Fifty Shades of Grey Movie Will Shoot for an NC-17 Rating, Leaves Us Wondering

More like a testament to their confidence in the adult female audience’s willingness to sit through ~2 hours of romanticized and glorified abuse and rape.

You know all that shit people keep telling you about how gross Twilight is and how you need to not be promoting and defending it? That also goes for its even more misogynist fanfic.

Romanticized abuse and rape? Are you kidding? Plenty of couples lived the D/s lifestyle long before this 50 shades phase and will continue to do so long after its forgotten and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, its all about consent and trust, who are you to judge a lifestyle you obviously have no experience in based on a poorly written book?

But 50 Shades isn’t an accurate portrayal of the D/s lifestyle, that’s the point Sara (and just about every D/s practioner who has read the book) is making.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/08/02/fifty-shades-of-grey-real-life-submissive-bondage_n_1732366.html

Given how hard it is to make a good film from based on a classic piece of literature. Won’t it be even harder to make a good film from a very average piece of literature? Can the film be anything but a terrible movie from the get go?

wow, those song titles sound like a parody…

Who said anything about making a good film? The question is whether it can be a profitable film.

Average piece of literature is being way too generous.

They ARE a parody, aren’t they?

This is terrible! this stuff shouldn’t be allowed to exist, this is what is wrong with this world and the media. Films such as The Dark Knight Rises as well as Video Games in General are treated like they are (pun intended) the Bane of all human existence. an incident of terrible and unexplainable violence happens then its “that movie” that is to blame or its “That Video Game” that put the ideas in the head of the person who did the “bad thing” But stuff like 50 shades of grey gets a free pass, it topped best-seller lists around the world,has sold over 65 million copies worldwide, set the record as the fastest-selling paperback of all time and yet no one seems to care about it and what “Harm” it could do. I don’t see anyone protesting it, I don’t see “law makers” trying to ban it. I see the quite opposite I see this thing being celebrated for all the “good” it has or is doing. but yet like I said it gets a “free pass” you don’t see it being blamed for all the Rapes or Sexual related crimes that are happening right now. Someone could read the book and be inspired or get “ideas” in their head and go out and act on them. In my view A trashy novel filled with violent sexual acts is no different then Someone shooting someone else on Call of Duty. I know it might just be words on a page but a person’s imagination is far more sick, twisted and dangerous then anything on any video game screen

Oh, how cute! *pets the troll*

All truth. Only thing I would add is that this problem has its roots deeper then an over-hyped novel/fanfic, wev. Did you know Disney’s Beauty and the Best is a great example of an abusive relationship? How fucked up is our culture when we can’t even spot this crap until it’s too late? And then we wonder how films like Twilight get so much attention and love…

I’m not a troll I’m serious, If you don’t want to have a serious “Grown-up” discussion about things like this then that is fine by me. You can go ahead and mock me, but when you’re ready to have an Adult conversation let me know and I’ll be happy to speak with you then,

Man, I really hate it when people say this about Beauty and the Beast. To me, it’s all hyperbole. The Beast never lays a hand on Belle, and the moment he seems like he MIGHT, Belle immediately leaves the castle. After the wolf attack, Belle makes it clear that she’s thankful for the Beast saving her BUT his behavior was unforgivable. The Beast realizes she’s right, starts to change and THEN Belle starts to be attracted to him–but is still much more interested in saving her ailing father when she discovers he’s in danger. When she says she wants to go to him, the Beast agrees that she should, and tells her to go. Belle only goes back to him because he’s in danger, too.

This is a STARK contrast to Twilight. Edward treats Bella as a possession, but in BatB it’s GASTON that explicitly says that Belle is “his,” not the Beast. Bella mistreats and ignores the other people in her life in favor of Edward, Belle still prioritizes her father over the Beast. Belle leaves the Beast and handles herself just fine, but when Edward leaves Bella she becomes a suicidal mess.

I’m not saying the way BatB portrays the romance is perfect, but saying it’s a depiction of an abusive relationship doesn’t actually match the content of the movie.

@Inky Logged in just to say that I really appreciate your post. I, too, really dislike when people paint all stories with only superficial (if all) similarities as abusive.

50 Shades of Grey, OTH, is repulsive. It’s badly written, really abusive tale of unlikable characters. Not to mention its fanfic origins.

You’re absolutely right; verbal abuse isn’t nearly as terrible as physical….
So, in Beauty and the Best, isolating her, threatening her, forcing her to comply with a situation…that’s not abuse? Interesting.

Of course it’s abuse, but it isn’t a RELATIONSHIP. At that point, they’re not at all a romantic possibility (outside of the pushy furniture) and Belle wants nothing to do with him. They only become a romantic item at all after the Beast realizes he’s being an idiot and shapes himself up. It’s not portrayed as romantic, it’s portrayed as the Beast being a selfish, immature…well, monster.

Compare this to Edward, who is portrayed from the get go as the perfect guy, and the differences are, again, pretty clear.

But Her Love Saves Him!!!11, quite literally, from being a Beast to a man. And all of his servants that tell her “He’s really a Nice Guy,” That is a terrible, shitty lie we tell women, and then we wonder why they “stay in abusive relationships,”. I’m glad you recognize it as abuse, but whether they’re “in a relationship” is pointless; you don’t have to be romantically involved with someone to be in an abusive situation. Friends can be abusive, relatives, even strangers.

Her love saves him AFTER he shapes up, though. And what helps him shape up is her brutal honesty about how much of a selfish jerk he is (something his servants never had the guts to do because, well, servants).

Actually, why doesn’t anyone cry out about the furniture being abused? They’re the real victims in this situation.

*sigh* H’okay, player :) Think communication’s disolved; good, progressive talk…………….

(Keep editting this because I want to respond with more responsibility then a snarky come-back. And also at times my edits aren’t saved. So apologies)

Okay, let’s go over this. I say it’s an abusive relationship. You say:

“To me, it’s all hyperbole.”

You go on to minimize the abuse the character the Beast commits, by making it not as bad as Twilight. When I counter this with sarcasm, you state:

“Of course it’s abuse, but it isn’t a RELATIONSHIP.”

The goal posts have shifted, it seems. Now because Belle and the Beast weren’t in a romantic relationship, it couldn’t be abuse?

“Her love saves him AFTER he shapes up, though. And what helps him shape up is her brutal honesty about how much of a selfish jerk he is (something his servants never had the guts to do because, well, servants).”

While this is true, for the movie, this rarely ever happens in real life. Abuse is about power and control. Abusers rarely give up that power, especially for the sake of the victim (which is what they whom they want to control, so why give that up?). It takes intervention of outside sources. The idea that “love saves abusers” is a lie.

“Actually, why doesn’t anyone cry out about the furniture being abused?”

Threatening them, isolating them, keeping them from doing work, denying the abuse (“we all know he’s really a Good Person!”) Indeed they are being abused.

My point is that our childrens’ movies are just as screwed up about relationships (especially heterosexual, romantic, monogamous relationships) as Twilight. I’m not concerned about “which abuse is worse”, since to me, ALL abuse, in ALL forms, in wrong. What are you trying to state?

It’s not about which abuse is worse, It is about how it’s portrayed. As you say all abuse is wrong but inTwilight and in FSoG the abusive tendencies or the male lead are portrayed as desirable traits. Edward is not expected to change for Bella, we supposed to find him already perfect as an abusive jerk. There’s a lot of screwed up relationships in fiction, but sets us two hundred years back.

Indeed, their abuse is more recognizable. What I find sad, and what I was trying to point out with Disney movies, is how entrenched into our culture it is. With these kids movies, it’s even harder to point out, and many people have a hard time seeing that. Not to mention all the romance novels, all the magazines directed at girls/women, the causual sexism, rape culture…my point is it goes deeper then just two novels. I mean, think about it; if we can see what’s wrong with these novels, yet our culture celebrates them…then the question is, what kind of culture do we live in where these things are acceptable, even desired?