Joyce Carol Oates - Blonde

I have not read Joyce Carol Oates' novel based on Marilyn Monroe's life story. It may be a good book. I am sure she is a good writer. My argument is against "Blonde" the CBS miniseries based upon this novel, of which I was only able to tolerate the first part. The miniseries aired May 13 and 16 and was eagerly anticipated. Unfortunately, it was a general, farcical interpretation of Marilyn's life from young Norma Jean to her transformation into Hollywood's sexiest starlet.

The first part of this movie dramatizes largely unfounded and harrowing experiences meant to define her childhood and depicts these as the basis of Marilyn's later lifelong inferiority complexes and insecurity. The poorly-written script belabors Norma Jean's childhood from birth to transitions between friends? and distant relative's homes, due to the fact that her mother was mentally unstable and institutionalized for most of her life. Surely, the young Norma Jean was estranged from her mother.

Although her mother Gladys was deemed insane, the portrait of her was as a near psychotic, abusive, and neglectful parent. The script writers had gone through much pain to exaggerate psychological trauma that Norma Jean suffered, in scenes showing that she was bathed in scalding water, forced to clean excessively, and as a baby was shoved into a dark drawer to sleep. Although good for dramatic effect, none of these things happened to Marilyn. As Norma Jean develops into a budding and increasingly more provocative young woman, she is rather distastefully portrayed as prey to older men, betrayed by her husband, and envied by other women, including one of her caretakers, ?Elsie?, who arranges her marriage to get her out of the house and away from her own husband. Who was Elsie? This is just one of the many unrecognizable, fictional characters that appear throughout this movie, alienating anyone who has respectable and reliable information on Monroe's life.

More implausible was the treatment of Marilyn?s rise to fame. Appallingly, Norma Jean happens upon modeling, rather unsure of herself, and great exploitation begins to take place. Here we go. The script never recovers from its sad beginning, and from it the stage has been set to characterize Norma Jean/Marilyn as a dumb, insecure, overly sexual young woman bullied throughout her life, and who eventually takes up a misdirected and pointless quest for stardom and love. Every angle and every person in the film?s course of events is designed to exploit Marilyn. She is not portrayed as a fully developed, thinking person with a history. Her true thoughts and ambitions, desires, and influences are never addressed. Her looks and sex appeal would get her noticed. But once in show business, Marilyn?s steps toward stardom actually involved a complex net of manipulation, ambitious drive, negotiation, false starts, and failures - and yes, above all- sexual and political association with powerful men.

Contrary to Marilyn?s real life, the character in ?Blonde? is blindly led by all the unsavory and manipulative characters she comes across as a naive young model and glamorous but empty-headed actress. Marilyn had a complex and contradictory makeup that made her as vulnerable as she was ambitious. This movie is exploitative in its victimization theme, and the end result is a personage that is helpless, powerless, and never in control of her sexuality, talent, image or business sense. Unfortunately, this is one of the dominant, more negative perceptions bought as Marilyn?s ultimate legacy. ?Blonde? sells it all over again.

Perhaps without being its main intent, this revival of the legend of Marilyn Monroe perpetuates the misconceptions that the real actress fought during her career and perhaps throughout her life. She was probably used to being misinterpreted. It should be the responsibility of today?s writers, novelists, and biographers both to their art and to their audiences, to present a broader, more sympathetic picture of the woman behind the actress and the person behind the persona.