We are all Marilyn Monroe – Blonde proves it

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. According to author and self-confessed “hug mobster” Edie Weinstein – who came up with the concept of “the Marilyn Monroe effect” and wrote about it here – it describes a certain “non-verbal communication of confidence”; the tendency or ability to step into the shoes of someone who can own a room; the uncanny knack of transforming “from the ordinary into the extraordinary”, when few of us are taught to see ourselves in that light. Reading between the lines, I think “the Marilyn Monroe effect” means being able to blag it – or, perhaps, to “fake it until you make it”. And while some fans are upset with the new film, accusing it of “exploiting” Monroe – “contacting Marilyn Monroe via ouija board to tell her that my take on the Blonde trailer is the only one with her best interests at heart”, one wrote – I think it can give us all a moment’s pause. To keep up to speed with all the latest opinions and comment sign up to our free weekly Voices Dispatches newsletter by clicking here It is a chance to reflect on the “idealised” image that so many celebrities – and we ourselves – put out on screen, and to consider that it doesn’t really matter whether that screen is Imax-sized or simply the shape of our iPhone 13, because we are all acting, all of the time.