Although Don’t Worry Darling may be giving it stiff competition, Andrew Dominik’s Blonde has easily become the most controversial film of 2022. The signs were there for months ahead of the film’s debut at the Venice International Film Festival. While it received a standing ovation, Blonde is among the rare modern films to land an NC-17 film. At almost three hours long, the film is somewhat of an endurance test for audiences to test their limits.
The life of Marilyn Monroe is inherently shrouded in controversy. Monroe was a much better actress than she was ever given credit for in her time and she was tragically abused and objectified by a film industry that refused to consider her to be anything other than a sex symbol. Her life was plagued with tragedy from a young age when her mother was admitted to a mental hospital, and she was declared a ward of the state. Numerous accounts have detailed the horrific sexual abuse that Monroe endured in her lifetime.
Blonde is not a traditional biopic by any stretch of the imagination. Joyce Carol Oates’ novel that inspired it is a fictionalized story of someone resembling Monroe and dramatizes elements of her life that were never expressly revealed. While this might have been an interesting concept in theory for a film adaptation, Dominik chooses to revel only in the abuse, trauma, and exploitation of the actress. It’s important to distinguish Blonde from a documentary, as anyone looking to learn more about Monroe should be directed to read Gloria Steinem’s Marilyn: Norma Jean or Lois Banner’s MM Personal – From the Private Archive of Marilyn Monroe instead. Blonde has some glaring inaccuracies that only serve to humiliate and further exploit Monroe, rather than as an exposition of her life.
Who Was Marilyn Monroe Married to?
One of the elements of the story that Blonde seemingly got right was the tumultuous relationship between Monroe and her first husband, Joe DiMaggio (Bobby Cannavale). Monroe married the New York Yankees baseball star in 1954, but they immediately started getting into disagreements. DiMaggio reportedly felt “humiliated” when his wife went to perform for American troops in Korea. Although DiMaggio claims that they “remained friends,” rumors of his abuse have been around for years. Similarly, Blonde faithfully explores Monroe’s second marriage with playwright Arthur Miller (Adrien Brody). The pair was somewhat of an odd couple at first, as Miller was an accomplished writer and subject of a House of Un-American Activities investigation. Although Miller and Monroe were able to collaborate on some projects, Miller became irritated by his wife’s unpredictability and filed for divorce in 1961.
Did Marilyn Really Have a Relationship With Charles Chaplin Jr.?
Blonde seemingly invents a romance that Monroe has with Charles Chaplin Jr. (Xavier Samuel) and Edward G. Robinson Jr. (Evan Williams). It’s one of the most controversial aspects of the film, as it shows Monroe forced to have an abortion in order to hide the pregnancy from DiMaggio. It’s later revealed that Charles Jr. (who is referred to as “Cass”) has been forging letters to Monroe from her father. While Monroe was rumored to have a relationship with Chaplin, he claimed in his autobiography My Father, Charlie Chaplin that the two only briefly dated and remained friends. Details of Monroe’s relationship with Robinson (referred to as “Eddy”) are more scarce, but they only met after Monroe’s relationship with Chaplin had reached its conclusion.
Marilyn’s Family
Blonde is nearly three hours long, but its analysis of Monroe isn’t anything more complex than “daddy issues.” In the film, Monroe searches for a father figure in her life since being abused by her mother as a child. She comes to believe that her real father is Clark Gable, the legendary “Old Hollywood” star of classics like Gone With The Wind. Blonde even ends with a Lynchian sequence where Monroe sees a vision of her father in the afterlife. Ignoring Dominik’s stylistic additions, Monroe was briefly under the impression that Gable was her father. This stemmed from a childhood theory; Monroe believed that a man that her mother briefly dated resembled Gable. In reality, this wasn’t a belief that Monroe carried on into adulthood. She and Gable starred together in the 1961 film The Misfits, which would be both of their last films.
What Really Happened Between Marilyn and JFK?
So, here is where the story gets more unclear. Rumors about Monroe’s alleged relationship with President John F. Kennedy have persisted for years. As with any element of JFK’s life, their relationship has been the subject of numerous conspiracy theories and shrouded in secrecy by any official reports. Monroe famously performed for the President on his 45th birthday in Madison Square Garden on May 19, 1962, only months before her death.
According to the Monroe biographer James Spada, it was “pretty clear” that she had an affair with both JFK and his brother, Robert Kennedy. While DiMaggio has suggested that the Kennedys were involved in his ex-wife’s death, Dr. Rock Positano clarified in the 2017 biography Dinner with DiMaggio: Memories of an American Hero that the Kennedys simply put Monroe in an unstable mental state while she was dealing with other health issues. The disturbing scene where JFK (Caspar Phillipson) sexually assaults Monroe in the White House was inspired by a similar scene in Oates’ novel. While former Secret Service agents admitted to following Monroe during her time with Kennedy, there is no evidence to suggest that an assault ever took place.