Jennifer Garner couldn’t have been lovelier in her most recent Instagram snap. The windswept Daredevil star, whose hair was blowing away from her face, had on a billowy rose-colored dress that was almost gone with the wind. The frock flew upwards to reveal Jen’s perfect pins and her well-toned thighs as she put her right hand on her waist while her left hand rested on her forehead.
All of this gorgeous Garner action created shades of Marilyn Monroe in her iconic still from The Seven Year Itch — that image had the blonde bombshell standing on a subway grate in New York City. The legendary photograph was taken on the southwest corner of Lexington Avenue and 52nd street on September 15, 1954, according to Atlas Obscura .
Marilyn’s shot was obviously meticulously staged. Her white halter-top dress with its spin-worthy pleated skirt had been just light enough to blow up over her hips while everyone working to make the movie still shine had to wait for a specific uptown train to pass by in order to make sure the picture made it into Hollywood’s history books.
“For the subway scene, [Marilyn’s character] had just been to the Trans-Lux theatre on Lexington, to see ‘The Creature from the Black Lagoon.’ Hearing an approaching subway train, Monroe stepped onto the grate, having her skirt blown high by the train passing underneath, saying ‘ooh do you feel the breeze from the subway, isn’t it delicious.’ Minds across the country were simultaneously blown.”
With 20/20 hindsight, fans now know that this vision showing a lot of Marilyn Monroe’s assets was staged. In fact, the shot was specifically made as a publicity stunt “orchestrated by 20th Century Fox’s marketing department” with the time and place of the event purposefully leaked to the press.
As reward, “somewhere between 3-5,000 spectators showed up to catch a glimpse of Marilyn’s legs.”
Meanwhile, Jennifer Garner’s still image on Instagram probably took much less planning, if any. About the only factor that could have been been specifically created to cause this effect was if a wind machine had been used to make her dress take off. Whether or not the contemporary thespian’s version of that The Seven Year Itch moment had been made with a movie in mind wasn’t explained in the Instagram caption.
What was explained was that Jen was having a hard time letting go of the holiday weekend. In fact, the chestnut-haired beauty was so befuddled that she thought her posting happened on Monday instead of Sunday. Obviously, she was getting ahead of herself, but that’s okay because all her fans were rewarded with the sultry shot sure to go down in Hollywood history just like Marilyn’s did.
Whatever day of the week it was that Monroe’s shot was taken is moot, but the resulting photograph was likely meant to be a lot sexier than the one from Jennifer. Well, at least that seemed to be the case at first glance. But then, once you realize that Marilyn Monroe was about 29-years-old when her picture was taken and Garner was a sophisticated 47-years-old for hers, you also realize that perhaps less is sometimes more in certain cases. After all, the modern-day woman who is a red-hot celebrity in 2019 captures imaginations wherever she goes and whatever she does.
Well done, Jennifer Garner. You are picture-perfect.