The media portrayed Marilyn Monroe’s suicide in a way that was representative of Monroe’s entire life — glamorous, glorified and sensational. Her death made both national and international headlines, with stories initially reporting her death, later analyzing her tragic end and eventually glorifying her life.
Decades after her passing, people are still talking about the life and death of Marilyn Monroe; Monroe’s 50th anniversary generated enormous interest via the Internet. According to the blog Progressive Populist, upon their anniversaries there were 109,000 results for Hiroshima, while there were 4.6 million Google results for Marilyn Monroe. There were five times as many stories about the anniversary of Monroe vs. the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima.
Research suggests that media glorification of suicides like Monroe’s are some of the reasons why one suicide sparks “copycat” suicide — a suicide occurs shortly after another was presented in the media.
Anara Guard, a senior advisor at the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, said troubled suicides are directly attributed to bullying, according to an article from Northwestern University, specifically regarding suicide among gay teens.
Guard pointed to Marilyn Monroe’s death as an iconic example of media suicide contagion. “The reporting was quite sensational, her glamour was played up and there was an unprecedented rise in suicides in the month following her death,” she said. Guard explained that the trend “could emerge if the media sensationalizes the deaths of gay teens.”
photojournalism: a dying business 