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Introduction
In her book The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe, Professor Sarah Churchwell describes Monroe as “that icon of uber-femininity…? [1] This reference to the film and pop culture star, Marilyn Monroe, is highly appropriate as the film Some Like It Hot (1959), often described and dismissed as just a ‘mere entertainment’, showcases her performance. By extension, Monroe becomes a lens through which the film articulates the subject of gender.
Now, more than ever, we might propose that the issue of how the cinema can represent gender is especially powerful: go onto Twitter and you’ll find the hashtag: #representationmatters. Such an example illustrates the way in which film language communicates values, reminding us once more how particular films provoke discussion and discourse that, in turn, can then exert a new profile on the film that sustains and gives it ongoing relevance. The film provokes debate and the debate then refashions and refreshes the ways that the film communicates its messages.
Cinema’s continuing high profile and influential status as a means of mass communication only heightens its relevance to cultural issues. How interesting, then, to look back at a film that was made almost sixty years ago and explore…
