Stewart Hapern goes to see what 50 Shades of Grey and finds so much about the movie—and the popularity of it among females—unbelievable.
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I’ve spent much of my career as a stock analyst following the entertainment industry, as well as an executive in the videogame and music industries. Accordingly, I enjoy following trends in popular culture and have even been directly involved with a few over time.
The 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon is, to me, one of the more perplexing in the past 30 years I’ve been closely following these sorts of things, but with over 100 million books sold and an opening weekend domestic box office gross over $80 million for the movie (I can already imagine the headlines: “50 Shades Dominates Weekend Box Office” or “50 Shades Spanks Kingsmen”), there’s no doubt that this franchise is for real.
I started reading the first book in the trilogy out of curiosity about a year ago, but only made it about half-way through before dropping it out of boredom. I remember thinking that for a book that was supposed to be steamy and ground-breaking, there was an awful lot of time spent on negotiating a personal services contract—and I’m a guy who loves a good contract negotiation!
So without the disadvantage of knowing the book too intimately (!), I approached the movie without being bound (ok, enough word gags) by too many preconceived ideas.
My very first impression was walking by a local theater on Thursday evening, in advance of the film’s first showing locally. There was a huge line-up totally of women waiting. I hadn’t seen such an exclusively female audience for a movie since I went to the opening night of the Sex and the City film back in 2008. Universal, the studio releasing the film, said that 68% of the opening weekend attendees of 50 Shades were female.
The show I attended was on Friday, when, according to deadline.com, the audience was over 80% female. Early into the film I was struck by the movie’s low-budget look: the actors were mostly from TV or otherwise unrecognizable and, with a few noteworthy exceptions, most of the scenes were indoors, with few people, simple sets and no complicated photography or effects. Afterwards I checked to see that the production budget was only $40 million confirmed what I saw on-screen.
The characters were cartoon-like, with no depth and barely a shred of believability; I’d leave it to those with more knowledge of the book to determine whether they were written that way or whether the actors and director should be blamed. Dakota Johnson’s Anastasia Steele is played with the intelligence and sophistication of a junior high school girl, and Jamie Dornan’s Christian Grey is stiff and robot-like, with barely a trace of humanity. The elements supposedly key to their personalities in the book, Ana’s biting of her lip and Christian’s “Laters baby” seem out of place and without context, as if to solely remind the books’ fans of the film’s authenticity.
The sexuality of the movie, presumably the raison d’etre of the books, is a bit more explicit than I’ve seen on screen (even in an R-rated film) for quite a while, but because of the total lack of personality of the characters, it seems gratuitous even though it is central to the plot.
The most striking feature of the film—again, I leave it to others to determine whether the books are similar—is the perversity of it. And by perversity I don’t in any way mean the aspects of dominance and submission. What is really perverse is the way the film attempts to gloss over in Cinderella-like fantasy love story terms what to me is more accurately a dark tale of economic exploitation and misogynistic psychological/sexual abuse.
However old she is in this story, Ana is played with a naivete and strength of character almost as if she is mentally incompetent. Christian’s immense wealth and model-good looks similarly make him as unrealistically powerful as Ana is weak. If this truly were a story about how domination and submission can create or amplify the passion between two people, then there needs to be a greater equality between them for it to be believable—or even to feel like it isn’t simply abusive. What if Christian weren’t a billionaire? Or what if he were merely an above-average looking guy? Would the S&M be interesting on its own? Or is it the combination of these things that are necessary to make it so compelling for the books’ fans?
I certainly don’t claim any great understanding of the female mind, but it is truly shocking to me that so many women apparently find this story to be romantic or exciting in any way.
“Men and women grow up in the same culture that asserts male power over women. It’s a narrative we feel comfortable with. Perhaps that’s the only reason we still hold tight unto narratives where men continually dominate women in both male and female entertainment is because it feels ‘normal’ to us.” Perhaps not. I don’t think that you’ve actually articulated a narrative, beyond taking it for granted that you did, and self-referencing that alone. Be that as it may, I don’t think there’s a lot to be gained here by employing absolute gender stereotypes and generalizations to explain phenomenon. It… Read more »
Some years ago, out of curiosity, I read a bunch of romance novels. This Grey movie and novels share several of the most common themes found in those books: a very rich and handsome man (though his richness isn’t always so immediately obvious), an initial reluctance to accept his overtures (“I didn’t really want to get involved, but he was so insistent!”), and his (sometimes forceful) persuasion to get her to do what she really, really wanted to do anyway, which she could never quite acknowledge on her own. It’s a kind of wish-fulfillment for bored, repressed, dissatisfied middle-aged women,… Read more »
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I have refrained from saying too much as I have not read the book and have no intention of seeing the film. However, I have to wonder if the reception would have been so positive if this was created by a male.
“If this truly were a story about how domination and submission can create or amplify the passion between two people, then there needs to be a greater equality between them for it to be believable—or even to feel like it isn’t simply abusive. What if Christian weren’t a billionaire? Or what if he were merely an above-average looking guy?” Very compelling points to consider- thank you. I know the book has been around for a number of years, but I never read the synopsis until now, with the advent of the film release. I have to say, given all the… Read more »
Hey, who knew so many women would get so worked up over (let’s call it what it is) BDSM porn?
How many is “so many women”?? I read that only 10% of women had bought the book. If you factor in the people who just bought it , or went to see the movie because of the hype, can we really say who and who isn’t enjoying this movie for the BDSM porn aspect? Men and women grow up in the same culture that asserts male power over women. It’s a narrative we feel comfortable with. Perhaps that’s the only reason we still hold tight unto narratives where men continually dominate women in both male and female entertainment is because… Read more »
When you describe this all as simply a narrative of where “men continually dominate women” I think you’ve missed or ignored another crucial dynamic & aspect of what actually constitutes control and domination; beyond the superficial, of course: It is the character who is desired, the charter who inspires passion and angst and jealously and wrath and focus. The power lies in the ability to inspire, to focus & project one’s own innate power, and thus, control. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but the core of the novels is that one character is so infinitely desirable, nuanced, and otherwise… Read more »
I too dropped the book after 50 pages. I won’t be seeing the movie. I wonder if what attracts many women to this movie is the promise of a strong man.