Gwyneth Gets a Major Marilyn Makeover
Photo: Max Factor
In the 1950s, Marilyn Monroe was one of Max Factor’s most high-profile clients. Like she has for so many other brands, Monroe’s inspired a new campaign for the beauty company. This time, Gwyneth Paltrow stars as a modern-day Marilyn, with sultry “set” waves and a fuchsia lip in honor of the 1940s femme fatale.
Related: Gwyneth’s painful take on beauty
To “become” Monroe, Paltrow dons polka-dotted pedal pushers, a sweet cardigan, and a gingham top. In a behind-the-scenes video, she says it’s fun to dress up for work, although she seems unlikely to rush out in full Monroe style off set. “I might do a bright pink lip but have, you know, more simple hair,” she says. (Max Factor is no longer available in the United States, but for a similar lip color, try Cover Girl Lip Perfection lip color in Fairytale, a bright coral pink.)
Related: I tried Gwyneth’s diet
The only issue we have with the campaign? Monroe was a star of the fifties, not the forties? “To use Marilyn in celebration of the 1940s is indeed anachronistic,” says pop-culture scholar Robert Thompson, the director of Syracuse University’s Bleier Center for Television & Popular Culture. “She had a contract in the late forties and was puttering around in films, but Marilyn is an icon of the 1950s and very early 1960s, not the 1940s.” What’s more, he points out, Monroe was famous for playing breathy, baby-voiced roles rather than sultry temptresses—she was hardly a femme fatale. The Max Factor campaign may be fun, but it’s certainly taken some creative license with history.
Related: Marilyn’s diet and exercise plan
Historical accuracy aside, the ad proves that Monroe remains intriguing more than 50 years after her death. In 2014 alone, Margot Robbie, Beyoncé, Kylie Minogue, Miley Cyrus, Kate Upton, and Scarlett Johansson have all posed like the star. So why does Marilyn Monroe still cast a spell on us?
There isn’t just one answer, Thompson says. “She died young and beautiful, she was filled with mystery, the whole Kennedy connection, and the fact that her look reminds us of the last real decade of Old Hollywood glamor—all contribute to her status as the model of a certain kind of allure,” he says. And if the past is any indication, that allure is eternal, even if the details aren’t always the same.
