The Feminism of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend"

“Diamonds are a girl’s best friend” has often been treated as proof that women are shallow, romantic, or easily bought, yet in Marilyn Monroe’s hands, it becomes something profound: a song about money, survival, and the terms of womanhood in a world built to make women dependent. The phrase glitters on the surface, but underneath it sits a deeply political idea - whilst love is great. Security is better.

The phrase began before Marilyn, but she made it historic

“Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” dates back to the 1949 Broadway musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, with music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Leo Robin. Carol Channing introduced the song on stage and Marilyn Monroe then made it iconic in the 1953 film version, directed by Howard Hawks.

In the film, Monroe plays Lorelei Lee, a showgirl who openly prefers rich men and expensive jewellery. On paper, Lorelei is the classic “dumb blonde” but on screen, she is anything but simple. Monroe performs the role with a calculated softness, letting the audience laugh, then slowly revealing that Lorelei understands the rules of the game better than anyone around her. The famous number is staged as pure spectacle with the iconic Barbie pink dress, sexy men in tuxedos, diamond bracelets. However, this is paradoxical to the blunt lyrics, presenting a world where "Men grow cold as girls grow old." within a political structure that makes it so "a kiss may feel grand, but it won't pay the rental."

It was never about romance

The 1950s sold a powerful fantasy of domestic happiness where the ideal woman was young, pretty, marriageable, and devoted to the home. In Britain and the United States, popular culture hammered the same message that a woman’s most prosperous future came through the right man, measuring her success as a women in the scope of her family and the social standing of her husband. With the barriers to credit, property, work, and sexual freedom, the only viable method of becoming a respectable woman was to marry meaning giving up the little remaining things she possessed, leaving her further economically vulnerable. Divorce carried stigma. Single motherhood carried harsher stigma. The little credit given to careers were still treated as temporary until a husband arrived.

So when Lorelei sings that diamonds are reliable, she is not saying women love shiny things because they are frivolous, she is saying that jewellery is portable wealth in a culture that forces a women’s security to depend on male approval which in and of itself hinged upon her attractiveness to men. The song refuses to pretend that romance exists outside of the potential for economic stability and instead lays out the reality of the purpose of marriage for women of the decade. If the law will not compensate a woman when courtship damages her prospects, and if the labour market will not treat her equally, and if marriage is still sold as her main route to stability, then Lorelei’s demand for diamonds becomes brutally rational. The ring, necklace, or bracelet is not vanity. It is a substitute for legal and economic power.

For decades, under the Heart Balm torts, some women could sue men for breaking an engagement under “breach of promise to marry” claims. These cases were moralistic, and often met with harsh, sensationalised mockery of the woman, reflecting the notion that a broken engagement would only damage a woman's reputation and future prospects solely.

What it meant to Marilyn Monroe and the significance of her portrayal

Monroe knew the cost of being turned into an image. Studios marketed her as a fantasy, then punished her when she wanted control over that fantasy. She was underpaid compared with major male stars, typecast as breathless and available, and often treated with the implications of a "bimbo" figure. Monroe spend much of her career longing to be taken seriously and be given the treatment she deserved as a human being. This context is essential to understand the importance of her portrayal over the character. Monroe does not simply play Lorelei as greedy and a "gold-digger". She highlights her ability to study the reality of her position in society as a woman, and utilises the unashamed desires of men to her advantage, turning the character into a strategist.