Spoiler Alert! This post details the plot of the Netflix Marilyn Monroe movie Blonde (now streaming).
Everyone is talking about the talking fetus.
Since its premiere last month at the Venice Film Festival, Blonde has sparked controversy for its humiliating portrayal of Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe (Ana de Armas), who is forced to have two abortions and suffers a miscarriage. Planned Parenthood criticized the film as “anti-abortion propaganda” in a statement to Variety, while IndieWire called it an “anti-choice statement” in Post-Roe v. Wade America.
Here’s what historian and Blonde director Andrew Dominik has to say about the film’s portrayal of abortion and what actually happened to Monroe:
Why is Marilyn Monroe speaking to a fetus in Netflix’s “Blonde”?
At the beginning of the film, based on the historical novel by Joyce Carol Oates, Marilyn decides to have an abortion so she can star in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. When she comes to the appointment, she tells the doctors that she has changed her mind and asks them not to proceed, but they go ahead with the procedure anyway.
Later, when Marilyn becomes pregnant by her third husband, Arthur Miller (Adrien Brody), she has a conversation with her a computer generated fetus in her. “You won’t hurt me this time, will you?” the unborn baby tells her. “Not what you did last time?” Marilyn insists that she keep the child, but soon suffers a miscarriage.
Shortly before her death from an overdose at the age of 36, Marilyn is shown being kidnapped by Secret Service agents. To keep her affair with John F. Kennedy (Caspar Phillipson) a secret, they force her to have a second abortion to get rid of the President’s baby. Then she wakes up distraught and covered in blood.
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Did Marilyn Monroe Have a Baby? Has she ever had an abortion or miscarriage?
There is no evidence that Monroe ever had an abortion, let alone multiple or forced abortions, says historian Michelle Vogel, author of Marilyn Monroe: Her Films, Her Life.
“Every conversation about an abortion is a guess on our part,” says Vogel. “Marilyn loved children and she really wanted to be a mother. Unfortunately, she never gave birth to a baby.”
“Her miscarriages are incredibly well documented,” says Dominik. According to Vogel, Monroe was pregnant three times during her marriage to Miller: she miscarried in 1956, lost an ectopic pregnancy in 1957, and miscarried again in 1958.
“Her fertility problems have long been attributed to endometriosis,” a gynecologic condition that causes severe menstrual pain, Vogel says. “It was widely misunderstood during this time, so it often went unaddressed. Monroe’s well-known use of pills and alcohol was likely self-medication to deal with this illness, as well as myriad other aspects of her complicated life. She blamed herself for her latest miscarriage, which happened shortly after filming Some Like It Hot. Her blossoming baby bump is clearly visible throughout the film.”
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Has Marilyn Monroe Ever Talked About Motherhood?
Monroe confided in a few close friends that she wanted to be a mother, says Greg Schreiner, a collector and president of the Marilyn Remembered fan club.
According to Schreiner, “After her second pregnancy, she said to her boyfriend (poet) Norman Rosten, ‘Should I take my next picture or stay at home and try to have another baby? the baby I guess. But maybe God is trying to tell me something, I mean with all the pregnancy issues.’ ”
On another occasion, Monroe was flipping through photos with boyfriend Danny Greenson when she came across a photo of herself with Miller’s father.
She told Greenson that the photo “was taken during one of the happiest times of her life, which prompted Danny to question the reason for her happiness,” Vogel says. Monroe told him, “I was pregnant at the time.”
According to Vogel, Monroe’s confidant Milton Greene once said, “If you gave her the choice between kids and fame, it would have been kids. Without question.”
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How did “Blonde” director Andrew Dominik react to the backlash?
By depicting her abortions as deeply traumatic, “Blonde” hints that Monroe would have been better off had she become a mother. The film was captioned “irresponsible” and “dangerous” by Twitter users given that Roe v. Wade was overturned this summer, with 17 states now banning or restricting abortion.
“The life of Marilyn Monroe doesn’t need fictional embellishment,” says Vogel. “It was rags to riches, triumph and tragedy. … She was exploited in life and even more so in death.”
Adds Schreiner, “It’s fiction and unfortunately doesn’t capture the incredible spirit and drive that made Marilyn one of the most memorable women of the 20th century. She was so ahead of her time in so many ways and her support for racial justice and women’s rights should be recognized.”
Speaking to USA TODAY ahead of the film’s release, Dominik dismissed criticism that Blonde was anti-abortion.
“It’s just people looking at the film through the lens of their own biases or whatever agenda they want to push,” he told USA TODAY. “I don’t think there’s anything about Roe v. Wade has to say. That’s just a coincidence. If the film had come out in 2008, no one would be talking about it. And if it came out in 10 years (starting now), nobody will care either. People react to this idea that freedoms are being taken away.”
Dominik calls the film “a cautionary tale”. He believes part of the reason people have been fascinated by Monroe for so long is because they want to save her.
“She’s a rescue fantasy,” says Dominik. “There’s this feeling, ‘The people around her didn’t understand her. If only we had been there, this tragedy could have been averted.’ And I think people’s reactions to the film reinforce that idea — it’s almost like they’re trying to salvage her from the film.”
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