FRESH/SOPH SEMINAR - Daring Divas and their Legacies: Joyce Bryant, Lin Dai, Marilyn Monroe, Sara Montiel and Dy Saveth

From Nicki Minaj, G-Eazy, Grinderman and Elton John to Andy Warhol and Cindy Sherman, Marilyn Monroe’s afterlife spans multiple generations and genres. This seminar contrasts that legacy with four of her global contemporaries. Joyce Bryant and Sara Montiel both rocketed to fame in the US only to vanish from the pages and stages of North American popular culture. Lin Dai of Hong Kong and Dy Saveth of Cambodia were widely revered screen goddesses of their era in East and Southeast Asia, but Lin’s career was cut short by suicide and Dy’s, by civil war and the Khmer Rouge regime.

Bryant graced the cover of Life magazine in 1955, was voted one of the five most beautiful black women in the world by Ebony in 1956, defied Ku Klux Klan threats to perform in Miami, and advocated against Jim Crow laws.  The first Spanish actress courted by Hollywood, Montiel gained fame in Mexico before co-starring with Gary Cooper in Vera Cruz (1954).  Her 1950s box-office success in Spain catapulted her to stardom across Western Europe and Latin America, with soundtrack sales eclipsing those of Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra.  Lin Dai, who visited Hollywood and audited courses at Columbia University in 1959, was widely iconized in China and beyond while Dy Saveth, awarded the first Miss Cambodia title in 1959, earned a wide fan-base across Southeast Asia for her film roles.

Of these five artistic geniuses, why does Monroe’s legacy still dominate and subordinate?  And why does Marilyn’s celebration of her body still incite the invective of a range of writers from feminist critics to fashion pundits? In exploring these questions, we will examine the roles of misogyny, Anglo-centrism, white supremacy and cultural chauvinism in the elision of Bryant, Dy, Lin and Montiel from mainstream celluloid and musical media in North America.  We will also examine how the female body and voice remains a prime site for virtual and actual acts of erasure, ranging from the 1950s radio and screen ban on Bryant’s songs and a Monroe dress to the censure of Montiel’s film in 1970s China, 1990s physical violence against Cambodian women performers, the male-dominated fashion industry’s prompotion of the post-millennial thigh-gap and Style magazine’s prescriptions for women’s work wear.  Our sources include news media, film and audio archives, memoir, couture, and film and radio board censorship rulings.