The 2008 episode of the animated comedy series South Park titled “Britney’s New Look” captures the same essential truth that Joyce Carol Oates’s 2000 novel Blonde devastatingly depicts and Andrew Dominik’s 2022 film adaption Blonde fails to further explore: the archetype of the blonde that has existed for decades in American culture. She is held up, gawked at, used, repeatedly depersonalized through extreme personal intrusions, and ultimately destroyed. In the novel, Oates blends fact and fiction about the life and death of “Norma Jeane Baker / Marilyn Monroe / The Blonde Actress” to give an intimate portrayal of our most famous icon. The creators of South Park use their typical satirical tone to blend the 2008 tabloid frenzy surrounding pop star Britney Spears and Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” to depict the innate, cruel cycle of cultural abuse.
In an interview with the British Film Institute, Dominik stated that...
