im to see Marilyn simply as spectacle, of whom it may be said that audiences "love her or fear for her, but most simply marvel at her existence," yet do so without ever identifying with her as they do with so many other stars (Rudnick). And academic discourse has not neglected her either. Hubert, for example, noted Monroe's own concern with being perceived as a commodity and the discomfort engendered by the understanding that as a commodity, a star, she was expected always to be "accessible to the male gaze" (133). This objectification resonated in Monroe's own statement that "a sex symbol becomes a thing,[and] I just hate to be a thing" (quoted in Hubert 127). But Donald analyzes this commodification as the essence of the Hollywood star system in which Monroe was a key element in her era and ever since. The commodity has both exchange value, meaning that it can be bought and sold in the process of production, distribution, and exhibition, and use value, i.e., the production of pleasure in performance and spectatorship. These two circuits are in
...