By ABIGAIL KOLLER
Contributing Writer
Before reading this article, beware that it does talk about the broad topics in the movie. If you do not want to know any information before seeing the movie, you may not want to read it!
On Valentine’s Day Fifty Shades of Grey hit theatres nationwide, with doors wide open, waiting for the majority of the female population to obsess over the beautiful Christian Grey’s life. While the movie clearly stirs up the public’s interest and movie billboards everywhere, it is also causing some mayhem and has people’s opinions “tied up”. Numerous petitions have been made claiming the BDSM activities in the film are over romanticized situations of sexual abuse and should be removed from theatres immediately. Anti-Porn groups and women’s activist organizations feel that is is morally degrading to women everywhere.
For those of you who may not know exactly what Fifty Shades of Grey is all about, here it is. Simply, it is about a BDSM (dominant and submissive) relationship between the ever so flawless Christian Grey and the innocent Anastasia Steele. Their relationship is taken to levels not everyone can imagine to be possible. If you read the books, you obviously received a greater amount of explicit content (I can attest to that first hand) than the movie is allowed to show.
To give you an idea of just how popular this story by E.L. James really is, the book itself sold over 100 million copies since its release in 2011. The trilogy sold more copies than all 7 of the Harry Potter books. And to give a little more insight to it’s popularity, from February 8-12 alone, it accounted for more than 60% of Fandango’s sales. It accumulated over 28.6 million dollars in two days around the world. So while some may not be pleased with its content, others certainly are.
Reports have leaked that nearly 20% of the entire movie is composed of solely sexual scenes. This in and of itself is only where the controversies begin. Many individuals and groups are outraged that the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) is allowing this film to be released as rated R instead of NC-17 (a more strict version of R). And believe me, the rating is only the beginning of this controversy.
Countless women activists groups around the nation are fighting the release, headlining their argument with the fact that “sexual violence against women is not sexy.” They feel that by showing the film, it is condoning sexual violence and abuse towards women, all the while making it seem like it is a healthy and loving relationship. Plenty of people feel that the pleasure part to the submissive-dominant is not the problem, but more the punishment and the fact there is joy from inflicting pain upon another. This is where the sense of abuse in the relationship is coming from.
Along with overlooking the abuse controversy, a great deal of people feel that is it offensive to women who have been in situations of abuse before. One anti-porn group, Morality in the Media, is protesting the concept and saying that the movie is “normalizing” abuse. Advocates feel that this is just the media’s way of “mainstreaming” pornography as well as blatantly showing abuse on the big screens.
On the opposite side, crowds of Christian Grey lovers and sexuality explorers are applauding the bravery of this film. They feel that they are not making excuses or trying to lighten the topic of sexual abuse, but rather encouraging women (and men) to explore their sexuality and try new things in the bedroom.
Whichever side you take or do not take, Fifty Shades is taking the nation by storm. Whether you are in the theatre watching or outside protesting, it is and has gotten the publicity that it aimed for. Everything else is a matter of opinion and interpretation. So as Christian Grey would say, “Laters, baby.”
