Palm Springs Together Asks Palm Springs Hotels to Support Relocating Marilyn Monroe Statue in City Center

PALM SPRINGS, Calif., April 26, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- In a letter sent today to 19 hotels that are members of P.S. Resorts, a Palm Springs community group asked the hotels to withdraw their support for placing an upskirted statue of Marilyn Monroe on Museum Way in downtown Palm Springs and to relocate the statue to another location.

As planned, the statue featuring a panty-clad Marilyn Monroe literally would "moon" the Palm Springs Art Museum, notes @LATimes Art Critic Christopher Knight. The @PSArtMuseum welcomes 100,000 school kids every year, who will see Monroe's backside when they leave the museum. The museum also is a historic property designed by master mid-century modern architect E. Stewart Williams, and on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Marilyn Monroe statue is owned by P.S. Resorts, a tourism organization in Palm Springs. According to the group's website, the 19 hotel members of P.S. Resorts are:

• Ace Hotel Palm Springs
• Alcazar Palm Springs
• Avalon Palm Springs
• Caliente Tropics
• Colony Palms
• Hilton Palm Springs
• Holiday House
• Hotel Zoso
• Hyatt Suites Palm Springs
• Ingleside Inn
• Kimpton Rowan Palm Springs
• L'Horizon Hotel
• Marquis Villas
• Palm Mountain Resort
• Parker Palm Springs
• Riviera Palm Springs
• Saguaro Hotel
• Sparrows Lodge
• V Palm Springs

In their letter, community group Palm Springs Together asks, "Why does your hotel support putting a sexist statue of Marilyn Monroe in the middle of downtown Palm Springs? Is this the best way to honor an icon and show respect for women, including your own hotel employees? Your support for this misogynistic action sends a message."

The letter continues: "The action also shows no regard or respect for the Palm Springs Art Museum, a community treasure and tourist attraction in its own right. Please support the effort to relocate Marilyn. Thank you."

More than 31,000 people have a signed a petition to relocate the "Forever Marilyn" statue, which the #MeTooMarilyn campaign describes as misogyny not nostalgia. "As a piece that promotes the objectification of women, Forever Marilyn has no place as a prominent representation of Palm Springs for visitors and residents. In the age of the #MeToo movement and reckoning, which has made strides in fostering healing from sexual violence and abuses of power in Hollywood and beyond, the subject and placement of the statue is entirely tone deaf and ignores the historic societal change."

The #MeTooMarilyn petition on Change.org can be viewed at change.org/MeTooMarilyn.

A separate community group known as the Committee to Relocate Marilyn has raised more than $60,000 to take legal action against the @CityofPS for vacating a public street to house the statue without following city and state laws and regulations. The group's GoFundMe page is at gofundme.com/f/crema-committee-to-relocate-marylin.

SOURCE Palm Springs Together