2022 has been a big year for Ana de Armas. First she was seen acting opposite ex-boyfriend Ben Affleck in the psychological thriller Deep Water, and then Netflix subscribers watched her re-team with both Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans in the action-packed The Gray Man. Now de Armas is back on the Netflix scene with Blonde, in which she transforms into the iconic Marilyn Monroe. After years of major coverage, including for being one of the few movies to earn an NC-17 rating, Blonde is available for the public to watch, and while the movie been getting middling reviews, there are plenty of people on Twitter who have outright brutal things to say about this latest Netflix offering.
If you go on Rotten Tomatoes, you’ll see that Blonde is firmly cemented in mixed reception territory, boasting a 48% among professional critics and a 39% Audience Score. On the other hand, if you visit Twitter to see what people are saying about Blonde, there’s no shortage of negative commentary about the Andrew Dominik-written and directed movie based on the 2000 novel Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates. The most common complaint with Blonde is how exploitatively is treats Marilyn Monroe. Take what @sinceiveknownu had to say:
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.
@StephHarold echoed those sentiments, recommending that no one watch Blonde and specifically highlighted the movie’s abortion scenes as egregious. You can read her hashing out the specifics of that aspect of the movie in follow-up tweets.
I had the extreme misfortune of watching Blonde on Netflix last night and let me tell you that movie is so anti-abortion, so sexist, so exploitative. CanNOT recommend it LESS. Do not watch. The abortion scenes in particular are terrible, but so is the whole entire movie.
Next, @TheQuiver_ felt that Blonde didn’t treat Marilyn Monroe with the respect she deserves, and the movie’s music choices didn’t help with this.
The whole thing felt very disrespectful and cruel. Also felt weird to hear a Joker-ish score creep in at times. This movie is astoundingly gross.
@jackthe1conx took issue with Blonde being another example of Marilyn Monroe being sexualized in pop culture, and hopes there will come a day when her “real” story will be truly explored.
Marilyn has been dead for 60 years, when the fuck are people going to stop using her in the industry in a sexualised way, when are they going to tell her real story? #Blonde
Finally, @dxrlinggxd also recommended that people don’t watch Blonde, instead suggesting they read the late actress/model’s autobiography instead.
reminder: DO NOT WATCH BLONDE. it's a horrible representation of marilyn's life and does nothing to truly honour her. if you really want to know about her life, read her autobiography.
Since Blonde has only just become available to stream on Netflix following its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and the launch of its limited theatrical release, the discourse surrounding the movie won’t be dying down anytime soon. It is clear, though, that this is a polarizing feature, and its detractors aren’t holding back on sharing their disdain. Other actors appearing in Blonde include Julianne Nicholson, Tight Runyan, Michael Drayer, Sara Paxton, Ryan Vincent, Patrick Brennan, Evan Williams and Xavier Samuel, among any others.
Whether you decide to judge Blonde for yourself or skip it, check out what 2022 Netflix movies are left to be released on the platform, or see what new movie releases are arriving on the big screen and/or other streaming services for the remainder of the year.
