According to Blonde director Andrew Dominic, Marilyn Monroe’s famous film “A Gentleman Prefers a Blonde” is all about prostitutes.
Dominic, who wrote and directed the controversial NC-17 Portrait of Monroe for Netflix, previously admitted to being unfamiliar with Monroe’s film work before adapting Joyce Carroll Oates’ novel about the late icon. Now, in a brand new interview with BFI Audiovisual Magazine, Dominic says Monroe has been in “a whole bunch of movies that no one has actually seen, right?”
Reporter Christina Newland interviewed Dominic, tweet “Excerpt” from her transcript with the director of “Assassination of Jesse James.”
“Has anyone seen a Marilyn Monroe movie?” Dominic said before calling “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” a film about “well-dressed hookers.” See below.
“I want to be sure I’m doing my due diligence here,” Newland added on Twitter. “He talks and mentions a lot of their films. He researches and notices every single thing clearly: Whether he likes it (except ‘Some Like It Sizzling’ which he likes) is obviously another matter.”
In the print interview, Dominic also mentioned that Monroe’s “diamonds are a woman’s best friend”, which ranked second in “Blonde”, is a “sister recommendation” for easy-going girls.
“‘If you want to fuck, make sure you get a commission,'” Dominic muses on the message. “Or is it just romanticized whores?”
Monroe starred as a showgirl with Jane Russell, who traveled to Paris in search of overseas candidates. While the film ended with a double wedding and two lucky weddings, that wasn’t the case offscreen: Monroe infamously made just $500 for the feature, while Russell’s contract was $200,000. However, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was critically acclaimed, and has remained so: in part because the serious work and sexual tactics crippled Monroe’s screen function as a patient of the male gaze. That is, until “Blonde” came along.
Dominic later elaborated on Monroe’s enduring portraiture, saying: “She’s actually a strange figure of sex because in the long run, she doesn’t have to die. [of her films] Like Barbara Stanwyck or Rita Hayworth. But she needs some kids…I think Marilyn is a woman with character. I don’t think she’s a girl with a lot of girlfriends. But I think she’s a girl who doesn’t have many friends. There was a sense that we wanted to reinvent them based on the political considerations of the time. However, she is an extremely self-destructive person. “
Dominic added: “I think she’s obviously a very efficient person. However, I don’t think it’s structured to achieve the best way that an individual sees it at the moment. So everyone has moments of energy, everyone else Hope says she has taken control of her life. However, she needs to destroy her life. So I feel like this movie is about what Marilyn Monroe means. Or whichever it means. She is a sign of a thing. She is Aphrodite, the American goddess of love in the 20th century. She or he committed suicide. What does that mean?”
Citing Lacan and Freud’s surreal depictions of psychology, Dominic also ended his criticism of the many extraordinary depictions of abortion and sexual assault. “For me, it’s not about style,” says Dominik.
Blonde is currently in theaters and will premiere on Netflix on September 28.
You’ll find all the fine print about “blonde” here.
& right here, a takeaway I’m afraid. pic.twitter.com/1WxLzIKZh6
— Christina Newland (@christinalefou) September 27, 2022
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Blondes: Andrew Dominic Says Men Want Blondes, It’s About ‘Whores’