I Like to Watch | Blonde (2022)
“Blonde” is based on the Joyce Carol Oates novel of the same name and loosely recreates the many heartbreaks and tragedies of Monroe’s life and career, from her abusive mother to various sexual assaults in Hollywood. While Ana de Armas’ performance has received universal acclaim, the film itself has ignited outrage for its non-stop harassment, exploitation and traumatization of Monroe.
“I had the extreme misfortune of watching ‘Blonde’ on Netflix last night and let me tell you that movie is so anti-abortion, so sexist, so exploitative,” added Steph Herold, an abortion researcher at the University of California, San Francisco. “Cannot recommend it LESS. Do not watch. The abortion scenes in particular are terrible, but so is the whole entire movie.”
I remember, decades ago, hanging out at one of Kevin Colby's infamous improv parties on Lill St. in Chicago. He lived with roommates and the house was pretty huge with several rooms and a back porch. The parties were an opportunity for those in the earlier stages of learning improv comedy at Second City and ImprovOlympic to congregate, drink excessive amounts of alcohol, smoke weed, hook up, and generally bitch about the programs they were participating in. It was at one these parties that the idea of starting my own theater company was spawned.
At one of these soirees, I found myself cornered by a pretty and young woman who was looking for someone to commiserate with about her terrible life. She was one of those students who was marginally talented but awkwardly attractive and often found crying in a corner about something. I sat down, unaware of the pit of self pity and imagined pain I was about to endure. She began talking about her life—the bad father, the bad first boyfriend, the teachers who didn't understand her, the bosses she couldn't appease—it went on and on. This was one miserable girl and I found myself, out of basic respect and an adherence to simple manners, listening and nodding, drinking my beer, and wanting to chew my leg off rather than remained trapped in the litany of personal tragedies.
That's what watching Blonde felt like.
It's a strange piece of art that can boast a brilliant actress doing a dead on impersonation of an iconic celebrity, gorgeous cinematography, interesting and artistic camera choices, great performances by actors in peripheral roles, all based on a truly interesting and celebrated novel, and still be as dull as sitting next to a perpetually depressed inebriated misery junkie.
The film isn't sexist (any more than any film made about a woman living in 50's Hollywood). It isn't any more exploitative than any other fictionalized biopic fantasy. It certainly isn't anti-abortion despite the odd choice of having the fictionalized Marilyn having conversations with her fetus. Likewise, it really doesn't deserve the NC-17 demarcation as I've seen more graphic sex and tits in a teen slasher film. Lots of tits, no dicks, and two bizarre shots from inside her vagina but c'mon. What it is is a one-note yawn.
Writer/director Andrew Dominick read the Oates novel and gleaned from its 738 pages that Monroe/Baker had serious daddy issues, was trapped in a construct created by Hollywood moguls, was a pawn by rapists and fetishizers, and was really, really fucking sad all the time. She is thus flattened out into a two-dimensional caricature of misery. In Dominick's telling Monroe called every man in her life "Daddy," looked perpetually as if she was on the verge of an emotional breakdown, and clinically insane enough to hear voices in her head all the time. According to Blonde Marilyn Monroe was easily the most tragic figure of tragic figures and he wants you to know every moment of tragedy ad nauseam.
This creates two issues with the film. First, given how desperately uneducated we are today when it comes to any sort of history and the prevalence of inaccurate and semi-fictionalized versions of history we have shoved in our faces, the films that dabble in historical fiction are often seen as historical record, much like the aliens in Galaxy Quest believed that the fictional crew of a 60's television series were our real heroes. This gives rise to grown people, adults, buying into the fictionalized accounts of Braveheart, JFK, Malcolm X, Lincoln, Hamilton, The Favourite, J. Edgar, and most recently The Woman King.
NOTE: My mom and I caught a matinee of that last one with a brilliant performance by, well, fucking everyone involved. Despite the historical inaccuracies, it's a fantastic story with a fantastic script, fantastic direction, and Viola Davis is an absolute force to be reckoned with. Go see it and then look up the real history.
Our collective understanding and agreement over our history, whether it be the tales of wars and politicians, activists and achievers of progress, or the very mythologies of our popular culture is key to a sense of unity in society. Not to overstate it but our ability to fact find and comprehend the truth of such stories is the thread the binds us. Blonde is a creative, fictional portrait of Monroe. Many younger viewers, the viewers who do not either have the time or inclination to read about the facts in her life, will inevitably assume this fiction to be true. I've read Oates' novel. I've also read Legend: The Life and Death of Marilyn Monroe as well as Icon: The Life, Times, and Films of Marilyn Monroe Volume 1 1926 to 1956 and I'm not even close to being a Monroe super fan. Most of those catapulting Blonde to number one status on Netflix haven't even heard of these books let alone understand the film is based on a fictional account.
The second issue, no matter how damn good de Armas is in her extraordinary recreation of Monroe, limiting her character to merely the moments of deep distress and depression, a litany of Job-like scenarios, betrays her performance. The entire catalog of scenes she is required to perform squashes the possibility of showing anything but a victim. The effect would be the same if Baz Luhrmann's Elvis only walked through Presley's shittiest moments in his life, ended with him on the toilet, and never showed him perform.
The message Dominick communicates is clear: Monroe is cast as the eternal victim. No matter how hard anyone’s life may be, the acquiescence to perpetual victimhood is a drag to watch. We see her happy for only brief seconds before something shattering comes down and, instead of rage or curiosity or self reflection we receive a blank, sad, confused stare. There is a scene, in the middle of the film. Adrien Brody’s Arthur Miller has promised to never write about her. She is in his office, gazing at his notes and the effluvia of living with a legendary writer and suddenly she sees, on the typewriter, a four or five line transcipt of a conversation the two had earlier. The camera goes to her face. Nothing. No fury. No wonder. No moment of humanity. Just sad and vacant.
Blonde instead drags Norma Jean through her horrible childhood, her horrible rape at the hands of a studio executive, her sordid threesome with the sons of Charlie Chaplin and Edward G. Robinson, her abortion, her failed marriage to Joe DiMaggio, her failed marriage to Arthur Miller, her drug addiction, her tantrums on set, her miscarriage, her dismissive and brutal treatment by JFK, and her death. All while listening to her converse with her fetus and her non-existent father.
All very much like listening to a drunk improviser hold court about how awful her life has been for two and a half hours or attending a lesbian poetry slam and hearing poem after poem about break ups and terrible ex-girlfriends. I mean, Jesus Christ, we can't appreciate the horrors of existence if they all blend together like a banal and mundane black parade.
