Diamonds Aren’t Rare. Why Are They So in Demand?

This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present, surface delightful treasures, and examine the American idea. Sign up here.

It’s one of the most famous scenes in Hollywood history: Marilyn Monroe, shimmying in a hot-pink dress on a blood-red soundstage, flanked by unsuitable suitors in tailcoats, singing “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” while wearing an amount of jewelry that almost seems,Monroe’s charisma and cultural influence are at their peak, and it’s difficult to take your eyes off her and her flawlessly sparkling (and impeccably lit) diamonds as she flits around the stage, name-checking Tiffany and Cartier and advising a bevy of maiden backup dancers that diamonds will never do them wrong. The performance is so influential that an homage to it—Madonna’s 1985 video for “Material Girl”—is a legendary pop-culture artifact in its own right. The scene, perhaps the most famous in Monroe’s career, was also what we might now call “product placement” or “sponsored content.”