Marilyn Deserves Better

Remember the other day when I said I was going to give the new, overhyped movie Blonde a shot, despite all of my anxieties when it comes to Marilyn Monroe “biopics,” thanks to a long history of them being tawdry and disrespectful to her legacy? Yeah, well, I changed my mind.

I should have stuck with my initial instinct to avoid it at all costs. In fact, I’ve avoided the novel—it’s not a biography!—for years now because I had no desire to read an author’s factionalized take, which seemingly only exists to comment on Marilyn’s life as an icon. This week I’ve read plenty about the new movie and, without a doubt, it sounds horrible. Reading some reviews, combined with obnoxious interviews the director has given—you can look them up, I don’t feel like typing anymore about him—has been enough to turn me off completely from this steaming pile of garbage.

Harsh, huh? Well, I’m in a mood. It’s gross when egotists like the novelist and the director try to make “statements” about celebrity culture or whatever it is they’re claiming to be doing, at the expense of a person whose life has already been picked apart by various culture vultures since before she even died sixty years ago. No thanks.

Note that I don’t include the names of the novelist or the director here. Why should I? They use nouns only for most of the characters in both the book and the film—“The Playwright,” “The Athlete,” etc.—which feels like a dehumanizing way of reducing historical figures to archetypes. One more reason I’m repelled by this story. Instead of watching it, I’ll just continue doing what I’ve always done: watch Marilyn’s exquisite film performances and cherish her work and her words, because she was truly special and this cruel world didn’t deserve her.