Content Warning: Mentions of sexual assault, domestic violence, and abortions.
Spoilers for Netflix’s Blonde ahead.
Netflix’s new film, Blonde, directed by Andrew Dominik and starring Ana de Armas, is not your typical biopic. In fact, it’s not a biopic at all, but instead an adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ best-selling novel of the same name.
The film focuses on the life of Marilyn Monroe as she navigates through the ups and downs of Hollywood stardom, with audiences getting a close-up look into her personal struggles with love, mental illness, and family. The difference between Blonde and other biographical films, however, is that Blonde is almost entirely pure fiction.
Fans of the actress have been very vocal when it comes to calling out the many falsehoods in the film, such as Monroe being in a “throuple” with actors Charlie Chaplin Jr. (played by Xavier Samuels) and Edward G. Robinson Jr. (played by Evan Williams). While the novel opens with a note from the author stating “Biographical facts regarding Marilyn Monroe should not be sought in Blonde”, the film fails to directly state that most of the events are fiction. Also, since it is often referred to as a biopic, it leaves audiences feeling more confused about the star’s personal life than they were before, and more importantly, paints Marilyn as someone she was not.
Other films have used this fictional approach before, one of them being Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, set in 1960s Hollywood. In the film, fact blends with fiction as real people like Sharon Tate (played by Margot Robbie) interact with original characters like Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth (played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, respectively). A major distinction between Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Blonde is that Tarantino, unlike Dominik, takes a complex approach to portraying real people. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Tarantino expressed his admiration for Sharon Tate and felt she didn’t deserve to be “defined by her murder”. In 1969, Tate and several others were killed by members of the Manson family cult, and her death has been a hot topic among true crime fans for years. In the film, Tarantino left her murder out of the plot entirely, in hopes that people will be able to see her in a different light and more than just a victim.
Dominik, on the other hand fails to include Monroe’s intelligence, passion for acting, and overall depth as a human being, and instead reduces her to a fragile victim, compiling all the tragic and humiliating moments in her life – most of which, again, are fictional. In an interview with Sight and Sound, Dominik was asked why he didn’t acknowledge any of Monroe’s accomplishments, such as starting her own film production company. He answered with “That stuff is not really what the film is about. It’s about a person who is going to be killing themself. …It’s not looking at her lasting legacy… If you look at the Instagram version of her life, she’s got it all. And she killed herself. Now, to me, that’s the most important thing”. Andrew Dominik is doing to Marilyn Monroe what Quentin Tarantino refused to do to Sharon Tate: defining her by her victim status.
Along with Blonde stripping Monroe of her humanity and depth, the film takes an incredibly invasive approach to her life, including several scenes of sexual assault, domestic violence and even her unborn baby speaking to her from inside her womb, which was called out by Planned Parenthood for perpetuating “stigma around sexual and reproductive health care,”. These graphic depictions are what led to the film receiving its controversial NC-17 rating – making it the first Netflix film to ever receive that rating. This means no one aged 17 and under can be admitted, which is a step up from an R rating, in which minors are allowed to attend the film accompanied by an adult guardian. Of course, with the film being released on a streaming platform instead of in theaters, it’s hard to enforce that rating. Dominik defended the rating and told Vulture that a movie about Marilyn Monroe rated NC-17 is “the kind you want”, which inevitably feeds into the same exploitation and invasion of privacy that Monroe tried so hard to fight against throughout her life.
Of course, filmmakers are free to tell stories however they please, but with Dominik taking so much interest in Monroe’s struggles and issues, whether it be fact or fiction, and so little interest in her as a complex human being, it’s hard to believe that Blonde is doing anything “good for her legacy”, which is what Adrien Brody, who plays Monroe’s husband, Arthur Miller, thinks of the film. It’s also hard to believe that Marilyn would like the way she was portrayed in the film, but according to Ana de Armas, Marilyn’s spirit was with them on set and “was approving” of what they were doing.
The main purpose of the film was to bring awareness to the darker side of Hollywood, specifically how women in the industry were treated and exploited by men and society, but choosing a real person to be the protagonist was unnecessary and damaging. If the film had followed the life of a fictional Hollywood starlet, it would’ve delivered the exact same message to audiences, minus the re-exploitation of an already greatly misrepresented woman.
By no means did I expect Blonde to be a fun, light-hearted movie where everyone lives happily ever after. Monroe did face many struggles in life and it is important to show what goes on behind the big red stage curtains of Hollywood fame. But there’s a fine line between critiquing exploitation and contributing to it, and it’s clear that Blonde had no desire to abide by that line.
References
Amico, S. (2022, September 28). Marilyn Monroe Formed Own Production Company to be Cast in More Serious Light. Rare.us. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://rare.us/rare-media/entertainment-and-culture/marilyn-monroe-formed-own-production-company-to-be-cast-in-more-serious-light/
Blonde Review: The Victimization of Marilyn Monroe – The Marilyn Monroe Collection. (2022, October 3). The Marilyn Monroe Collection -. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://themarilynmonroecollection.com/blonde-review-the-victimization-of-marilyn-monroe/
Dalton, B. (2022, September 8). Ana de Armas tears up at ‘Blonde’ shoot memories: “Marilyn Monroe was close to us”. Screen Daily. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://www.screendaily.com/news/ana-de-armas-tears-up-at-blonde-shoot-memories-marilyn-monroe-was-close-to-us/5174249.article
Ebiri, B. (2022, May 11). Andrew Dominik on ‘Blonde’ and Filming Nick Cave’s Grief. Vulture. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://www.vulture.com/2022/05/andrew-dominik-on-blonde-and-filming-nick-caves-grief.html?utm_source=tw&utm_campaign=vulture&utm_medium=s1
Gonzalez, E. (2022, October 3). Home. Elle. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a41434845/marilyn-monroe-blonde-abortion-fetus-scenes-reaction
Hutchinson, P. (2017, October 19). Moguls and starlets: 100 years of Hollywood’s corrosive, systemic sexism. The Guardian. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/oct/19/moguls-and-starlets-100-years-of-hollywoods-corrosive-systemic-sexism
Newland, C. (2022, September 27). Andrew Dominik on Blonde | Sight and Sound. BFI. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/interviews/im-not-interested-reality-im-interested-images-andrew-dominik-blonde
Parker, R. (2021, July 16). Quentin Tarantino Says He Helped Redefine Sharon Tate’s Story. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/quentin-tarantino-sharon-tate-manson-no-longer-defined-by-murder-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-1234983671/
Ramachandran, N. (2022, September 8). Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody on Andrew Dominik’s Venice Title ‘Blonde’: ‘Marilyn Monroe Was Approving of What We Were Doing’. Variety. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://variety.com/2022/film/global/ana-de-armas-adrien-brody-blonde-marilyn-monroe-venice-1235364380/
Whiting, A. (2022, September 24). All Marilyn Monroe movies are exploitative. But Blonde shows you inside her vagina. The Independent. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/blonde-netflix-ana-de-armas-marilyn-monroe-vagina-b2174440.html