“Blonde” director Andrew Dominik claims that American audiences didn’t care for the Netflix biopic because it shattered their illusions of Marilyn Monroe as an “empowered” woman.
The filmmaker made the comments during the Red Sea International Film Festival in Saudi Arabia. Dominik claimed Americans “hated” his movie because of how he approached the subject matter.
“Now we’re living in a time where it’s important to present women as empowered, and they want to reinvent Marilyn Monroe as an empowered woman. That’s what they want to see,” he said, per The Hollywood Reporter. “And if you’re not showing them that, it upsets them.”
As for accusations of exploiting and sensationalizing Monroe’s story, Dominik said it wasn’t possible because she’s no longer alive.
“Which is kind of strange, because she’s dead,” Dominik said of the criticism. “The movie doesn’t make any difference in one way or another.”
He continued, “What they really mean is that the film exploited their memory of her, their image of her, which is fair enough. But that’s the whole idea of the movie. It’s trying to take the iconography of her life and put it into service of something else, it’s trying to take things that you’re familiar with, and turning the meaning inside out. But that’s what they don’t want to see.”
Later, the Australian director claimed movies were becoming “more conservative.” Dominik compared current offerings to bedtime stories that are predictable and therefore comfortable. “But I don’t want to make bedtime stories,” he said.
“Blonde” stirred up controversy not just for allegedly “exploiting” Monroe’s legacy, but also for its portrayal of miscarriage and abortion. Though Dominik insisted the Netflix project wasn’t intended to push one particular point of view, many pro-abortion activists thought these emotional scenes had pro-life undertones.
“I think the movie is pretty nuanced actually, and I think it’s very complex, but that doesn’t fit — people are obviously concerned with losses of freedoms, obviously they are,” the filmmaker told The Wrap just after “Blonde” was released.
“But, I mean, no one would have given a s*** about that if I’d made the movie in 2008, and probably no one’s going to care about it in four years’ time. And the movie won’t have changed. It’s just what sort of going on.”
Dominik accused critics of looking at “Blonde” “through this Roe v. Wade lens.”
“They’ve got a certain agenda where they feel like the freedoms of women are being compromised, and they look at ‘Blonde’ and they see a demon, but it’s not really about that,” he continued. “I think it’s very difficult for people to step outside of the stories they carry inside themselves and see things of their own volition.”