The death of the star: celebrity decay and the Gothic portrait in Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych

ABSTRACT

This article uses Gothic studies to examine the preoccupation with death in Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych. Drawing on the Gothic convention of the decaying portrait, I argue that Marilyn Diptych communicates a wider tension between immortality and death at the heart of American celebrity culture in the 1960s. The decaying portrait is a traditional motif within the Gothic novel, but this article explores how the portrait itself embodies Gothic qualities of decay. While Warhol’s Electric Chair has been previously analysed within a Gothic framework, I uncover the Gothicness of the celebrity portrait and situate Marilyn Diptych in the context of Marilyn Monroe’s death and the wider culture of mediatised disaster in the 1960s. Ultimately, this article demonstrates how Marilyn Diptych epitomises the landscape of celebrity in the 1960s. As a period of technological modernity dominated by television, the 1960s is a media-saturated image culture that enables the creation and preservation of new kinds of celebrities. However, the period is also tainted by relentless global and domestic crises, within which high-profile celebrity deaths feature strongly. This overwhelming culture of death problematises media immortality by exposing celebrities as fragile Gothic bodies prone to decay.

KEYWORDS:

• Gothic
• death
• Andy Warhol
• Marilyn Monroe
• portrait

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Marilyn Diptych is widely accessible online, the official image can be found on the Tate website https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/warhol-marilyn-diptych-t03093.

2. The 27 Club refers to a group of celebrities who died age 27, including Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse.

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Notes on contributors

Harriet Fletcher

Harriet Fletcher is a Lecturer in Media and Communication at Anglia Ruskin University. She researches the intersections of celebrity and the Gothic in literature, media and popular culture.