By ANGELINA MANDELL, Copy Editor
One of my most highly anticipated films of this year was “Blonde” on Netflix, starring Ana de Armas as Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe. As a fan of Monroe and the emotional story of her experience as a star on the silver screen, I would have loved a biopic that did just so: showed Marilyn for who she really was. That is not what “Blonde” gave audiences.
It should be important to note that the film is an adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ novel, Blonde, a fictional retelling of non-confirmed events of Marilyn’s life. It’s also important to note that this novel is basically just over-sexualized fanfiction of what Hollywood saw Marilyn Monroe as: an object of male’s viewing and sexual pleasure. And so, this movie plays like one big pseudo-biopic, sexual male fantasy of Marilyn and her life.
The film is rated NC-17, so I’ll advise a trigger-warning here, and rightfully so, as there are plenty of scenes that are extremely sexual, violent, incredibly emotional as we see Monroe deal with the struggles she faced as a woman in this profession while dealing with mental illness. On the other hand, most of the moments deserving this rating were disgusting and disrespectful sexualizations, and even some pro-life propaganda.
In the beginning of this film, the overtly sexual nature of Monroe’s life may seem accurate in a sense. The climate of a male-dominated Hollywood saw women as objects for viewing pleasure and making studios money, not as human beings. Monroe was a very talented individual when it came to acting, but unfortunately in many cases, male producers gave her roles because she was attractive. There is no doubt that although this is a fictional retelling, she faced many situations where she was not taken seriously and sexualized by men.
However, the way sexual situations were written into every aspect of this film made no sense and was honestly insulting. Marilyn Monroe went through many struggles due to untreated and ignored mental health issues throughout her life. Using sex basically as a cure is just disrespectful. Why was she calling every man she interacted with “daddy?” Because “Blonde” was directed through the male-gaze.
Don’t even get me started on the horrific scene with “The President” that we all know is supposed to be John F. Kennedy. Not only was their affair a fantasized rumor made up by men, but the way they had to make being drugged and forced to perform sexual acts on JFK almost like it was fulfilling a fantasy crossed a line. It was one of the moments that made many viewers turn away from finishing the film.
Now for the strange part: the quite obvious anti-abortion messages director Andrew Dominik included. There is a scene where Monroe discovers she is pregnant from a relationship with Charlie Chaplin Jr. and Eddie Robinson Jr., a fictional throuple. She was excited to become a mother, but after reflecting on childhood trauma and how she was not in the right mindset, she decided to have an abortion. While it was underway, we saw her panic as she wished to take back the decision, but it was too late.
This is a valid emotional reaction as getting an abortion is a life-changing process, just like giving birth is. However, emphasizing her feeling guilty, the guilt almost torturing her, about making that decision raised some red flags.
There’s a time-jump to when Marilyn marries “The Playwright” that fans know is Arthur Miller. She finds out she is pregnant once again, and she feels comfortable in her settled-down life enough to keep the baby.
However, in a scene with Marilyn cutting flowers in her garden, she feels the baby kicking. This is when things get odd. There is an actual conversation between Monroe and a weird CGI-generated image of a baby in a womb. This baby continues to talk to Monroe, urging her to keep it alive after previously getting an abortion.
What made me further realize this was just one big pro-life advertisement was the fact that Marilyn was so newly pregnant that her stomach is completely flat, yet the baby in the womb is shown as fully grown. At that stage in a pregnancy, a baby is hardly recognizable past a clump of cells let alone a full-grown baby, but it is the common argument of pro-life supporters that at no matter what stage, a baby is a baby. It’s basically one pro-life guilt trip about how if you get an abortion, you don’t deserve to be a mother and should live in shame.
Although the plotline was atrocious, Ana de Armas gave an almost spitting-image portrayal of the star. It threw viewers off that Armas kept her Cuban accent at times, but it was still quite the performance. The cinematography was beautiful at times, yet another odd touch “Blonde” gave audiences was switching between color and black and white scenes with no rhythm as to why. The film glamourizes the stardom we all crave while revealing the dark intentions those above us harbor.
