Monroe's Oversexualization Through the Male Gaze in Blonde
Abstract
Blonde (2022), directed by Andrew Dominik, depicts the life of Marilyn Monroe from her childhood until her death. This film is adapted from Joyce Carol Oates’ 2000 fictional novel of the same name, which also portrays Monroe's life. Released on Netflix, the film commemorates the 60th anniversary of the passing of the ‘blonde bombshell’. However, the portrayal of Monroe in this film is highly exploitative, with the director engaging in an unethical oversexualization and fictionalization to an extreme degree. This study employs qualitative research methods, focusing on the film Blonde (2022), which has a total runtime of 2 hours, 47 minutes, and 28 seconds. The units of analysis in this research are individual scenes that exhibit oversexualization through visual, verbal, and narrative or plot elements. To identify the forms of oversexualization, Sara Mills’ Critical Discourse Analysis (1995) is applied, examining the film at the word, phrase or sentence, and discourse level. Additionally, the Male Gaze Theory is utilized to uncover how oversexualization is enacted through visual language, assessed via camera gaze, male character gaze, and audience gaze. The findings reveal that oversexualization is manifested through visual and verbal representations of nudity and unnecessary nudity of the Monroe character, threesome fantasies, ass gazing, and the glorification of rape culture. Ideologically, this film has the potential to further entrench patriarchal ideology, increase female domination, and proliferate the objectification of women's bodies.
Keywords: Blonde, critical discourse analysis, film, male gaze, oversexualization.
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