Blonde, Biopics, and Oscar Bait

So... let’s talk about Blonde. Recently, this Netflix biopic has been getting a lot of backlash for its storyline and portrayal of Marilyn Monroe. The film contains countless intense and triggering scenes, many of them straight up fabricated. Many people have pointed out that the movie glorifies and exploits trauma, and how it continues to reinforce a weak, objectified, and distorted image of women – particularly of Marilyn Monroe, who was exploited throughout her lifetime and continues to be even after her death. And honestly, most of this is pretty deserved. Plus, when you find out the director is a creepy old misogynist, that kind of explains everything for you.

Regardless of this latest controversy, though, biopics seem to have been dominating the film scene recently. But why?

Well, if we look at the past, many movies that are considered prestigious and respected today are biopics. Look at Schindler’s List, Lawrence of Arabia, and The King’s Speech, just to name a few. Movie studios want that sort of success, which has led to this biopic-making scramble, especially following the many biopics of recent years, which have achieved massive success (I, Tonya, Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman, Elvis... we could go on).

This brings up another interesting issue, though – something called ‘Oscar bait’. The name is kind of self explanatory, but basically, these are movies created solely with the intention of winning awards and pleasing critics, and the most popular way to do that right now is through biopics. It’s sort of the movie equivalent of “yeah you can copy my homework but just change a few words so the teacher doesn’t notice.” But the issue here is that when the focus goes to hunting for awards, originality and artistic integrity become second rate to a shiny Oscar trophy.

Now, this isn’t to say that all biopics are bad. They’re popular for a reason – people love to idolize hot and glamorous celebrities, and are obsessed with themes like nostalgia, war, and romance – which biopics are notoriously good at providing. But just like we get increasingly sick of SU’s dining hall food, we become tired of seeing the same biopics everywhere. While movie producers continue to fish for awards through biopic bait that most of us didn’t ask for, we are becoming increasingly restless and critical of these movies.

Speaking of seeing the same thing over and over, here’s another glaring issue we’ve noticed: the lack of diverse representation in biopics. Biopics have a long history of being very white, very straight, and very male. You would think that this wouldn’t be as big of an issue today, but take a look: The House of Gucci, Spencer, Elvis, Mank, and Blonde, are all biopics released in just the past two years, and surprise – also all about famous straight white people. This is not to say that there haven’t been great biopics about unsung heroes and POC – go watch 2016’s Hidden Figures if you haven’t! – but when we’re supposed to be striving for diversity and inclusivity in media, recent biopics have felt like a step backwards.

So yeah... it's pretty clear that biopics have a lot of red flags. And if Blonde is any indication, we’ll just have to see how long this trend lasts before we turn to the next one.