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Not an entirely serious topic… Just sharing some random thoughts, not sure where this thread will go. Last weekend my wife and I went to see Fifty Shades of Grey. I promise she was the one who wanted to go, not me, but it wasn’t difficult to convince me. My wife read the Fifty Shades trilogy out of curiosity and she didn’t hate the books.
Anyways, I wonder why Anastasia Steele (the protagonist) was subjecting herself to something that she didn’t enjoy and participated in reluctantly. During the movie I found myself comparing myself to her. For a good portion of the movie I pondered why I am still LDS because I’m reluctant to embrace much of the culture. At least once a week I believe that I’m being intellectually dishonest, not matter how hard I try to be honest with myself and those around me. After all, I couldn’t even tell my friends or family I went to see a mainstream movie mostly because of how negatively it’s viewed among my LDS friends.
As a sidebar, the fact that I was thinking about StayLDS might tell you how engaging I found the movie. I literally had difficulty staying awake. I will say I’ve seen much worse rated R movies in terms of explicit content and language.
I did hear the movie compared to “Twilight series with BDSM sex added” And we were complaining a bit that John Dehlin didn’t describe staylds.com correctly. Now we are saying it is like “50 shades”.
Well – we do see things less black and white and more shades of grey.
My wife also saw the movie and read the books. She specifically went to a sunday matinee to reduce the chances of her being seen. I could analyse and tear the movie apart intellectually (as I am prone to do) but on a basic level I just feel threatened.
Mr. Gray is hugely wealthy and sexually experienced. He introduces Anastasia to this different world that she is drawn to. Yes, he has his demons and is totally averse to commitment and yes sometimes he can be a jerk. But by the end (spoiler alert) she saves him with the power of her love, he marries her and they travel the world together in luxury having multiple orgasms.
I get that on some level all of that speaks to my wife – maybe not the specifics but the general concepts. I find that threatening because I am stable, boring, and dependable in comparison.
I am ok with some level of romantic fantacy (isn’t that what romance novels and rom-coms are all about?) but at the end of the day I need her to tell me that she wouldn’t trade me and our marriage for 100 Fabios, Collin Firths, Edward Cullins, or Christian Grays.
I have never liked “Beauty and the Beast”…Saving the bad boy and Stockholm Syndrome are not good foundations for realistic love and happiness – in most and all cases, respectively. [moderator’s note: Roy accidentally edited Ray’s response in an attempt to reply to it. The quote above captures the heart of Ray’s orginal posting]
Old-Timer wrote:I have never liked “Beauty and the Beast”…Saving the bad boy and Stockholm Syndrome are not good foundations for realistic love and happiness – in most and all cases, respectively.
I agree Ray and I love how succintly you put this. OTOH, I need to be very careful to not be overly critical lest I imply that there is something wrong with DW because she does like it. I endevour to trust her to draw the approppriate distinction between fantasy and reality.
I second Ray’s opinion. In our home 50 shades is a distressing signal. My college age daughter was sexually approached by a male teacher. It caught her off guard. The school did very little to assist her and during one of the interrogations the male teacher said she’d been flirting and asking for it. Because lots of students do approach professors in that way not much was done other than he was dropped as the school club adviser. He still got to teach, no change in status. She still had to finish the semester passing his room, him, and other students who had heard whispers of “her”. For us 50 shades is a pretty horrific tale, made even more horrifying that it is so well received.
mom3 wrote:I second Ray’s opinion.
In our home 50 shades is a distressing signal. My college age daughter was sexually approached by a male teacher. It caught her off guard. The school did very little to assist her and during one of the interrogations the male teacher said she’d been flirting and asking for it. Because lots of students do approach professors in that way not much was done other than he was dropped as the school club adviser. He still got to teach, no change in status. She still had to finish the semester passing his room, him, and other students who had heard whispers of “her”. For us 50 shades is a pretty horrific tale, made even more horrifying that it is so well received.
How horrible. I’m so sorry to hear that. What a nightmare.
I also second Ray’s opinion. Although I haven’t vocalized my opinion publicly, I’m very much against 50 Shades of Grey because I see it as glamorized abuse. Not the BDSM part–the part about Christian about being blatantly controlling, emotionally abusive, and manipulative of Anastasia. Their relationship pretty much fits all the checkmarks of an abusive relationship. I consider it the modern equivalent of the glamorized rape-tales which have a long history in our culture (even going far back long before Beauty and the Beast). To me, it’s awful that abusive relationships are still being glamorized. It’s tragic for all the women suffering through such horrific relationships and for vulnerable women who are susceptible to the idea that emotional abuse from their partner is okay and that if they “love him enough” they can make it stop.
The book actually started off as Twilight fanfiction online. It became popular and was adapted to be published as a book.
Roadrunner wrote:For a good portion of the movie I pondered why I am still LDS because I’m reluctant to embrace much of the culture. At least once a week I believe that I’m being intellectually dishonest, not matter how hard I try to be honest with myself and those around me.
This is why I’m online. It’s the exact opposite of what Elder Cook said in a talk awhile ago about people wearing masks online. I’m wearing the mask in real life. (I try to do that less and less, but, like you say, it’s difficult.)
What about someone who’s already posted starting a separate thread for the rest of the discussion? I think Fifty Shades is going to be a big enough phenomenon that we’ll end up with a thread here. I won’t be reading or watching, but I am interested in it, the message it’s sending, etc. What I’ve heard really disturbs me.
Ann wrote:This is why I’m online. It’s the exact opposite of what Elder Cook said in a talk awhile ago about people wearing masks online. I’m wearing the mask in real life. (I try to do that less and less, but, like you say, it’s difficult
I do greatly appreciate having this forum to be able to bluntly state how I feel at times. I come here and comment (and occasionally vent) and I don’t get the kind of pushback that makes me want to go to battle for my stance. That is part of the reason I went ahead and threw some $ to keep this forum going. It is worth a few $ out of my pocket.Quote:I literally had difficulty staying awake.
My friend, who is a movie critic and had to go pay to see the movie since he missed the advanced screening, actually did fall asleep. There were fifteen minutes there where he was out cold and had to be awakened by our other buddy who had accompanied him for fun.
On a side note, I also do not like Fifty Shades of Grey, and I think it’s absolutely horrible that fans of the series have told actual domestic abuse survivors that “just because you didn’t like it [the abusive and controlling relationship], doesn’t mean other people don’t.” Also not talking about BDSM here, since that is leaps and bounds different than what goes on in that series.
Aaaand congrats, y’all, you got me to do my first post about Fifty Shades on a public social media platform, since I’d been trying so hard not to say anything on Tumblr/Facebook/Twitter, hahaha.
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