No doubt you saw images of Kim Kardashian channeling Marilyn Monroe at the annual Met Gala last month. The reason she was such a sight to behold is that Kim completely transformed herself to fit into the dress Marilyn wore when she famously serenaded Happy Birthday to JFK.
Perhaps in unwitting homage to the Lee Strasberg method acting Marilyn practiced, Kim not only dyed her dark hair blonde but dieted her big body small, so much so that she seemed to be only inhaling, unnaturally.
But now comes the exhale, here courtesy of today’s edition of Yahoo! News:
_________
New images posted to Instagram by Marilyn Monroe historian Scott Fortner have revealed damage done to the late actress’s 60-year-old dress recently worn on the Met Gala red carpet by Kim Kardashian. And fellow collectors and fans are speaking out about the ‘offensive’ move by the SKIMS mogul and Ripley’s Believe It or Not, which lent out the dress. …
‘It was just shocking to see the way that this gown was being treated and forcibly, I mean, it appeared that it was literally forcibly being pushed up around her,’ Fortner says. ‘It wasn’t cared for as part of those fittings.’
Adds Morrisette, ‘I knew that there was going to be visible damage.’
On June 12, when he walked into Ripley’s Believe It or Not in Orlando, Florida to see the dress in person for the third time in his life, he confirmed it.
‘When I saw the shredded material, it broke my heart,’ he says. ‘I literally left in tears.’
________
Well cry me a friggin’ river!
Believe it or not, I think this serves Ripley’s right for loaning Kim the dress in the first place. They got the viral PR moment she guaranteed their stunt would produce.
But this fallout reflects how the doyens of haute couture continually look down on social-media influencers like Kim. This, even while they continually try to profit off their influence.
But I have nothing but contempt for those snobs. In fact, here is how I mocked this cultural juxtaposition in “Kim Kardashian on ‘Rolling Stone’?! Is Nothing Sacred…? July 16, 2015:
________
I don’t begrudge Kim and her family their success, no matter how contrived. On the contrary, I admire the zeal and esprit de corps with which they exploit the public’s insatiable lust for simple-minded, prurient fluff.
No, my beef is with the putative guardians of mainstream media – who now troll social media for snarky tweets and photo-shopped Instagrams to broadcast as news.
________
It’s not Kim’s fault that they wanted to exploit her fame to show off their dress, which nobody sees cooped up in their stuffy museum. Kim gave them what they wanted – even nearly starving herself to death to do so.
So here’s to her leaving them to deal with the rips and tears her still cosmetically-enhanced, diet-proof body caused…
Related commentaries:
Met Gala… Kim Kardashian…