Marilyn Monroe

The perfect film to watch with a phone and the pause button.

When Monroe is negotiating a higher rate for her role in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes – as she points out, she is the blonde being preferred – we see another personality, one which demonstrates a shrewdness and humour that must have been necessary for her to endure as long as she did at the level she was at. Her performance is a life raft. The film is interesting because Monroe’s life is interesting; most things involving film stars, famous athletes and presidents are. He thought she was hot, but treated her like a kid! Was she actually in a three-way relationship with Charlie Chaplin Jr. And so we come to Blonde, the latest production to take on Monroe, who, as the film poster notes, was “watched by all, seen by none.”

Blonde is a beautifully made movie with a superb performance by Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe. So why does it feel so empty?

In certain scenes shot on black and white film, with Dominik recreating the exact blocking of a scene from, say, Some Like It Hot (1959), it took this reviewer a moment to recognize he was looking at de Armas and not the actual Monroe of 60 years ago. And rest assured, Blonde is obsessed with the absence of Marilyn’s father, going so far as to suggest that hole in her formative years is something akin to the Rosebud sled in Citizen Kane. Ultimately, the movie’s pretensions of attempting a quixotic examination of Marilyn Monroe’s sex life amounts to little more than art house cinema proving it isn’t above exploitation. While that is true, there’s still little difference in sentiment from the dismissive studio head Daryl Zanuck who refused to ever take Marilyn seriously and the way Blonde lingers as much or more on the sexcapades of Marilyn’s life than how she felt about the men in them. Instead the movie chooses to revel in the objectification demanded by a misogynistic society, and how eagerly Monroe pursued it. As per the movie, the unlikely pairing was due to the celebrated playwright becoming as attracted to her mind and underrated intellect as he is to her famed physique. It’s even a bit of fitting irony, too, that the most buzzed about element is not the movie star Blonde has ostensibly come to eulogize, but the curiosity factor around the one who seems poised to become an A-list sensation by playing her. Which is why Blonde’s attempt to bury it under so much artifice of its own, and a good deal of fiction from author Joyce Carol Oates—whose Blonde novel rewrote Monroe’s life for the worst—misses out on the opportunity provided by de Armas’ almost-great performance. It’s a shame then that Blonde is no more interested in being kind, or necessarily self-aware, than the legion of wolves who leer at Marilyn for nearly three hours throughout the picture. Given that backdrop, it’s no small wonder Norma Jeane was anxious to become Marilyn after the movie cuts to her adulthood. All the months and years leading up to Blonde’s premiere centered around apprehension in the media over a Cuban woman playing the American movie star. Whereas the male emblem of 1950s sex got a glorifying piece of hagiography courtesy of Baz Luhrmann over the summer, Andrew Dominik’s Blonde is eager to strip away the lairs of popular fantasy (and just about everything else) until all we’re left with is a fragile, scared young woman who was smothered by the adoration that gave her everything…

It has been a Year of Marilyn, full of tributes and homages, but "Blonde" explores the darker side of the entertainment icon.

And of course, it comes to the now-familiar conclusion that there was much more to the story than was apparent at the time. But Dominik’s film certainly meets Bolton’s other expectation: “Respect and fidelity to the complexity of the person.” Still, “Blonde” the movie covers many of the major known tragedies and trials of Monroe’s real life, such as her mother’s mental illness as well as her own, her failed marriages, her substance-abuse issues and her unrealized desire to become a parent. (It skips over a few famous beats, too, such as Monroe’s early marriage in her teenage years to a policeman — as well as the fact that she had half-siblings, one of whom she reconnected with later in life. Vogue recently heralded [“Barbiecore”](https://www.vogue.com/article/barbie-fashion-is-everywhere-this-summer) as the hottest trend of summertime, and a TikTok genre known as “BimboTok” was the subject of many a concerned-but-fascinated [trend story](https://www.thecut.com/2021/12/reclaiming-bimbo-bimbotok.html) [in 2022](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/bimbo-reclaim-tiktok-gen-z-1092253/). But the genre does seem to take cues from Monroe’s bubbly public persona — and her apparent enjoyment of being a beautiful, hyperfeminine woman. “Blonde,” however clumsily, attempts to answer that question, as it’s the rare Monroe tribute that looks closely at the mortal person behind the immortal image. Chrissy Chlapecka, 22, is one of the most prominent TikTokers associated with BimboTok, and she names Monroe among her lifelong inspirations. Her image has “come to stand for the very essence of glamour and beauty,” Bolton says, while her life story “stands for the classic hard-luck, rags-to-riches” tale of making it big in Hollywood. “I have noticed once again that clothing is coming around to the ’60s,” says Donelle Dadigan, president and founder of the Hollywood Museum in California (where interest in the Monroe items spikes yearly in June around her birthday). But none of this year’s moments of Marilyn fixation have engaged quite as directly with the latter as “Blonde,” which focuses on Norma Jeane Baker, the woman who became Marilyn Monroe. A few forces have converged this year to create a period of renewed fascination with Monroe — or perhaps more accurately, with Monroe iconography.

Ana De Armas at Marilyn Monroe in Blonde. Getty Images. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below. I know all too well the excruciating agony ...

The pain she lived with is unquestionable, and ultimately her extremely sad death at the age of 36 was ruled to be suicide. [affects 1 in 10 women](https://www.endometriosis-uk.org/endometriosis-facts-and-figures) and the average time between first visiting a doctor and [receiving a diagnosis](https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/body/health/a34192345/endometriosis-diagnosis-times/) is still an unforgivable 7.5 years. [Endometriosis](https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/body/health/a40252558/adenomyosis-vs-endometriosis/) is a condition where tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows in other places, such as the ovaries and fallopian tubes. In Monroe’s case, this life was lived in a different era and as medical misogyny exists today, it can be fairly reasoned she would have been on the receiving end of much more archaic treatment back in the 1950s and 60s. Marilyn Monroe’s image is inextricably linked with pop culture and perhaps that’s why so many have tried to take a figurative piece of her. But when doing that, we must recognise the extent of her lived reality. All of which, living with the sheer agony of endometriosis may have contributed to. [Marilyn Monroe](https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a41385580/blonde-marilyn-monroe-real-life/) has been the subject of global fascination for several decades and she’ll always be seen as a sparkling Hollywood star. I’ve passed out from its crashing waves flooding my body and have desperately willed the sharp stabbing agony to stop. And now following the release of the [new Netflix film Blonde](https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/entertainment/a40443520/ana-de-armas-blonde-release-date-trailer-cast/), Monroe’s life is in the spotlight once more. Symptoms include pain, fatigue, heavy bleeding and depression, with endometriosis potentially affecting every part of a sufferer’s life, including their fertility. With scenes in Blonde said to be sexist, exploitative and invasive (with rape, forced abortion and abuse featuring throughout), the pain endured in her short life is being pored over for entertainment purposes again.

New film Blonde suggests the trio were in a three-way relationship – but is this based on facts?

[subscribe now](http://radiotimes.com/magazine-subscription?utm_term=evergreen-article) and get the next 12 issues for only £1. [Netflix](https://www.netflix.com/gb/) from Wednesday 28th September. The relationship is again suggested in Cass's own book My Father, Charlie Chaplin. [terms and conditions](https://www.immediate.co.uk/terms-and-conditions/) and [privacy policy](https://policies.immediate.co.uk/privacy/). [Blonde](https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/blonde-movie-release-date-netflix-marilyn-monroe/) has finally arrived on [Netflix](http://www.radiotimes.com/netflix) – and it looks set to be one of the most talked about films of the year. [learn more](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/commercial-links-on-radiotimes-com/))

Towards the end of Blonde, Marilyn Monroe (Ana De Armas) is shown falling into the depths of drug addiction and despair. The camera almost turns into night ...

However, despite tracking her for almost a decade, the FBI never found any concrete evidence that she had been a member of the Communist Party. As Anthony McCartney of Associated Press wrote: “Letters and news clippings included in the files show the bureau was aware of theories the actress had been killed, but they do not show that any effort was undertaken to investigate the claims. At the time, the US was in the throes of the McCarthy witch hunt for communists and people who sympathised with the cause. She was warned by her studio bosses to leave the relationship with Miller, for fear it would impact on her reputation as Hollywood’s golden girl. While there’s no doubt she was in heightened emotional turmoil before her death in 1962 at the age of 36 , she may have had reason for her paranoia, as it has since been revealed that the FBI had opened a file on her. However, it wasn’t until she came into the orbit of her soon-to-be third husband Arthur Miller that the federal bureau began to follow her.

The film, written and directed by Andrew Dominik, is based on the 2000 biographical fiction novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates.

The 166-minute film, which stars [Ana de Armas](https://www.hellomagazine.com/tags/ana-de-armas/) as the Hollywood icon, is added to the long list of dramatisations of the actress's life, but just what makes the movie different to other biopics that have been made about the star? I think they probably just erred on the side of caution." He went on to say: "I know the ways in which this is different from what people seem to agree happened. And I actually felt that we coloured between the lines. Perhaps unlike other biopics that have been made about the famous sex symbol, Andrew Dominik's new film is a fictionalised narrative of Marilyn's life and does not claim to be historically accurate. She was the Aphrodite of the 20th century, the American goddess of love.

From Some Like It Hot to The Misfits (and with a Millionaire in between), here's a look at Marilyn Monroe's accomplished onscreen legacy.

The performances in this countdown showcase her unforgettable work as a dynamic leading lady. While some consider Monroe to be synonymous with a life of scandal, and others see her simply as a bubble-headed sex symbol, this list forcefully counters those misconceptions. As an actor, Marilyn Monroe embodied glamour, tragedy, romanticism, and wit.

Streetwear brands Culture Kings and Carré drop a new Marilyn Monroe-inspired collection ahead of 'Blonde' release.

[debuted to a massive 14-minute long standing ovation](https://variety.com/2022/film/news/blonde-ana-de-armas-standing-ovation-venice-nc-17-marilyn-monroe-1235337816/) during its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month. “The film leaves us with just how haunting it is that where the world saw a goddess, she saw no there there.” The lineup includes t-shirts, dresses and hoodies donning captivating famous images of the blonde icon whose life was famously shrouded in mystery.