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E.L. James

Inside of a dog it's too dark to read

ALA’s Annual List of Banned and Challenged Books Caps Out With Captain Underpants

by Susana Polo | 11:44 am, April 16th, 2013

I usually write a post about the American Library Association’s top ten list of the banned, pulled, contested, and challenged books in American libraries every year, because more often than not the list is a lovely illustration of how our society is disproportionately uncomfortable with stories by women and minorities when they actually talk about their experiences as women or minorities.

But this year everything’s pretty equitably awful. In fact, this is the first time since 2008 that male authors on the ALA list have outnumbered their distaff counterparts. Hooray?

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the internet is serious business

Makers of Fifty Shades Porn Parody Countersue Universal, Claim the Book is Public Domain Because Fanfiction

by Susana Polo | 11:46 am, March 5th, 2013

So you may have heard that there’s a porn parody of Universal’s putative NC-17 rated Fifty Shades of Grey movie, even though Universal hasn’t even cast it yet. And some of those among you who were not aware are now surely nodding and saying “Yes, this was inevitable.” Well, it was also inevitable that Universal would sue the Fifty Shades porn parody for copyright and trademark infringement, which they are doing.

But what wasn’t inevitable was that Smash Pictures, the makers of Fifty Shades of Grey: A XXX Adaptation, would come up with an even moderately clever counter suit.

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Inside of a dog it's too dark to read

Fifty Shades of Grey and The Casual Vacancy Escape Nomination for Bad Sex Writing

by Susana Polo | 2:48 pm, November 26th, 2012

I am eternally amused by the existence of the Bad Sex Awards, a yearly attempt to crown the worst sex scene in an otherwise non-erotic work of fiction “to draw attention to the crude and often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel – and to discourage it.” Every reader knows how fun it is to encounter a terrible sex scene in the middle of an otherwise adequate or even enjoyable book. You know, ones that look like they were created in a game of madlibs, which, by the way, is a game I have totally played with dollar store paperback bodice rippers.

The other thing I totally love about the Bad Sex Awards is that this is the one literary award list where I don’t mind if women are always underrepresented on it.

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we loled

Hilarious Thing That Will Never Happen: Angelina Jolie Approached to Direct Fifty Shades of Grey Movie

by Jamie Frevele | 9:38 am, June 8th, 2012

We at The Mary Sue generally don’t cover stories about gossip and celebrities. No, we cover the stories, the storytellers, the artists, the creative minds of our generation and those of generations past. But this rumor about Angelina Jolie beng considered to direct a movie adaptation of the glorious Twilight fanfic smutfest Fifty Shades of Grey is hilarious. I mean, we know who Angelina Jolie is, right? The lady who made her directorial debut in a movie about the Bosnian war that was filmed in Bosnian and Serbo-Croatian, who generally spends her personal time in treehouses around the globe bringing the world’s attention to all the disasters we’ve been ignoring … yeah, that lady is probably not going to direct a BDSM movie. But let’s make fun of the people who think she might!

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Oh My Stars and Garters

We Would Like to Purchase the Version of 50 Shades of Grey That Ellen DeGeneres Read, Please [Video]

by Jamie Frevele | 1:13 pm, April 27th, 2012

I’ve heard a lot about Fifty Shades of Grey, the erotic novel about people engaging in BDSM by E.L. James that started as a Twilight fanfic (called Master of the Universe, under the penname “Snowqueens Icedragon”) and then turned into a sexy, sexy romp of sexual sex with differently-named characters who are totally not Edward and Bella. But that’s about all I know about it. However, if Ellen DeGeneres records a full-length version of this hilariously guarded reading as an audiobook, I am so there. Probably even before I actually read the books.

(via BuzzFeed)

Previously in Fifty Shades of Grey

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Essay

Fifty Shades of Grey and the Twilight Pro-fic Phenomenon

by Aja Romano | 12:27 pm, March 23rd, 2012


Last year I wrote about my frustration with the publishing industry, and discussed ways for fandom to make a space for itself in the world of publishing and beyond. As it happens, the Twilight fandom was already way ahead of me: Fifty Shades of Grey, an erotic novel by E.L. James, is a NYT #1 bestseller and an e-book phenomenon that began its life as a hugely popular fanfic. With over 250,000 digital copies sold, the trilogy that opens with Fifty Shades recently sold print rights for 7 figures in an astronomical bidding war.

But Fifty Shades isn’t just “mommy porn,” as many have dismissively labeled it, purportedly due to its popularity with Manhattan wives and mothers. Fifty Shades is a phenomenon within a phenomenon within a phenomenon: that is, it’s the mega-hit from a group of successful published pro-fics which have all come out of the immense Twilight fandom.

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