Netflix’s Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde received a wave of backlash upon its debut for allegedly sullying the memory of the Hollywood icon. However, during a recent appearance at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Saudi Arabia, director Andrew Dominik responded to the many complaints about the movie, citing the need for the American public to only view its biggest icons in a celebratory way.

Blonde is one of this year’s most divisive movie releases, with critics being both full of praise for Ana de Armas’ performance as Monroe but cautious deriding of the exploitative nature of the narrative. Many audience reviews mirrored this, with many being outraged at the way the movie depicts Monroe. Addressing the attitudes towards the film, Dominik said:

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“Now we’re living in a time where it’s important to present women as empowered, and they want to reinvent Marilyn Monroe as an empowered woman. That’s what they want to see, and if you’re not showing them that, it upsets them. Which is kind of strange, because she’s dead. The movie doesn’t make any difference in one way or another. What they really mean is that the film exploited their memory of her, their image of her, which is fair enough. But that’s the whole idea of the movie. It’s trying to take the iconography of her life and put it into service of something else, it’s trying to take things that you’re familiar with, and turning the meaning inside out. But that’s what they don’t want to see.”

Blonde’s Director Was Pleased to Rock The Boat and Divide Opinions.

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While there are some directors who will do anything to please their audiences, Dominik suggested that he was happy to have caused outrage with Blonde. As well as pulling in many millions of viewers to Netflix, the controversy surrounding Blonde brought the movie to more people’s attention than it would ever have gained by being a safe and happy story.

Despite the very outspoken opinions of the movie, star de Armas was someone else who was happy to be able to show the person behind the public persona of Marilyn Monroe. This included taking a look at the actress when she was not in the public eye or in front of the camera. She previously said:

Blonde is undoubtedly a dark journey into the life of Marilyn Monroe. Still, it is also a compelling, visionary piece that doesn’t hold back on the uncomfortable points it touches on. The film is currently streaming on Netflix.

“It was important to find the emotional truth in this character. One of the biggest themes in this movie is the private and public self. Norma Jeane was completely unseen. I wanted to capture the essence of that woman, to find the human underneath. It was a long process studying her and her films, to understand what she was feeling at all times, always thinking that Norma for the most part never thought she could live up to Marilyn. What people thought of her was not at all what she felt like.”