Ahead of the 61st anniversary of Marilyn’s death this Saturday, August 5th, fans in the UK can prepare with two nights of BBC programming, starting at 8 pm tonight on BBC Four with Screen Goddesses, a 2012 Arena documentary featuring MM and other female icons of Hollywood’s golden age. This will be followed at 9 pm by another showing of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
And then tomorrow, August 4th, the final two episodes of Reframed: Marilyn Monroe are showing on BBC 2 from 9 pm, and are also – like Thursday’s programming – available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
First broadcast in the US in 2022, the CNN docuseries has received mostly positive feedback from British fans and critics, in contrast to the exploitative way Marilyn has so often been portrayed on TV. Reframed is also free to stream in Australia via SBS.
“Reframed shares some qualities with the ‘we’re sorry’ school of contrite documentaries that take a (usually deceased) star and expose their unfair treatment at the hands of a vicious tabloid press, for example. But this takes a much more academic approach, and as a result it seems less sentimental and more intellectually robust … It doesn’t shy away from the difficulties of her life, though it doesn’t linger on them, either; rather, it wrestles with questions of commodification, sexiness, power, image and even pay disparity.” – Rebecca Nicholson, The Guardian
“At times, Reframed is overzealous with the cheer-leading revisionism. Towards the end, even Monroe singing Happy Birthday at Madison Square Garden to President John F Kennedy is presented as a shrewd power move – when it always seemed the point at which her jittery, over-medicated fragility entered a full-on collision course with tragedy. Will those posthumous Marilyn Inc cash registers ever cease ringing? Maybe not, but at least, here, you get the sense of women going out to bat for her.” – Barbara Ellen, The Observer
The Marilyn Report 