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Viewers find Blonde on Netflix ‘the most horrifying movie ever made’

images from the film BLONDE

Warning: spoilers about the film Blonde and content about sexual abuse.

Finally, it premiered: Blonde on Netflix, a film about Marilyn Monroe with Ana de Armas in the lead role. There has been a lot of talk about it in recent months, for example because this was supposed to be the first Netflix film to receive the label ‘adult only’. This due to the large amount of nudity and sexual abuse. The people who expressed their criticism at the time seem to have been right about Blonde: the film is unanimously panned.

What is the biggest problem with Blonde? Netflix has marketed it as if it were a biopic, in the same vein as Elvis and, for example, Rocket Man about Elton John. But that is absolutely not true: Blonde is based on the novel of the same name written by Joyce Carol Oates. This book contains a fictional story through the eyes of the author: how she imagined the life of the iconic Hollywood star looked like. There has been no fact-checking or attempt to show the truth.

And viewers find that disgusting: Marilyn Monroe was a superstar with a tragic life, who came to her end far too early. Many also feel that this film is yet another exploitation of her person, and are disgusted that people want to profit from her posthumously non-stop. Side note: this was the same criticism that Kim Kardashian received when she had to wear THE dress of Marilyn Monroe at this year's Met Gala at all costs. Steph Herold, a researcher at the University of California, said about the film: ‘I had the extreme misfortune of seeing Blonde on Netflix and I can tell you that this film is so anti-abortion, so sexist, and so exploitative. I cannot recommend it any less. Do not watch this. The abortion scenes in particular are terrible, but that is the whole film.’

And I must say that I also find certain scenes quite intense, such as the scene that Herold refers to: in which Marilyn Monroe is forced to have an abortion and is terribly upset because she would have changed her mind and then hallucinates a crying baby in her former home, which is going up in flames. I find that quite harsh situations to depict about a person who has already experienced enough in her life (and who at the time already received enough crap from the media), especially since it is not based on truth.

Just like the scene where we see Marilyn Monroe performing oral sex on ‘Mr. President’ (with a considerable resemblance to John F. Kennedy), while we are listening to her inner monologue. Again, a pretty intense situation for which there is zero evidence that this actually happened. Rumors have been circulating for years that Marilyn Monroe had an affair with John F. Kennedy, but the only thing we really know for sure is that they met each other only four times — and that was each time in the presence of others.

Marilyn Monroe died on August 4, 1962. That was quite a while ago, long enough that many young people have no idea what her life actually looked like. There are plenty of (young) people who watch this Netflix film, do not do their own research, and just assume that this film indeed describes her life and are completely unaware that it is based on a fictional book. She was such an iconic, fascinating, and beautiful woman; why couldn't a respectful film be made about who she really was?