Emily Ratajowski has joined a chorus of people slamming the Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde.
The model-turned-actor said she hasn’t even watched the film yet, but said she plans to be “pissed off” when she does watch it, saying, “I’m just gonna get angry.”
In a video posted to TikTok, Ratajowski said, “I’m not surprised to hear that it’s yet another movie fetishizing female pain, even in death.”
Citing the collective fascination with Princess Diana’s death, Amy Winehouse’s addiction and eventual death, and Britney Spears, Ratajowski claimed that as a society “we love to fetishise female pain … We obsess over dead girls and serial killers.”
“As women – I mean, I can say for myself for sure – but I’ve learned how to fetishise my own pain and my own hurt in my life,” she added.
“So I have a proposal. I think we all need to be a little more pissed off,” the My Body author said. “2022, baby, is my bitch era. I think we should all be in our bitch era.”
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So done with the fetishization of female pain and suffering. Bitch Era 2022
Right before Ratajowski’s post, singer Courtney Stodden told Page Six they will be boycotting the film.
“I will not be watching,” she said. “As somebody who understands what it feels like to be exploited in a sexual way and then have people turn you into a joke when you are not a joke, I think diving into that is a little disrespectful.”
They urged others to also boycott the movie, which was released on Netflix at the end of last month.
“That is not Marilyn Monroe, that is not her story,” they said. “It’s fictionalised and it’s to make her something she wasn’t. She never wanted to be the girl they’re painting her as.”
Planned Parenthood has joined the criticism as well, telling The Hollywood Reporter Blonde was a step in the wrong direction for abortion rights.
“As film and TV shapes many people’s understanding of sexual and reproductive health, it’s critical these depictions accurately portray women’s real decisions and experiences,” Caren Spruch, Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s national director of arts and entertainment engagement, told THR. “While abortion is safe, essential health care, anti-abortion zealots have long contributed to abortion stigma by using medically inaccurate descriptions of fetuses and pregnancy. Andrew Dominik’s new film, Blonde, bolsters their message with a CGI-talking fetus, depicted to look like a fully formed baby.”
Blonde – which was released just three months after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade – depicts Monroe as having had two illegal abortions which were imposed upon her against her will, causing her massive mental distress.
One scene portrays Monroe’s fetuses speaking to her via photoreal CGI. “You won’t hurt me this time, will you?” a fetus asks Monroe.
Those who have seen the film have shared their distaste on social media:
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
https://twitter.com/StephHerold/status/1575476167196409857?s=20
The Blonde writers making Ana de Armas strip nude and say “daddy” for the 238th time and calling it art pic.twitter.com/CJnWI7fLUA
— Neil Gillis (@NeilGillis18) September 28, 2022
https://twitter.com/nayeeruh/status/1576360991159648256?s=20
marilyn in blonde is either topless, crying, screaming, abused, saying daddy, getting drugged.. the real marilyn monroe would've been either taking a bath, reading a book, walking alone or with a close friend, cooking something, thinking, listening to music or rehearsing pic.twitter.com/jLye4urX8Y
— primadonna (@versaceschanel) September 30, 2022
the director of blonde including a match cut of the stars in the night sky…to sperm finding ovums is the single worst thing I have ever seen in a film pic.twitter.com/WRxHmpoHIz
— kt (@KayteaR17) October 2, 2022
Some also commented on lead actress Ana de Armas’ choice to be involved with the project, which others had previously turned down.
“Jessica Chastain was so right for dropping out of the Blonde movie,” one tweet read.
“The amount of actresses that dropped Blonde after reading the script just makes Ana de Armas look even worse…” another tweet replied. “The desperation for that Oscar is obvious and pathetic.”
Many have said they were unable to watch the whole film.
“While the film is beautifully shot (most of the times) and Ana de Armas gives a luminous performance, it falls apart fast… and that last hour… Jesus Christ, f***ing unwatchable. An absoute head-scratcher of a movie,” one person wrote.
“Tried to watch @netflix Blonde,” commented another. “Couldn’t stomach more than about 20 minutes of the nearly three hours length. That 20 minutes was nothing but cruel and heartbreaking. Absolutely unwatchable.”
“I just started to watch Blonde and I’ve turned it off after 20 minutes, enough said,” wrote a third, while someone else described it as “a hate letter to the icon that was Marilyn”.
