Pops Watched TV and Saw a Movie: DAHMER and BLONDE

 I couldn’t binge DAHMER: MONSTER: THE JEFFREY DAHMER STORY (or whatever) because it was just too much to stomach (no pun intended) more than an hour at a time, so it took me over a week to finish. I wasn’t even going to say anything about it until I watched BLONDE last night and decided to contrast these very different dramatizations of real life tragic figures. 

DAHMER is undeniably a riveting watch, but the many protestations over its humanization of the serial killer are not without merit. Evan Peters is way too likeable an actor to not make you feel some sort of empathy for Dahmer as her struggles with his compulsions. As with every “Based on a True Story” film or TV show, I spend a lot of time wondering what’s real and what’s not. I don’t demand 100% adherence to the facts, I understand the demands of creating dramatic fiction, and these days, all it takes is some quick Googling to separate the apocryphal from the factual. DAHMER mostly sticks to the facts, the biggest creative license being merging a number of the killer’s neighbors into one person, and moving her into the apartment next door. But what fascinates me most about this series isn’t the show itself but our collective fascination with true crime. What is it that draws us into being willing to watch ten hours dedicated to the most horrific, gruesome human behavior we can imagine? Why do we love this shit? I’d watch a ten-part series parsing that sociological phenomenon. 

Meanwhile, on the same platform, BLONDE is being marketed as a simple biopic of Marilyn Monroe, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Instead based on Joyce Carol Oates’ 2000 novel, it’s a fictionalized, highly impressionistic overview of the icon’s mental instability and lifetime of various forms of abuse, presented with far more style than substance. The movie jumps from point to point, leaving exposition as to how Norma Jeane / Marilyn came to be involved with the various men in her life mostly cursory. The movie seems to be far more concerned with recreating iconic images of Monroe than fleshing out a tragic life beyond “unhappy childhood - bad relationships - extreme insecurity - oh, and pills and booze.” But unlike DAHMER, BLONDE feels zero compunction about creating some stories out of whole cloth (which will no doubt lead to even more public confusion among those who treat films like this as gospel). The one saving grace of the movie is Ana de Armas’ magnetic performance (although the decision to have her employ “Marilyn’s” breathy girly voice even in her private life is an odd one). Ironically, the timing of this film kind of works against it, as de Armas is currently Hollywood’s “It Girl,” making it hard to forget that it’s her under the wig and veneers. Ultimately, though, 2011’s MY WEEK WITH MARILYN (starring Michelle Williams) is a far more insightful and personal examination of the actual human being.

Originally posted on social media, Oct. 3, 2022.