addict, George Osborne, will be lucky if his lasting legacy is a plastic plaque outside his nearest McDonald's.

Now, while there are many horror stories regarding individual patients treatment at the hands of the NHS, it all usually stems from a cut in funding and a lack of services to meet the ever higher demand of people's requirements. Privatisation is not the answer, simply finding the necessary resources is.

The NHS as an idea represents the very best in humanity, that of people working for one another and ensuring everyone is taken care of in the name of the greater good. Privatisation represents the very worst, and in an environment of brutal self-interest and callous commerce who's gong to take care of you when you're ill if you haven't got enough money to pay the devil for his sympathy?

There seems a general apathy towards the destruction of the NHS amongst a lot of the younger generation, perhaps because no-one appreciates how valuable a resource it is until they really need to call upon its services. The key word here being 'need'. We need the NHS, not just for what it offers, but for what it represents, an institution which was built upon the ideals and values which the politicians of today with their sickening naked ambition, and sneering self-interest, woefully fail to comprehend.

Jog on 'Aunty’: Here’s Why The BBC Licence Fee Should Be Scrapped

The BBC is a dying dinosaur collapsing under the sheer weight of its own corruption and incompetence. Enough is enough. It really is time to scrap the licence fee and tell old ‘Aunty’ to jog on or compete on a level playing field.

In this austere age of perpetual recession where an army of millionaire MPs have made more cuts and slashes, it leaves somewhat of a sour taste in the mouth that each UK household when forced by law to pay £145.50 a year to finance the legion of crooked fat cats, tired old hacks, vacuous celebrities, aspiring politicians, two-bit shysters, talking heads and perfumed ponces that all flock together like one big hugely dysfunctional family under the banner of the BBC.
 
To put it bluntly, the stale perfume of rotten fruit and vile odour of institutional decay has surrounded the British Broadcasting Corporation, or to put it more aptly, the 'Beeb', for an awfully long time now.

As a collective audience of brass-plated mugs we could just about stomach the fact that endless repeats of Dad's Army, live episodes of Eastenders, sporting pundits in love with their own voice, groundbreaking movies from the 1980s, Cash in the Attic and of course, the One Show, didn't really represent value for money.

Even the huge fees commanded by celebrity sycophants such as Jonathan Ross, who defended his £6million a year salary whilst at the BBC with a blithe rationale that, "I'm in show business and I was at the top of my game," weren't enough for us to take to the streets in a merry carnival of licence burning and aunty bashing.

Yet, along came a spider in the form of the Jimmy Savile revelations. The perverted DJ's web seemed to infiltrate the very fabric of the BBC and forever taint it with the foul implication that our beloved 'Aunty' allowed this predatory paedophile carte blanche to carry on 'grooming a nation' just as long as the white-haired, shell-suit wearing, cigar eating freak stayed on top of the ratings.

And then like a particularly nauseating slug in Savile's toxic trail, along came Stuart Hall. Another BBC stalwart, and another vile pervert. Like Savile, the 'It's A Knockout' presenter stood accused of abusing his victims on BBC premises, and like Savile there are an abundance of accusations that the corporation knew about it. A source told the Mirror, “Everyone at the BBC was talking about him (Hall) and the young girls but nobody did anything about it." As more than one critic shrewdly noticed, "Public money funded these monsters to abuse kids while the BBC turned a blind eye."

That same public money, in other words your licence fee, was also used to pay Lord McAlpine a total of £310,000 for libel damages and the accountants at the Beeb dug into the very same purse to pay Savile's victims an amount equalling almost £4million.

Regardless of the arguments centered around who should be paying compensation in such cases, the final straw which is breaking the licence payers' back is the fact that the total paid to Savile's victims is actually lower than the £4.1m 'golden handshake' paid to senior managers who were forced out in the wake of the scandal. On what deranged planet could that ever be right?

But wait there's more! Much more. Seven of the top brass at the BBC were grilled a few years back  by a committee led by MP Margaret Hodge to determine who was responsible for the scandal of using licence payers' money as 'sweeteners' to pay off executives within the corporation.

During the three hour hearing it transpired that BBC HR Director Lucy Adams was accused of describing licence payers money as 'sweeteners'and a leaked email reveals Miss Adams asking a colleague in HR, "What would the typical redundancy payment be so I can get a sense of the scale of this sweetener"

Oh dear! What a crooked web they weave. Like a crusading knight on a white horse, which is rather rich considering her former incompetence and apathetic behavior during the Islington care home scandal, MP Margaret Hodge, righteously declared that the corporation's personnel chief Lucy Adams was a liar.

 The venomous broadside was apparently met with cheers in the BBC newsroom which reveals a lot about the culture of the 'Beeb' and backs up the recent report which found harassment and bullying has created a "climate of anxiety and fear" within the corporation.

 So ask yourself this? Do we really need to pay BBC employees to visit Afghanistan and make a special programme about how Prince Harry is saving the world. And could we possibly sacrifice the need to finance the likes of Gary Barlow to travel the globe and record a special song for the Queen just so he can secure himself a chance of bagging a future knighthood?

 And Is the opportunity to 'exclusively' enjoy Raiders of the Lost Ark on Saturday evening or watch a pensioner with a wig and speech impediment gamely shuffle his feet and tell terrible jokes, while hot young, scantily clad young things gyrate crazily all around him worth paying £145.50 a year for. It's definitely worth it for the likes of Bruce Forsyth because he received  a cool £500,000 for each series of Strictly Come Dancing, but it's doubtful if he ever has to worry about meeting the mortgage repayments, paying the car tax, or keeping on top of the household bills in an endless bid to keep the wolf from the doors.

 So chew on that next time you're watching a gang of overpaid singers, whose pockets are lined with your hard-earned money, squabble furiously about what slice of fresh meat has got 'the voice' to ensure them at least five minutes in the limelight as the Karaoke saviour of their generation.

Fans, and they're usually employees of the BBC will wax lyrically about what a great institution the BBC is. It's not and never has been. It certainly no longer complies with its original charter to educate, inform, and entertain. It's a pompous and out of touch bloated organisation, riddled from top to bottom with greed, elitism, and the very worst traits of institutionalised corruption and cultural fascism. In effect the Beeb can be likened to a secret society that regards itself vastly superior to the common plebs.

Isn't it about time 'Aunty' dearest competed on the level playing field that is the free market. In a digital age where freedom of choice is king, isn't a media outlet demanding money with menaces from every household in the land no matter if your interested in subscribing to their services or not, the actions of a crazed tyrant? A yearly subscription to both Lovefilm and Netflix costs a lot less than the BBC's licence fee and I know which service I prefer and offers more bang for my buck.

It really is time for the Government to wake up, tune into another channel and scrap this outdated, unwanted, unnecessary and extortionate licence fee.

I've got to go now, a man in a white van with a strange device on top has just pulled up outside my house requesting a 'quiet word'.