The Ridiculousness of Celebrity Biopics, and Why Hollywood Needs to Stop Making Them
Since the birth of film in Paris, France in 1895, millions of films have been produced with the sole purpose of entertaining the public. Unless we are on the topic of documentaries, which, even then it could be argued that those viewing them are doing so to be entertained, films have never exactly been made with the purpose of informing the public on a topic or a person. There are different categories of films, such as horror, psychological, drama, romance, fantasy, and, of course, biographical, known as “biopics”. While many seem to think biopics are a recent invention in Hollywood, beginning with Bryan Singer and Dexter Fletcher’s Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), they have actually been around for more than 100 years, the first biopic to ever be made being Joan of Arc (1900) by Georges Méliès.
Biopics tend to stand out compared to all of the other film genres, as they are marketed as displaying the real lives of historical or cultural icons. They generate huge audiences, especially if the film is portraying someone with a lasting influence and large fanbase — think Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Michael Jackson, Freddie Mercury, and even Jesus Christ himself, who has probably had hundreds to thousands of films made about his life since 1897.
When people watch celebrity biopics, they believe that they aren’t fictional like other films, and that they are witnessing a real and factual account of someone’s life. The problem is, like every film, they are largely dramatized and rely on sensationalism, allowing the public to become misinformed about the public figure in question, perpetuating rumors, gossip, and hearsay taken as fact about them rather than generating genuine interest in the subject.
When Blonde, a film about Marilyn Monroe based on the 2000 novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oats, which is a fictionalized account inspired by Monroe’s life, was released in 2022, it was the subject of much controversy from fans of the iconic ‘50s actress due to its dramatic and violent portrayal of her. Blonde is considered to be a “biographical” film about the actress, despite being based on a fictional book about her life, which is already producing a bevy of misinformation to the public. The film shows Monroe being raped twice, obtaining an abortion and hallucinating having a second one, suffering a miscarriage after a fall, and, of course, a fictional relationship with John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States. The film culminates in Monroe committing suicide after discovering that letters she had been receiving from her father were actually written by Edward G. Robinson Jr, one of her lovers in the film, based off of the actor of the same name, who, by the way, didn’t have a relationship with Monroe in real life. Neither did Cass Chaplin, who is also portrayed as her lover in the film.
Based off of the description I just gave, I don’t think I even need to delve into why Blonde is such a ridiculous and disrespectful film and deserved all of the controversy and vitriol it received. American actress Sharon Tate has suffered a similar fate to Monroe’s when it comes to Hollywood’s less than savory portrayals of her; although there hasn’t been a biopic made about Tate (let’s keep it that way, please), there have been several films made depicting her horrific and senseless murder by Charles Manson’s cult, effectively turning her into a caricature as well as continuing to fuel rumors that have persisted since her death, such as her having an affair with hairstylist Jay Sebring, being a Satanist, a party taking place the night she was murdered that everyone conveniently rejected invitations to, etc.
If you have an interest in film and Old Hollywood in particular, then you undoubtedly know the name Rudolph Valentino. Valentino was non-arguably the most famous and beloved actor of the 1920s decade, dubbed the “Latin Lover” — women wanted him, and men wanted to be him. When he suddenly died of peritonitis at the peak of his career in 1926, some of his most devoted fans committed suicide, while others paid frequent visits to his resting place, leaving lipstick kisses all over his grave at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. However, much like Monroe, Valentino would not escape the curse of the biopic.
The first Rudolph Valentino biopic came in 1951, simply titled “Valentino”, starring Anthony Dexter as the title role. After its release, actress Alice Terry, who had been a co-star of Valentino’s, sued the filmmakers for $750,000 after she was depicted in the film as having an affair with Valentino while married to film director Rex Ingram, who directed Valentino and Terry in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921). While I have never actually seen this particular film, this is yet another example of biopics being marketed as factual when, in fact, they mostly center around rumors or false narratives meant to further the plot and entertain the public. It is a great surprise that more people haven’t sued the creators of certain biopics like Terry did.
Another Rudolph Valentino biopic arrived over twenty years later, with the same title as the 1951 version, this time starring Soviet ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev as Valentino. The film wrongly depicts Valentino as a male escort, his wife Natacha Rambova engaging in an affair with actress Alla Nazimova and only marrying Valentino to social climb, and ends with Valentino dying after a drinking contest which exacerbates an ulcer he had acquired after a boxing match. Much like Blonde, I don’t need to comment further on why this film is so ludicrous and insulting to Valentino’s memory.
Another celebrity from Valentino’s era that had a poorly made biopic released about them is Jeanne Eagels, little known today but considered to be one of the greatest and most promising actresses of her time, receiving a posthumous nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in The Letter (1929). Eagels suddenly died in 1929 after suffering from a drug overdose, usually attributed to heroin or chloral hydrate, both of which she had in her system at the time of her death.
Almost thirty years later, a biopic was released about her starring Kim Novak. Many aspects of Eagels’ real life were omitted or largely fictionalized, but the film was nonetheless marketed as a biopic. Some events that take place in the film include Eagels sabotaging the career of another actress which results in the actress committing suicide, and there is also a scene of Eagels being sexually assaulted in a dressing room before collapsing on a staircase and dying. Why is there a constant theme of these famous women being sexually assaulted in biopics?
Eagels’ family, who were still very much alive at the time of the films release, ultimately sued due to the way Eagels was portrayed in the film, and rightfully so. Jean Harlow, the iconic blonde bombshell of the 1930s who also died far too young, had her fair share of bad biopics as well. In fact, Marilyn Monroe, who based her persona off of Harlow, nearly portrayed Harlow in a biopic until she read the script. She left the project, commenting, “I hope they don’t do that to me when I’m gone.”
Ultimately, the project (sadly) came to fruition in 1965. That year, there were two biopics released about Harlow a month apart from each other, both titled Harlow, though the second Harlow starring Carroll Baker is much more infamous than the first one, which starred Carol Lynley. In the Baker-starring biopic, Harlow is portrayed as a reckless alcoholic who dies of pneumonia as a consequence of stress and alcoholism. In real life, Harlow died as a result of kidney failure, which was caused by a bout with scarlet fever as a teenager. It seems Hollywood loves to blame men and women for their own tragic demises, seen with every figure I’ve mentioned so far.
I could go on and on all day about horrible biopics throughout cinematic history. For the sake of my own sanity, I won’t. Despite my heavy criticism of biopics, some can be done right and respectfully: take Christiane F. (1981) and Gia (1998) for example. Christiane F., based off of the non-fiction book We Children from Zoo Station, is about the life of Christiane Felscherinow, who found herself addicted to heroin at 14 years old and became apart of a group of teenage drug-users and sex workers of both sexes. Much of the movie is shot in the actual surroundings of Gropiusstadt and Bahnhof Zoo. It paints a profound and poignant portrayal of drug addiction, and the harsh realities of those that experience it.
According to Felscherinow, she does not like the film due to the fact that it “doesn’t describe how I grew up, how I was neglected by my parents. My father was a drinker and he abused my sister and me. He was choleric and my mom just did nothing, she was more into her affair with another man and her beauty. I was so lonely when I was a kid. I just wanted to belong; I was struggling with the world.”, but agrees it is an accurate portrayal of her life. I do think the film could have done more to portray Christiane’s early upbringing, which certainly contributed to her becoming addicted to drugs, but, unlike the aforementioned biopics, it does not do a large disservice to her otherwise.
Gia (1998) chronicles the life of Gia Carangi, widely considered to be the worlds first supermodel. The film was most likely adapted from Stephen Fried’s Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia (1993), which was, at the time, the only biography available about Carangi, who had died of AIDS-related complications in 1986. The film certainly takes some creative liberties; for example, Linda, who is Carangi’s love interest in the film, is loosely based off of makeup artist Sandy Linter, who was Carangi’s lover in real life. There is no mention of Elyssa Golden, who was Carangi’s lover towards the end of her life, and it is inferred that Carangi contracted HIV through a contaminated needle shared with a homeless heroin addict after having a mental breakdown at a photoshoot, even though in reality it is not known who from and when exactly she contracted the illness.
Carangi’s mother, Kathleen, was apparently unhappy with the film and felt it did not portray Carangi for the way that she really was. Despite this, I don’t believe the film was disrespectful to Carangi or made her into a caricature, and I think Jolie portrayed her sensitively and beautifully, despite the film definitely being dramatized, as biopics always, inescapably, are. The film worked hard to not glamorize Carangi’s drug addiction, almost effectively working as an anti-drug campaign as we see how Carangi’s life becomes turned upside down as a result of her addiction. It also introduced many people to Carangi, who was a largely unknown and forgotten figure of the modeling world prior to the release of the film; many of Carangi’s fans today credit the film for their discovery of her.
As I mentioned earlier, films are meant to entertain, not to inform. But when you create a film and claim that it’s biographical despite it being based off of a fictional book for example, you are doing a disservice to the subject you’re portraying and widely misleading the public. I feel biopics more often than not go too far when they’re attempting to portray a public figure, frequently glamorizing their descent or spinning fictional narratives that were created for the sole purpose of “drama” in the film, thus leading gullible audiences to take it as fact because the film is a “biopic”, and therefore must be true. One could argue that famous people are asking for this to happen just by being famous, but many people forget that famous people are just glorified entertainers at the end of the day, paid to entertain all of us via the characters they portray in film or the songs that they create and sing. The best of the best will develop devoted fanbases and achieve worldwide fame, but despite this, these celebrities still have a right to privacy and respect.
Biopics have become extremely oversaturated in Hollywood; for the past three years, I’ve felt that I have only been hearing about so-called biographical films more than any other genre — Spencer, Respect, House of Gucci, Oppenheimer, Elvis, Priscilla, The Iron Claw, Napoleon, Maestro, Back to Black, The Apprentice, and My Name is Gal have all been released in the past three years. A Complete Unknown, a biopic about Bob Dylan starring Timothée Chalamet, is slated to most likely come out within the next year. Why a biopic about Bob Dylan, a singer-songwriter who is still alive and performing, needs to be produced, the world may never know. According to Sam Mendes, he will be directing one Beatles biopic for each member, all due in 2027. Absolutely not, is all I’ll say.
While I don’t necessarily believe the genre should become extinct, I do not believe it is necessary to make a biopic about every single significant public or historical figure, and it is certainly not necessary to create multiple films in a short amount of time about the same subject. I don’t know anyone who is enjoying this insane constant surge of biopics, and I don’t know anyone who is actually lobbying for these to be made. Hollywood, if you’re listening: please do not make any more biopics for the next approximately ten years. They are largely unnecessary, and only seem to sully the legacies of long gone public figures who cannot defend themselves.
