BLONDE, Dahmer and the Ethics of the Post-Mortem Biopic

Introduction

Late last month Netflix dropped two of its most eagerly – and nervously – awaited properties of the year. First up was Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. Ryan Murphy’s project and take on the infamous serial killer was met with controversy upon announcement. Not least of all due to Murphy’s reputation as a trash-peddling provocateur. It was shortly followed by the online premiere of Blonde. The fictionalized retelling of Marilyn Monroe’s life story is based on Joyce Carol Oates’ novel of the same name. Both films spawned an instant wave of think pieces and brought to the forefront the ever-murky question of the ethics of biopics.

Monster

Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is presented as a ten-part miniseries, examining chapters of Dahmer’s life from childhood to adolescence and eventually through his murder spree. The public reaction to this was ambivalent from the get-go. Any project centered around a real-life serial killer is bound to draw accusations of romanticizing the subject, and it’s ultimately impossible to not exploit the killer’s real-life victims in the process.

This is something that should ideally be attempted with a restrained and tasteful director behind the camera. Ryan Murphy is probably not on anyone’s shortlist for that. Unfortunately, for the naysayers, however, some of what Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story attempts works, and some of that works really well.

Evan Peters

Evan Peters, A Ryan Murphy regular, absolutely gives it his all in a role that required bravery to accept. Debates of glorification aside, playing a character so freakish and unappealing to the point of revulsion is no easy task. A pivotal moment in the series occurs shortly before the killing spree begins. This is when Jeffrey is a phlebotomist’s assistant at a blood-drawing lab. He soon develops a crush on a patient.

However, someone like Jeffrey Dahmer doesn’t just develop crushes. He develops obsessions. Subsequently, he takes the man’s blood home and, while looking in the mirror, pours it into his mouth and all over his body. It’s certainly a shocking and disgusting scene, but one must respect the commitment to the bit. Monster also benefits from its non-linear storytelling. This may be disorienting to some viewers but ultimately is of better use to the story being told.

The first half of the season bounces back and forth between timelines, simulating the way someone may remember a figure from their past who has now gained notoriety. It is made clear that there were always red flags around Jeffrey, and viewing these sequences out of order the audience is made to feel just as culpable as those in his life. It’s the series’ strongest suit and thankfully is not overdone.

Blonde

Blonde had a lengthy and troubled development phase. The film was first announced in 2010 with Andrew Dominik at the helm. Eventually, Ana de Armas was attached to star in the feature. The casting of de Armas raised eyebrows. While it may not work in a straightforward biopic, here it does. It also must be noted that Blonde is not meant to be seen as a factual retelling of Monroe’s life story, but rather a fictionalized imagining. A sort of celebrity historical fiction so to speak.

Blonde kicks off with a seven-year-old Marilyn Monroe, then going by her given name of Norma Jean, and her single mother living in Los Angeles. Her mother shows her a portrait of her father, a man who she says had industry connections and will one day return home. Young Norma internalizes this, waiting for him eternally.

Flash forward to circa 1950. Norma Jean is now Marilyn Monroe, bottle blonde and ready for her close-up. She’s been a ward of the state, a catalog girl, and a pinup model. Now Monroe is taking her shot at silver screen stardom. Subsequently, the film bounces through several time periods and key events. These events are centered around three famous men that were in her life.

The first is her meteoric rise and marriage to baseball legend Joe DiMaggio. Later, we see her effort to transform herself into a serious actor and her eventual marriage to playwright Arthur Miller. Finally, in the last year of her life, we witness a year plagued by drug abuse, mental instability, as well as a dalliance with one Mr. John F. Kennedy.

Controversy

There’s a lot going on in Blonde, and a lot that’s bound to cause offense. Multiple scenes of domestic and sexual violence, for one, as well as two separate POV abortion scenes. At one point, during the premiere of Gentleman Prefer Blondes (1953), surrounded by a crowd of cheering fans, Monroe audibly thinks to herself, “I killed my baby for this?”

But the breadth of the controversy will undoubtedly revolve around real-life portrayals. Early in the film, Marilyn enters a ménage à trois with Charles Chaplin Jr. and Edward G. Robinson Jr. There’s no real evidence to suggest this ever happened. However, here it is presented as an ongoing love affair, one that ends in Marilyn’s pregnancy and also hints at a sexual relationship between Chaplin and Robinson.

DiMaggio is also portrayed as physically abusive, and of course, near the end of the film, there is the soon-to-be-infamous JFK scene, where Marilyn is carried in by the Secret Service like a piece of meat to sexually service the leader of the free world. There is implied rape, and she is booted from the room after vomiting on the sheets.

Furthermore is the topic of Monroe’s abortions, plural, another plot fabrication that has angered many with its depiction of a fully-formed, omniscient floating fetus. Already online it has been decried as anti-abortion. While that particular claim is up for debate (as is the depressing notion that all films must be viewed through a contemporary political lens), Dominik’s film trepidatiously straddles the line between being a movie about exploitation and, well, just being exploitative.

Analysis

The topic of exploitation certainly brings us back to Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. While on the surface both of these films could not be more different from each other, there is also a shared meta-narrative. Coincidentally, Oates also wrote another, a lesser-known novel named Zombie, released in 1995, all about Jeffrey Dahmer, as told from his POV. It’s curious what Oates must have found so compelling in these two disparate individuals.

Still, the story surrounding both of these subjects is one that is of prurient public spectacle and fetishized death. If Jeffrey Dahmer was a necrophile, then what does that say about us and our enduring fascination with Marilyn Monroe, her tragedies, and her triumphs? Further, is our now sixty-year obsession with this dead woman not also beginning to border on some form of culturally-sanctioned necrophilia?

Cast

In addition to the aforementioned Peters, Niecy Nash gives a great performance as Dahmer’s neighbor Glenda Cleveland, who begins to suspect something is amiss in Apartment 213. She tries to alert the police on multiple occasions and is haunted by her inability to save a 14-year-old victim. While Nash gives her best in the role, her character arc is extended slightly past its natural endpoint and begins to sag, along with the rest of the final two episodes. The series’ 10-episode run could have been condensed to a leaner, meaner eight.

It’s Richard Jenkins who is the real MVP here. His portrayal as Jeffrey’s father is beleaguered, relatable, sometimes funny, and ultimately heartbreaking. It relays a point overlooked in true crime – that there are three sets of victims left behind by a killer. The primary victims, of course, and their families, are doomed to suffer loss. But there is also the family of the perpetrator, left to deal with the shame and the aftermath. Knowing you did your best and would instead be remembered as the father of the Milwaukee Cannibal.

Ana De Armas is very good as Monroe and transcends the limitations of the script. Her softened Cuban accent, masked by Monroe’s trademark breathy whisper, could be distracting but feels at home in the hazy dream world the film exists within. She carries the film on her back and will likely be the recipient of any critical praise going forward. Adrien Brody is perfectly cast as Arthur Miller, and Bobby Cannavale does well in his small part as Joe DiMaggio.

Final Thoughts

Both Blonde and Dahmer are gripping if not exactly enjoyable watches. Both deliver an artistic take on the complicated subject matter, and critiques on either shouldn’t detract from the craftsmanship on display. It is admittedly refreshing to see something that spawns genuine, non-manufactured outrage in an era of clickbait reaction. And perhaps the discourse itself is part of the experience.

Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story premiered on Netflix on September 21, 2022. Blonde premiered at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 8, 2022. After a limited theatrical release, it was released to Netflix on September 28, 2022.

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