Netflix's latest flick, Blonde, has incited a slew of controversy, despite having only been released just two days ago.
The movie, which is an adaptation of a 2000 novel of the same name, is a fictional retelling of Marilyn Monroe's life and struggles with fame during the 1950s.
Although fictional, many real aspects of Monroe's tragic life are included in the film - including the fact that her real name was Norma Jeane, that she was raised in an orphanage, and that she spent much of her life searching for her father.
Blonde also focuses significantly on how the media and the film industry fetishized the actress, constantly sexualizing her and typecasting her as the "dumb blonde" in multiple movies.
Spanish-Cuban actress Ana de Armas played the lead role of Monroe. She spoke to the Queue about these themes in the film, stating: "[The director's] ambitions were very clear from the start - to present a version of Marilyn Monroe's life through her lens."
"He wanted the world to experience what it actually felt like to not only be Marilyn, but also Norma Jeane. I found that to be the most daring, unapologetic, and feminist take on her story that I had ever seen," the actress added.
The 34-year-old even told AnOther in a recent interview that she had actually visited Monroe's grave in Los Angeles to ask her for permission to play the late actress in Blonde, saying: "We got this big card and everyone in the crew wrote a message to her. Then we went to the cemetery and put it on her grave. We were asking for permission in a way."
Joyce Carol Oates, the author of the novel the film is based upon, has continuously maintained that the novel is not meant to be a completely truthful biopic on Monroe's life.
She recently gave the Financial Times her opinion on the new movie, saying: "It's very painful and touching, not a feel-good movie, not Gentlemen Prefer Blondes... It's about a woman who has been exploited by Hollywood, exploited by men."
She also added that Monroe - who sadly overdosed in 1962 - might have died from "extreme despair," due to feeling "degraded and humiliated and inadequate" as she was constantly underestimated and became typecast as a "dumb blonde" in her acting roles.
Many viewers have taken issue with the graphic depictions of violence and sexual assault, with many taking to Twitter to describe the movie as being "exploitative."
One user wrote: "Blonde is one of the worst movies I’ve seen all year. Some creative filmmaking aside, it's borderline tone deaf how detached this film is from Marilyn Monroe and her absolutely tragic life. It's so pretentious and exploitative that it's just unwatchable. Absolutely awful."
Other users have now begun calling out the film for other reasons, branding it "distasteful" after it was discovered that Blonde's cast filmed Monroe's death scene in the same room the then-36-year-old had actually died in, per Reuters.
"The Blonde cast recreated Marilyn's death in the exact spot she died in real life??? Hollywood will never fail to astound me. How f***ing distasteful [sic]," one person tweeted.
Another added: "I just wanna say F*** Blonde for releasing such a disgusting, inaccurate, and pointedly disrespectful depiction of Marilyn and THEN DECIDING it would be okay to recreate her death in the exact spot she actually died ?????????? What the f***???? [sic]."
A third user chimed in: "Blonde RECREATED Marilyn's death at the EXACT SPOT she died??????????? How was this even allowed?????? [sic]"
While Blonde is a fictional retelling of Monroe's story, viewers evidently would have preferred a more truthful biopic that painted the Hollywood legend - who struggled to attain professional respect as a woman in a man's world - in a more positive light.