Why is Netflix’s Marilyn Monroe film Blonde rated NC-17?

A detail of the trailer for Netflix’s Marilyn Monroe film BlondeThe NC-17 rating at its end may be a surprise to some viewers. Although the film has a strong artistic quality and a dramatic tone, other aspects could be considered a classic, tragic story about starring in televised celebrity lives. What has earned it the MPA’s most stringent, adults-only rating — a first for any Netflix film?

Blonde Andrew Dominik (Australian filmmaker, who earned his fame with 2000’s crime film) directed and wrote the script. The ChopperBrad Pitt’s elegiac Western is also featured. Robert Ford, a coward, assassinated Jesse James. David Fincher also admires Dominik’s honesty and hired him as a director for several episodes. Mindhunter. But Dominik hasn’t had a big commercial success yet, and has sometimes struggled to get films made on his terms.

Blonde The biography isn’t straight about Monroe. Instead, it is heavily fictionized and based on Joyce Carol Oates novel. Dominik started trying to have it made in 2010 Dominik is determined to make these scenes into the movie.

BlondeThe movie stars Ana de Armas from Cuba (Knives are Out, You have no choice but to live.Monroe was played by ). The film was shot in 2019. According to some reports, the film was originally scheduled to release in 2021 but Netflix delayed it to 2022. No reason was given for the delay, but rumors circulated that Netflix had objected to some of the film’s more extreme content, and was considering reediting it to avoid the NC-17 rating.

Dominik spoke to Screen Daily February 2022, and confirmed the rumors.

Dominik laughed off the notion that the film featured a bloody scene depicting menstrual cunnilingus as “hilarious” and untrue. However, he confirmed that Blonde features a rape scene taken from Oates’ book. This is likely the scene behind the NC-17 rating, which the MPA ascribes to “some sexual content.”

Dominik said Netflix had “insisted” on bringing in a new editor, Jennifer Lame (A Story About Marriage, Tenet), “to curb the excesses of the movie.” But, going by the rating, it appears Netflix has capitulated and Dominik has got an undiluted version of the film through. While he acknowledged Netflix’s issues with the movie’s content, he praised Netflix for its support. “It’s much easier to support stuff when you like it. It’s much harder when you don’t. I have nothing but gratitude for Netflix,” he said.

Image by Netflix

It is extremely rare to find NC-17 movie ratings. Only a handful of films over the past decade have carried the rating, according to the MPA’s Classification and Rating Administration website. Some films include recent releases like Spiral, The King’s ManPlease see the following: MidsommarThe rating was initially given to.

A Netflix NC-17 rating will be less detrimental than a classic movie studio. Although such a rating severely restricts the distribution and marketing of a movie in theaters, it will have little impact on the streaming platform, where the homepage is Netflix’s chief marketing tool. In the past, it’s not been hard to find extreme content on Netflix, such as Gaspar Noé’s explicit, unrated erotic drama Love, It was an enormous success. The studio appears to have been sensitive. Blonde’s rating, perhaps considering the film’s close alignment with its brand as a Netflix Original.

Dominik, speaking to Screen Daily was unrepentant. He said the film “wouldn’t have got done” if it hadn’t been for #MeToo, “because nobody was interested in that sort of shit — what it’s like to be an unloved girl, or what it’s like to go through the Hollywood meat-grinder” — an apparent justification for its unflinching portrayal of Monroe suffering abuse. And, while calling the NC-17 rating “a bunch of horseshit,” Dominik embraced it as a badge of the film’s lack of compromise.

“It’s a demanding movie,” he said. “If the audience doesn’t like it, that’s the fucking audience’s problem. It’s not running for public office. It’s an NC-17 movie about Marilyn Monroe, it’s kind of what you want, right? I want to go and see the NC-17 version of the Marilyn Monroe story.”