she started a heat wave by letting her seat wave

Ginger Strand on "femininity, Niagara Falls, and the genuine allure of an American fake" in the latest issue of The Believer:

After World War II, Niagara’s honeymoon promoters aimed to leverage the postwar travel boom. Magazines dedicated to tourism sprang up, like Holiday, which declared in June 1946 that “Niagara Falls is still America’s honeymoon capital.” The Niagara Falls, Ontario Chamber of Commerce began issuing “honeymoon certificates” in 1949, handing out more than forty-two thousand of them in ten years. The auto industry was on board as co-marketer. A magazine called Friends, published by General Motors and handed out by Chevrolet dealers, ran an article in June 1950 titled “Here’s Why They Honeymoon at Niagara.” In it, a variety of couples give their reasons for choosing the Falls. Andrew and Mary DiCicco of Detroit, for instance, chose the Falls “partly because of its romance and partly because it was conveniently close to Detroit—motorists can drive from there to Niagara Falls in less than six hours.”

The postwar Niagara honeymoon was now promoted as an American tradition: a slew of stories about Falls honeymoon history appeared. Honeymooning at the Falls was an American rite of passage. The Niagara Falls Gazette ran a 1946 feature titled “Lore and Sentiment behind Niagara’s Fame as Nation’s Honeymoon Capital.” Referring to the waterfall as “sentiment in liquid form,” they recounted the results of an informal survey asking visiting couples why they came to Niagara. “Eleven couples queried in succession,” the paper reports, said, “‘Our parents came here. We could have gone anywhere, but somehow, this just seemed right.’” And why not? The Falls were an American icon, the Canadians our allies, and a trip to Niagara a way to touch the national past. Returning soldiers, many articles declared, had seen enough of Europe. They’d rather enjoy the sights of their own nation now.

A visit to Niagara was, like much of postwar culture, a reassuring encounter with what the nation had just been fighting for: the American way of life. What did that mean? It went beyond democracy and freedom to embrace a host of lifestyle ideals valorized as the way it should be: the wholesome family life of Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best, the small-town community values of Norman Rockwell and Life magazine, the modernity and progress represented by the torrent of household consumer goods Americans adopted en masse—refrigerators, televisions, Tupperware. And of course, the “traditional” gender roles of I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, Marjorie Morningstar, and the era’s fashions: tiny waists, full feminine skirts, and high heels for women, gray flannel suits for men. The marriage manuals of the era affirmed this natural order: the man was to dominate and the woman was to let him.

Marilyn’s star turn as Rose Loomis turned this stereotype over and examined its seamy underside. She was a wife gone bad—like the Falls, a feminine force, with the emphasis shifted from beauty to power. The movie publicity made the connection explicit: “Marilyn Monroe and Niagara,” crowed the poster, “a raging torrent of emotion that even nature can’t control!”