A While there have been several movies and documentaries on Marilyn Monroe, the latest iteration to the lineup, Andrew Dominik’s BlondeMany critics were blown away by this performance. Ana de Armas’s raw, intimate, powerful and compelling portrayal is one of the main reasons for the success of this film.
The drama film received an Oscar nomination. 14-minute standing ovationThe Venice Film Festival is based on Joyce Carol Oates’s novella. However, the film’s fictionalized take of Monroe charts the best and the most challenging accounts of her life and career. Some even show concern over how far the director has pushed Monroe’s character, including the depiction of nude scenes. Interview with Variety,De Armas speaks out about her portrayal as an icon. “I did things in this movie I would have never done for anyone else, ever. I did it for her, and I did it for Andrew,” she says.
Blonde, which will be worldwide available on Netflix September 28, has disturbed de Armas precisely for this reason. Because the videos are easily accessible via the streaming service, she believes the nude scenes can be shared consistently on the internet. “I know what’s going to go viral,” she says, “and it’s disgusting. It’s upsetting just to think about it. I can’t control it; you can’t really control what they do and how they take things out of context. I don’t think it gave me second thoughts; it just gave me a bad taste to think about the future of those clips.”
Owen Gleiberman Variety, who has reviewed the film, weighed in and wrote “The film is built around a performance, by Ana de Armas, of breathtaking shimmer and imagination and candour and heartbreak. It’s a luscious piece of acting with a raw scream tucked inside. … No actress alive is going to look just like Monroe, but with Marilyn, the voice is everything — that’s where her personality lives — and de Armas nails it to an uncanny degree. In ‘Blonde,’ she gives us nothing less than what we came for. She becomes Marilyn Monroe.”
Ana de Armas channeled the struggles of her own to play Marilyn Monroe. #Blonde. “I felt insecure and scared. I felt the pressure. https://t.co/AwYUgRWqu7 pic.twitter.com/TM30fjqkMF
— Variety (@Variety) September 21, 2022
While many actors have depicted nudity on screen, De Armas’ concern over its aftermath in the digital age has highlighted how we perceive nude scenes in our society, and how these onscreen portrayals can have damaging effects on those who choose to partake. Moreover, the need for authenticity in cinema—which has been one of the longest debates of our times—also focuses on the politics of nudity and why the degree differs for men and women.
Despite what many people believe, nudity has always been closely tied to gender politics. Nneka Mcguire is a writer NotesIn The Lily, “Interrogating nudity in film is like pulling silks from a magician’s sleeve — start with one inquiry, end up with a dozen other considerations.”
She believes such portrayals should be scrutinized because an actor’s personhood can be compromised. She even asks, “What is the purpose of the nakedness? What are the filmmaker’s intentions? How much control did the actors have?” And these troubling questions “often don’t have simple answers.”
Blonde’s directors and writers chose Monroe because she was a complicated, deeply troubled actress. They wanted to show her as both real and fictional while creating drama about her life. Although the film intends to pay homage to Marilyn, it doesn’t make Blonde an exception when it comes to the portrayal of nudity and its impact on society and Monroe’s legacy. It is a well-made film, but it raises questions about its future perception.
This is because of a bad film that had a male gaze. Marilyn was not sexualized enough?
— FrancescaBB (@FrancescaBB3) September 21, 2022
A better example of this debate would be how commonplace women’s nudity is in cinema and other artistic mediums to their male counterparts. A 2018 AnalyseWe examined 1,100 films and came to the astonishing conclusion that 25.4% of women portrayed some kind of nudity, while 9.6% of men did.
Many defend this stark contrast by stating that male genitalia needs more ‘cosmetic’ modifications, while women have to show more to portray nakedness. Martha Lauzen is the executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film (San Diego State University). Telled The Lily that “women’s bodies have been put on display for men’s pleasure.” In her ReportLauzen found that 87% of the directors and 81%, respectively, of the 250 most-grossing American movies in 2019 were men. This isn’t just a problem in the USA, but it also applies to other eras.
The other reflection of this debate is the value of nudity and sex scenes in today’s culture. These subjects have been art for a long time. But when it comes to the audience, the boundary of art blurs because perception is also based on one’s personal history. While some may view nudity only as porn, others might see it as an integral part of a story. The latter, in today’s day and age, is gradually becoming prominent.
While research clearly indicates women’s onscreen nudity surpasses that of men, it poses a crucial question of whether an artist should be stereotyped or pigeonholed into being portrayed as a ‘sex symbol’ just because they are ‘daring’. Thus, using as a justification to share nudity scenes because the actress was ‘willing’ to do so. It is not only demeaning to that person, but also blurs the line between how consent is perceived and what it means to respect an individual’s dignity. And when women’s nudity doesn’t achieve the cultural purpose it was meant for, it may become a vehicle to weaponize people’s ideas of consent and space.
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While we applaud Ana de Armas’ performance, we should also scrutinize the burden nudity carries even today. We must ask ourselves, if it is for the art of nudity, what legacy does authentic nude scene leave behind?
