Trigger Warning for mentions of sexual violence and abortion.
In case you haven’t heard, on September 16th Netflix released a movie called Blonde. Based on Joyce Carol Oates’ 2001 novel Blonde, the story follows the fictionalized life of international bombshell, Marilyn Monroe. The only issue is that although this story uses her name and her identity, it is not Monroe’s story at all. Staring Ana de Armas as Marilyn, and directed by Andrew Dominik, Blonde has caused a public outcry. It seems that everyone is in agreement here: can’t we just let poor Norma Jean rest? So, I watched Netflix’s Blonde, so you don’t have to. These are my thoughts.
Speaking For a Dead Woman
My main criticism for this movie is the obvious one: if you’re going to tell a story about Monroe, why wouldn’t you just tell her actual, already amazing, and interesting, real-life story? This movie seems to only include loosely true, horrible things that have happened to Monroe, leaving everyone to scream in horror. It feels somewhat cruel to take such an influential icon and exploit her most traumatic moments. Forcing viewers to endure rape scenes, disturbing nonconsensual abortions, and acts of inexplicable violence, all things no one would want to be retold about them, especially when none of it is really true. This movie left me wondering what
about Monroe leaves writers, artists, directors, or anyone to believe they can use her pain for profit. The movie’s protagonist seemed to be crying in almost every scene of the movie, leaving viewers to have to come to their own conclusions about whether or not Monroe was ever happy for even a moment of her life. Additionally, the Monroe in the movie is actively disgusted and ashamed of her persona on the big screen, essentially discrediting the entire career of the real Monroe. Why put Monroe up on a pedal where she is worthy of having a film about her, only to spend the entire film talking about how humiliating said career and persona is? Overall, this brutal and sickening exploitation left a horrible taste on my tongue, and I wish I could have those hours back.
NC-17 Is More Than Just Unnecessary, It’s Making Me Uncomfortable
Marketed as Netflix’s first NC-17 movie, Blonde was expected to have its fair share of sex, nudity, and violence. A rule that I stand by in books, movies, or any kind of media able to be consumed by the masses, is that if it was good writing, you shouldn’t have to rely on vulgarity for shock factor. This movie solely relied on vulgarity to tell an already gross and invasive story. Although there are cases where nudity, violence, and sex can elevate a story, that was not the case here. In my opinion, it actually ruined any somewhat good parts of the movie. I’d argue that Armas was topless for around a quarter of the movie, oftentimes for no actual reason besides further sexualizing Monroe’s character. Further, I’ve come to question why female nudity was consistent, but male nudity was a lot less prevalent. I ask everyone to think as to why this is the case in a movie that is supposedly unafraid of nudity? Here is just another case where a woman is exploited, and it is justified through a vulgar and unnecessary rating.
Amazing Actor, Horrible Accent
Ana de Armas has proven herself to be a phenomenal actress. Her work in Knives Out, gave her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy in 2020, along with winning a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2019. Despite my avid hatred for Blonde, I can’t help but admit Armas’ performance was impressive. My only critique is her accent. As a Cuban and Spanish actress, Armas is well-known for her beautiful accent, and unfortunately, her inability to do an American one. This wouldn’t be such an issue if not for her horrible accent in this movie. Sadly, she couldn’t even pronounce Monroe correctly, which makes one wonder how she was cast for the role in the first place. I truly believe that if someone listened to a quote from the movie without context, they would never guess that is an attempted American accent. Considering Monroe is an American pop culture icon, it’s sad that her identity has once again been bulldozed for other people’s agenda’s to be prioritized. This issue truly proves that acting means nothing in the end if one cannot sound like the person they’re supposed to be impersonating. You can cast the biggest name possible, but if she can’t play Monroe, she shouldn’t have been cast.
The Romanization of Female Pain and Suffering
I can’t help but ask the question: what is so sexy about a woman falling apart? To continue my point that artists enjoy profiting from Monroe’s pain and torment, leading to a trail of exploitation as her legacy, long after she has left us, I think there is a larger picture here. I can’t help but notice how often not only are women the muse, but their literal pain being the true muse throughout history. How often do we find ourselves staring at Ophelia’s glazed eyes in the river? How often are we forced to endure disturbing rape scenes to prove a woman has had a hard life? How often have we let female characters suffer for the sake of art? I’ve come to realize that almost every influential female character I can think of, has some sort of internal pain/suffering to add to her mystery. That is what I believe has happened to Monroe here.
Blonde is less of a movie, and more of a series of traumatic events one after the other, falling on top of each other. Sadly, Monroe became victim of every other “damaged woman” that has ever been written. Daddy issues. She spends the entire movie calling her husbands “daddy” in casual conversation. The most pathetic part about her abandonment issues regarding her father, is that her character sits around the whole movie, waiting for her father to finally appear. Of course, he never does, and it is only at the end that we learn the supposed “letters from her father” we’re actually from an old lover of hers. Most of Monroe’s desperation and tragedy comes from her lack of a father figure which is terrible to say the least. Lastly, Blonde was quick to give Monroe deep and guttural emotions, those emotions including sadness, hysteria, confusion, desperation, mania, and horrified. Notice a pattern here? Monroe was a real person, a genuine human with happiness and joy inside of her just as much as pain. By only showing these painful emotions, you’re erasing a very large and important part of her. The truth is that there is no point in representing a person if you’re only going to represent half of them.
Stop Filming Sexual Assault Scenes, We All Know What’s Going to Happen
This entire movie is one large trigger warning. I counted several scenes involving violent sexual assaults and even more scenes of causal sexual harassment. I am here to just say it as it is: scenes of rape have no business being on the big screen. Anyone who is willing to watch a movie with an explicit rating has enough knowledge in their brains to understand what has happened without having to film the act itself. This does not make the filmmakers brave or edgy or any other positive attribute, it makes them disgusting. This alone turned me off from the movie and I urge those who may be triggered or unsettled by these topics to steer clear from this movie. It’s simply not worth the displeasure.
Male Directors *Sighs in Disappointment*
Who could have guessed?! Andrew Dominik, a man, was both the director and screenwriter for Blonde. I must again ask the question: why would a man attempt to tell the story of a woman struggling with an inherently female issue? If one looks at the basic conflict of the movie, they will see it revolves around Monroe being consistently harassed and beaten on by men. The patriarchal system within Hollywood is what caused Monroe to not so slowly fall apart throughout the film. So why is it that a man in Hollywood is the one deciding how this story is portrayed? Although this is an overused take, I can’t help but point out the clear misogynist messaging throughout the movie and overwhelming use of the male gaze. Let’s start with Monroe’s only motivation and dream in life is having a husband and child and settling down. Why is it that wanting a more “superficial” and “wild” life is an impossible thing for an actor to want? Besides Monroe’s stereotypical aspirations, the disturbing pro-life messaging throughout the film screams it was written by a man. Although plenty of women are pro-life, I can’t help but notice the inherently confusing nature of Monroe’s relationship with her unborn children. She is pregnant three times throughout the movie and each time loses said babies through outside forces (whether that be forced abortions or an accident). Viewers are forced to endure the doctors prying Monroe’s legs open as she hysterically screams, she’s changed her mind over and over again. This is followed by a hallucination of Monroe’s baby in her burning childhood home. What kind of message is this sending? What is this messaging implying? Why is it that this had to happen in order for the plot to progress? Although I won’t turn this into a talk about politics, I will share that studies show there is little to no evidence of, “emerging negative emotions over 5 years post-abortion,” according to a study done in The Journal of Social Science & Medicine. My point being that this is not an issue that needs to be delved into. There are so many other issues regarding pregnancy and abortions and just
womanhood in general. I believe that by having a man write and direct this film, this was an impossible task to begin with.
It’s Just Not Good
Guys, it’s just not good! Take away all of the public outcry, inappropriate ratings, horrible accents, sexism and misogyny, disturbing content, and masculine energy, this movie was genuinely nothing impressive. My first general critique is the way the movie was edited. It’s as if they filmed 100 separate scenes with separate contexts and then shuffled them. There is nothing indie about this lack of synergy, it’s just confusing and hard to follow. There were times when I was not only unsure of the year, but I was also unsure of how old Monroe was supposed to be. Some characters are never truly introduced which leads to me having to google them in order to fully get what’s going on. This was not genius; it was just poor editing. Next, I have to talk about the elephant in the room. Why was this movie half in black and white? I am genuinely confused as to why random scenes were void of color while others were vibrant. One may say there is some symbolism there and I’m with you on that, except for the fact that it was hard to find any correlation between when the scene was black and white and if a particular theme was incorporated. Also, I hate to give them any credit for having any kind of artistic style. Lastly, I cannot write this review without mentioning the god-awful CGI embryos. They were so unnecessary and weird from the viewer’s perspective. Also, making the baby talk to her was really strange and turned me off from the movie even more, which I didn’t think was possible. Overall, this was a poor film to begin with, which makes me wonder how it could have possibly been made in the first place.
What is Blonde Teaching Us?
I know, I know, but this is my last thing! When the credits finally appeared on the screen, I felt a feeling of nausea wash over me. The ending was truly disturbing, having filmed Monroe’s death in the actual home and place where Monroe died in real life. I felt that I had intruded on something truly disrespectful and horrid while watching Armas lay on that bed. And when the screen turned black, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something I learned here after watching this movie. If there was some sort of lesson hidden behind all of the smoking and drinking and hysterics. And I couldn’t think of a single thing I could take away from it all. This movie taught me nothing. The only lesson I could possibly conjure was that Hollywood was a breeding ground for burning people out, or possibly that the government killed Monroe, or maybe even that all men take advantage of women. But I knew none of that was an actual message. They were all just explanations for a tragedy I never really wanted to endure in the first place. I watched an almost three-hour movie where the protagonist was truly miserable the whole time. In her brief moments of happiness, she was often high or having a sort of mental episode, discrediting any bit of joy she was able to muster. At the end of the day, this movie was unable to perform the most basic function of a story: have an overarching lesson. So even when putting aside the most heinous and unsetting elements of this film, I cannot condone anyone to watch it. I recommend you spare yourself and instead watch Monroe’s actual films which are the real masterpieces worthy of our adoration.