By Ailís Osobase.
I’m sure many of you will have seen the recent film Blonde, directed by Andrew Dominik, which centres itself around the life of Marilyn Monroe. Or, if you haven’t seen it, you may simply have heard about the overwhelmingly negative reception it has been met with. Having watched it in full myself, I admit I was disturbed after only one hour and had already decided it would be the topic of this article. Like many others, the film relies on the all-too familiar trope of the ‘hysterical woman’, denying women any claim to success without also being damaged or traumatised in some way first. The fetishization of female distress and illness (albeit mental or otherwise) seems a little outdated for a 21st century audience, and I find myself wondering how films such as these manage to pass through so many hands before the decision is made that they are fit for public viewing.
Audiences found the film to be ‘depressing’ with no tonal shifts, as Dominik holds his audience in a glorified re-enactment of the traumas in Marilyn’s life. What I found to be most disturbing was the ever-present male gaze that the director feels no obligation to undermine. It would be one thing if the sexualisation of Marilyn’s character in the film was beset against a tone of disapproval, or if it ultimately concluded that she is more than just the sex symbol of her generation. However, I felt the film only renewed with a new vigour the sexualisation of the female icon, effectively setting us back 60 years.
The film sparked a social media frenzy, my TikTok ‘For You Page’ filled with various watchers who felt ‘disgusted’ by yet another film sensualising female neurosis. All the worse, is the fact that the film actually fabricates much of the star’s life, some of the most harrowing scenes being entirely fictional. Dominik has argued his work does not ever claim to be a biopic and is in fact based on the fictional novel by Joyce Carol Oates of the same name. Even knowing this, it doesn’t sit right with me that a director would go out of their way to engage with an audience that is perhaps unfamiliar with Marilyn and feed them details that are both disturbing and incorrect. One user refers to Blonde as being a ‘treadmill of trauma’, and I’d largely agree with this. The film strategically skips over Monroe’s entire career progression and any positive moments of her life, rather placing a decided emphasis on those darker ones.
Emily Ratajkowski in a video posted to her social media encourages women to get ‘angry’ with films like these, arguing that anger is an emotion that can’t be sexualised. Whether or not you agree with this statement, the idea of getting angry is rather convincing, because this is exactly how a lot of women have felt when watching this. However, whether this anger alone will ever stop the media from pushing out films of the same misogynistic nature as Blonde, we can’t be sure. We’ve all heard the phrase ‘even bad press is good press. Perhaps the onslaught of disturbed watchers on TikTok is precisely what made you go and watch Blonde, or maybe even this article will. We are in an age of over-consumption, where we all want to engage with what is ‘trending’. Even when we are discrediting something, others feel the need to view it for themselves to be able to discredit it also, or at the very least to make sense of the negative press.
Dominik in an interview asserted ‘I’m not interested in reality, I’m interested in the images’, and this is made very clear. While the film can be applauded for its cinematography and accuracy in physically transforming Ana de Armas into Marilyn, no such attention is paid to translating the true character of the actress or her life leading up to her death. Women occupying a character significant only as an image of beauty or tragedy is a tale as old as time, and Blonde is a frightening reminder of this. It would be encouraging if we could see the accuracy of female achievement properly translated, rather than all focus being placed on the aesthetic appeal that her role might provide. Marilyn, here, is only one example of the defamation of female legacies on the screen.
It begs the question, why must female stars be stripped of their career milestones as Marilyn has been in ‘Blonde’? To draw comparison, Elvis Presley in his death was rewarded by Baz Luhrmann’s recent portrayal of him as a rising rockstar despite all obstacles. Elvis himself was not without controversy, and yet his legacy in the film is carefully preserved. It becomes difficult to decipher whether this is simply the difference between good and bad direction, or whether filmmaking as a whole struggles to positively address female histories. Theodore Melfi’s Hidden Figures details the story of a team of female African-American mathematicians whose work was vital to NASA during the early years of the U.S. space program. From watching this film, I know that male direction is in fact capable of depicting successful women who faced hardship, but I wonder whether Melfi is anomalous here.
It’s therein an uncomfortable reality that male directors like Dominik may continue to profit off the sexualised ‘distressed woman’ until hopefully the next media trend overwhelms this trope and something new takes its place. In the meantime, though, we can vocalise our anger. What’s more, we can actively endorse productions with female-leads who are talented within their own right, not merely talented in spite of their trauma.