Andrew Dominik’s film Blonde, a story of Marilyn Monroe’s life based on an adaptation of a Joyce Carol Oates novel, has been the subject of much divisive discourse on both sides of the Atlantic. Caren Spruch of Planned Parenthood told the Hollywood Reporter that she sees the film as ‘anti-abortion propaganda’. A tweet that went viral said filmmaker ‘Andrew Dominik didn’t even try to conceal his anti-choice views and hatred for Marilyn’.
She is more profitable as a maiden than she is as a mother, and so she is robbed of that transformation by countless men – those who lust for her and those who earn from her
While the divisiveness of the film comes from the depiction of Marilyn as being either coerced or actively forced into having abortions against her will, the film’s critique is deeper than a simple pro-choice or pro-life argument. Dominik depicts a woman whose body is stuck in constant maidenhood, exploited by Hollywood and lustful men at her expense.
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