What do ‘a little Marilyn Monroe drag,’ 'whassup,’ and 'worked her derriere off' mean?

The Washington Post’s article on the 83rd Annual Academy Awards on ABC written by Hank Stuever under the headline, At Oscars, the kids were all right and the 'Speech' was well-prepared was full of Greek to me who have little knowledge about American culture and entertainment world.

As I cannot pick up all the words and expressions I felt difficulty in understanding, I just want to make sure of the meaning of three phrases:

• NYU, whassup

• a little Marilyn Monroe drag

• worked her derriere off

What do these phrases mean? Though I guess whassup is ‘What’s up,’ and work one’s derriere off means ‘Work very hard,’ I’m not sure.

Is it very rude if I tell somebody, particularly to a lady, that ‘I worked my derriere off in the office?’

Here's the context for the above-mention phrases:

Anne Hathaway hosted the 83rd Annual Academy Awards on ABC Sunday night. And her co-host, James Franco, did what exactly? (Besides be handsome? Besides a little Marilyn Monroe drag? And besides shouting "NYU, whassup!" to the Best Live Action Short winner? What, that's not enough?)

Hathaway worked her derriere off and Franco came off like that lacrosse boy you wish your daughter didn't hang out with so much.

Solution 1:

To go in drag means to dress appropriately for the opposite sex; almost exclusively used to refer to a man dressing as a woman, although theoretically it could refer to a woman dressing as a man. "Marilyn Monroe drag" would be James Franco dressing up as Marilyn Monroe, the famous actress.

Derriere is French for butt and working your butt off is indeed working very hard.

"NYU, whassup!" is a "shout-out", basically a mention of someone (in this case, New York University) while on the air (or in print) as a public acknowledgement that you hold them in some esteem. (see wikipedia's Name-Dropping entry.)

Solution 2:

In order:

NYU, wassup!

This is known as a "shout-out"; in this case James Franco was referring to the fact that one of the Oscar recipients thanked the film school at New York University, and was either saying that in a gently mocking way or else actually did attend NYU film school himself and was calling out to acknowledge that fact and the people at that school.

A little Marilyn Monroe drag ...

Marilyn Monroe was a film star of the 1950s and early 1960s. Generally drag means dressing in the clothing of the opposite sex, but in this case it might be more figurative. It could be that Franco merely did some kind of Marilyn Monroe impression. I didn't see that part, so I can't tell you exactly which.

Working off her derriere

This is a polite way of saying "working her butt off" or "working her ass off", which means working very hard. Figuratively speaking, it implies that one works so hard that one's buttocks actually fall off.