TW, Mentions of rape, sexual assault, suicide
Blonde, A movie made on the life of Marilyn Monroe, was released on Netflix this weekend. It is based on the book with the same title by author Joyce Carol Oates.
Being the huge Marilyn Monroe fan I am, I had watchlisted this movie the day I saw the trailer. So I watched it on the very first day of its release. And to my utter surprise, it showcased a woman I knew nothing of. It was on the life of Norma Jeanne, Marilyn’s birth name. It wasn’t about the badass, empowered woman with the red lip at first who I thought she was; it was about the life of a troubled little girl named Norma who lived with her mentally unstable mother. The mother she loved dearly even after she hurt her so much. All she wanted was to be loved and accepted by her dear mother. The same mother who tried to kill little Norma and was the reason she lived in foster homes all her life. Then the movie progresses with a teenage Norma trying to make it big into Hollywood; it has horrific, gut-wrenching visuals of Casting couch and young Norma being treated like an object and exploited like a toy throughout her life and even as she grows up. It also includes difficult scenes of her drug problems, how she was into substance abuse. Her failed relationships, some controversial flings and ends with her death by an overdose. The movie will leave you with a heavy heart and tears in your eyes for sure because I was bawling my eyes out at this point.
The acting by Ana De Armas is absolutely breathtaking. She’s so into the character you won’t feel it isn’t Marilyn Monroe herself on the screen. She was absolutely brilliant and mesmerising, totally believable, empathic and sympathetic. She deserves every accolade and praise, and I hope she goes far. Her complex work shows. I read a piece where it mentioned that she had to reshoot a lot of magazine covers of Marilyn for the movie. Hence, every magazine you see in the movie has Ana on the cover instead of Marilyn, and it’s not edited.
The movie is getting reviews like, “It was too dark, too long, too boring”.But it’s appalling to me because it’s no news that Marilyn had a tough life. I agree that the story was traumatic, shocking, brutal and gut-wrenching, but that was her life. People took advantage of her being a naive teen alone in old Hollywood and treated her shamefully. I remember seeing footage of how she was treated in real life by baying mobs of fans (mostly grown men) and the Paparazzi, which is so painful. The same men who thirsted on her talked ill of her. The movie is based on her book and might be a bit fictionalised, but I think it was an important film. People need to know what all it takes to be a woman in a man’s world, and that too in the 60s.
Her hard life aside, she was a charming woman who looked fantastic on film and sang some incredible songs that still makes me want to dance and forget my worries. She’s the reason I LOVE flaunting a red lip. She’s the style symbol STILL, with Kim K wearing her dress to the Met Gala. She will always be looked upon and will be a diva forever. Marilyn Monroe was a gorgeous, successful woman, and I think limiting her to her personal life and trauma is plain disrespectful to her as an artist.
So my advice? WATCH THE MOVIE. MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND. AND SPARE A THOUGHT FOR THIS INCREDIBLE YOUNG ACTRESS WHO IS SIMPLY DEPICTING AN INCREDIBLE BLONDE.