Explaining 50 Shades?

[Red Tiger]

^ This. It's your imagination do whatever you want with it as long as you understand its not the same as reality.

One of the best aspects of the success of 50 Shades is that it's getting more women interested in porn, which will lead to better porn being created.

.....Genius

[Red Hermit]

Not really.... They toned it down I heard, so they could get the R rating. I know my wife and her friends were upset and wanted something a bit more raunchy. Also another major complaint was that no penises were shown.

Even when movies or tv shows show penises they are usually flaccid. We still have a long way to go appealing to female and male gazes equally.

[DivisionByZero]

What I'm hearing from my female friends who have read it is that it's poorly written, it portrays a very unhealthy relationship, and has a dangerously unrealistic ending. Mostly they're upset that this particular book/movie is getting so much success because there are so many other, similar books out there that are so much better, both from a writing standpoint and a story standpoint.

[JonCon's Red Beard]

One of the positive aspects of the success of 50 Shades is that it's getting more women interested in porn, which will lead to better porn being created.

Actually, that's what many of us thought it would happen after HP. "It will increase the interest of kids in good stories and many more would be created!".

We had Twilight.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

I have read an excerpt of the first book. The writing was horrible. I mean really bad. My oldest could write better than that when he was ten.

Whoever mentioned it being like Twilight upthread, bingo! It actually IS Twilight fan fiction reworked with different names. That's how it began, as a serial online fan fic. I never got into the Twilight series in part because as my youngest sister explained the story to me I got the idea that Edward and Bella's relationship was seriously disturbed and plus I'm not into vampires at all (and particularly any that sparkle).

Some people have loved the books. I have at least one FB friend who admits to having read and loved them, but I don't know her well. Several other FB friends who I do know fairly well have been clear that they aren't remotely interested in the movie or the books. Most of the thinking and intelligent people, and even one guy who read the first book while on a combat tour because he had nothing better to read. He's not a big reader in general but even he said it was terrible.

One blogger/reviewer read them so that she could legitimately criticize them, and said what kept her going through the first two books were the hate-read factor, and being seriously concerned that the very stupid heroine might accidentally wander out into traffic. Then by the third book enough had changed that the writing wasn't quite bad enough to qualify as entertaining (it still wasn't good, just no longer hilarious in its awfulness), the "hero" became boring, and she pretty much had to force herself to finish it.

To healthy adults who understand the difference between fantasy and reality, 50 Shades is no big deal. Entertainment if you like it, and trash if you don't. The problem is all those teenage girls (and maybe even boys) who are reading it in secret and not realizing that it's fiction. This could get very dangerous. I have a young cousin whose boyfriend beat her up recently. The relationship is over now, but she's scared that he might follow through on the threats he's made against her and her family. She's a relatively bright girl--imagine if she wasn't, and she'd read 50 Shades, and she was certain that love would triumph.

[Theda Baratheon]

One blogger/reviewer read them so that she could legitimately criticize them, and said what kept her going through the first two books were the hate-read factor, and being seriously concerned that the very stupid heroine might accidentally wander out into traffic. Then by the third book enough had changed that the writing wasn't quite bad enough to qualify as entertaining (it still wasn't good, just no longer hilarious in its awfulness), the "hero" became boring, and she pretty much had to force herself to finish it.

pretty much describes my experience with the books too

[The BlackBear]

I haven't read it, but my take on it is as purely a source of titilation along the lines of rape fantasies. You wouldn't actually want to be in that relationship, but because it's fantasised and happening to the character, you can both self project and also be insulated at the same time.

That said it started life as Twilight fan-fiction and if it's trying to do something greater and actually show a relationship, then it seems to be seriously flawed. I only realised recently there's more than one.

[Tears of Lys]

Didn't read it and don't plan to. There's no accounting for some people's tastes, I guess. I can stomach some bad stuff if it's entertaining on some level, but I don't think even I could stomach the emotional abusiveness and the weak, helpless "heroine."

Another madly popular phenomenon was the movie "Pretty Woman." I never got the attraction there either. Giving young women the idea that a street prostitute's life is like Julia Roberts' was, and meeting a handsome millionaire who sweeps her off her feet (these guys are ALWAYS RICH - that seems to be a necessary element) is the very height of unreality, not to mention a dangerous idea to plant in gullible girls' heads.

[Kyoshi]

I'm going to echo what Theda said . It isn't the sex that's the problem. Not only is the relationship abusive, it reinforces the idea that if you love someone enough, they will stop being abusive. It's a horrible message to send to someone in an abusive relationship. Or to anyone really.

That's the biggest problem I have with it.

I never understood Pretty Woman, either. There are so many movies/books like that. Beauty and the Beats being one of them IMHO. They also reinforce the idea that the female characters, from sheer purity, love and patience, can freaking CHANGE the brutish "heroes." That's a dangerous idea to plant IMO.

[Elder Sister]

I haven't read it, but it seems that it's just erotica for people who can't read very well. There is erotica out there that is so much better done, and is actually interesting. Lady Chatterley's Lover is smoking hot. No, it's not explicit, but I would personally rather have a little mystery in my sex scenes. With regards to film, same story - there are some amazing films out there that are so well done...I'm not a porn watcher, but I can appreciate a hot movie, for sure. The French have got it down to a science. They're masters at creating classy, smutty, smoking hot films.

I heard an interview on Entertainment Weekly radio talking about how 50 shades is the modern day Cinderella story. I would disagree with that assessment, but even if you could argue that it is, Cinderella is not that healthy for anyone, when it comes right down to it. Women don't need rescuing. Men are not one dimensional white knights or troubled billionaires.

The biggest problem I have with the books is that they're just stupid. As was stated above, the one excerpt I read was so poorly done, it was embarrassing.

[kairparavel]

It's a poorly written sexual fantasy based on a poorly written series of books. I couldn't get but a few pages into the first book before I put it down forever. I did read all the Twilight books. At any rate, EL James clearly had a lady boner for Edward and Bella and had an interest but no actual knowledge in BDSM. She wrote what she felt? desired? would play to the ladies in the mainstream world? and it worked and made her rich rich rich. Good for her. Why? Because how many men have had a flawed and incorrect view of how sex works from hours spent watching porn? That not all women have fake breasts and a desire to go down on them when the young delivery boy brings them a pizza. That sexual encounters don't go oral sex on man, oral sex on woman, anal penetration on woman, then vaginal penetration on woman, rinse and repeat.

Why do we continually rag on women, sex and how they present it to the world and then look down on the women who consume it (and in almost all cases do nothing with it except get a little extra randy with hubby)? There is so much badly produced and scripted porn out there and we generally do not sit in such vocal and extreme judgement of it. If this awkwardly helps some women explore their kink, great. There are plenty of resources out there to follow up on and read about and groups and organizations and clubs in major cities all over the world.

These books and movies are no more damaging to women and men then any other media out there. We are at a site dedicated to a series of books where children and women are sold like chattel, raped, murdered and abused, are pawns and generally lacking agency and siblings commit incest. So because it's better written, it gets a pass? It's all fiction.

Don't like 50SoG? Don't want to read/watch it? Think it's stupid and damaging? All reasonable reponses. However, the disproportionate backlash to it's popularity and money printing abilities is telling. To me at least, the response to it is more damaging to women than the source material will ever be.

[Elder Sister]

Kair, I don't disagree with anything you wrote. I think what makes 50 shades an easy target, though, is that it's everywhere right now. So everyone feels the need/desire to comment on it.

I recall a similar reaction when Showgirls came out, which, if you haven't watched it, people, that is some prime entertainment.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

While I'm ambivalent about 50 shades of Gray, I think it's important to remember that in the books people on this board praise the depiction of abuse of women is very clearly not an endorsement of it (though there are often some problematic passages), and in terms of setting is much further removed from the real world while the argument is that 50 Shades of Gray not only (ostensibly) takes place in the real world, but also endorses the admittedly much lower level of abuse depicted.

ETA: I think the distance might be very important- more so than the depiction/endorsement issue. I often find myself reacting more strongly to a story about sexual assault in a college fraternity or affluent suburban neighborhood than I do to a report about hundreds raped and murdered in the Congo, northern Nigeria, or Isis.

[Shryke]

Even when movies or tv shows show penises they are usually flaccid. We still have a long way to go appealing to female and male gazes equally.

That's cause the MPAA won't let you show hard cock on film without slapping the dreaded NC-17 on your ass.

[Theda Baratheon]

everyone into 50 shades should just watch secretary; it's a much better film and i am SURE E.L James (????) nicked stuff from it i mean 50 shades WAS fanfiction. i also think she took stuff from pretty woman, you can totally tell it was meant to be twilight fanfiction as well.

[Kyoshi]

I suppose the debate will inevitably become about sexist settings vs sexist writing. I think that's the difference between ASOIAF and 50 Shades. Ironically, the the latter was written by a woman.

[Shryke]

It's a poorly written sexual fantasy based on a poorly written series of books. I couldn't get but a few pages into the first book before I put it down forever. I did read all the Twilight books. At any rate, EL James clearly had a lady boner for Edward and Bella and had an interest but no actual knowledge in BDSM. She wrote what she felt? desired? would play to the ladies in the mainstream world? and it worked and made her rich rich rich. Good for her. Why? Because how many men have had a flawed and incorrect view of how sex works from hours spent watching porn? That not all women have fake breasts and a desire to go down on them when the young delivery boy brings them a pizza. That sexual encounters don't go oral sex on man, oral sex on woman, anal penetration on woman, then vaginal penetration on woman, rinse and repeat.

Why do we continually rag on women, sex and how they present it to the world and then look down on the women who consume it (and in almost all cases do nothing with it except get a little extra randy with hubby)? There is so much badly produced and scripted porn out there and we generally do not sit in such vocal and extreme judgement of it. If this awkwardly helps some women explore their kink, great. There are plenty of resources out there to follow up on and read about and groups and organizations and clubs in major cities all over the world.

That's cause no one needs to say porn is badly scripted. We all know it. If some specific porno became as much of a cultural phenomenon as 50 Shades did, you'd see the same reaction.

These books and movies are no more damaging to women and men then any other media out there. We are at a site dedicated to a series of books where children and women are sold like chattel, raped, murdered and abused, are pawns and generally lacking agency and siblings commit incest. So because it's better written, it gets a pass? It's all fiction.

No, it's because ASOIAF clearly indicates that the things it's depicting are horrible. That these things are wrong.

Whereas 50 Shades (or Twilight) shows these things and says they are sexy.

Don't like 50SoG? Don't want to read/watch it? Think it's stupid and damaging? All reasonable reponses. However, the disproportionate backlash to it's popularity and money printing abilities is telling. To me at least, the response to it is more damaging to women than the source material will ever be.

How is the reaction disproportionate? It's the same kind of backlash you get to any popular property people think is shit. Look at the reactions to the Star Wars prequels or Transformers. 50 Shades is a genuine popular cultural phenomenon and so gets treated like one.

Your insistence that this is about which gender it's for instead of it being about it's popularity does not match the evidence imo.

[Lord Davos Baratheon]

It's a poorly written sexual fantasy based on a poorly written series of books. I couldn't get but a few pages into the first book before I put it down forever. I did read all the Twilight books. At any rate, EL James clearly had a lady boner for Edward and Bella and had an interest but no actual knowledge in BDSM. She wrote what she felt? desired? would play to the ladies in the mainstream world? and it worked and made her rich rich rich. Good for her. Why? Because how many men have had a flawed and incorrect view of how sex works from hours spent watching porn? That not all women have fake breasts and a desire to go down on them when the young delivery boy brings them a pizza. That sexual encounters don't go oral sex on man, oral sex on woman, anal penetration on woman, then vaginal penetration on woman, rinse and repeat.

Why do we continually rag on women, sex and how they present it to the world and then look down on the women who consume it (and in almost all cases do nothing with it except get a little extra randy with hubby)? There is so much badly produced and scripted porn out there and we generally do not sit in such vocal and extreme judgement of it. If this awkwardly helps some women explore their kink, great. There are plenty of resources out there to follow up on and read about and groups and organizations and clubs in major cities all over the world.

These books and movies are no more damaging to women and men then any other media out there. We are at a site dedicated to a series of books where children and women are sold like chattel, raped, murdered and abused, are pawns and generally lacking agency and siblings commit incest. So because it's better written, it gets a pass? It's all fiction.

Don't like 50SoG? Don't want to read/watch it? Think it's stupid and damaging? All reasonable reponses. However, the disproportionate backlash to it's popularity and money printing abilities is telling. To me at least, the response to it is more damaging to women than the source material will ever be.

:agree:

[DivisionByZero]

Hey, now Patrick Rothfuss is going to start reading 50 Shades of Grey:

http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/2015/03/wherein-i-start-reading-fifty-50-shades-of-grey/

[akh]

I'm unsure where this review was linked to me originally (might have been these boards), but wherever I see 50shades come up, I have to say some of the responses it has created have inspired some entertaining stuff:

http://delicioustacos.com/2012/03/23/book-review-fifty-shades-of-grey-by-e-l-james/

So if it at least leads some amusing stuff, it's not all bad.