Backlash for Exploitative 'Blonde' Begins
#Blonde is No. 1 on Netflix, but it's leaving many critics and subscribers outraged. Inside the backlash: https://t.co/g618P8orGq
"So anti-abortion, so sexist, so exploitative"
"May sincerely be one of the most detestable movies I've ever seen. A self-indulgent act of cruelty."
- Variety (@Variety) September 30, 2022
- Andrew Dominik’s “Blonde,” starring Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe, unsurprisingly skyrocketed to the top of Netflix’s movie chart after its first day available to stream, but the NC-17 drama is leaving many subscribers outraged.
- “Given all the indignities and horrors that Marilyn Monroe endured during her 36 years, it is a relief that she didn’t have to suffer through the vulgarities of ‘Blonde,’ the latest necrophiliac entertainment to exploit her,” wrote The New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis, who has panned the movie in her review.
- “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. It is not a biographical take, but fictionalised events.
- “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.”
- “It depicts Marilyn being coerced into her first abortion, screaming on the table that she’s changed her mind, and then she hallucinates finding a crying baby in her childhood home, which is engulfed in flames.”
- Justin Chang, film critic for the Los Angeles Times - “The film isn’t really about Marilyn Monroe. It’s about making her suffer.”
- Adam Nayman, film essayist and critic for The Ringer - "When a movie is truly shattering or devastating, there’s a residual sense of gratitude for what you’ve been through: the necessity of being shaken,” noted “‘Blonde’ is the kind of movie that brutalizes you for three hours, feigns a sigh, and says, ‘You’re welcome.’ Well, thanks for nothing.”
just watched #Blonde ... it puts norma/marilyn in a box that only allows to her be abused, sexualized, or call people daddy. extremely strange. maybe we stop letting misogynistic men try to make groundbreaking films about women- of which they know nothing about.
🥀 pic.twitter.com/0TwPw5l2sQ
- jules (@sinceiveknownu) September 28, 2022
#BlondeNetflix has to be one of the most disrespectful, distasteful, fabricated biopics I’ve ever seen. Marilyn was not weak she stood up for Civil rights , women’s rights to equal pay , she never wanted to be treated as a joke or sex object… they did all of the above pic.twitter.com/3weTWEfoWE
- ♫ Mariah Stan 🦋 (@TheElusiveLamb) September 29, 2022
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you mean the film made by the misogynist, who called marilyn monroe a well-dressed whore, is disgusting? i'm shocked. only it's WORSE than i thought it could be. shame on ana, everyone involved.