Fifty Shades of Grey, the Film of the Infamous Book

-Watches the trailer- Uh . . . romance? The guy blatantly says in the trailer that he doesn't do romance. I didn't realize Grey was a rich businessman. That explains it. Lots of folks have a draw to money, sadly. Enough of one to tolerate at least some of this bullshit if they think they'll get rich.

There's a story about that somewhere, of someone asking a woman a question where she answered she wasn't a prostitute. Then they asked if she'd sleep with them for a million dollars, she changed her tune, and they said, "So you are a prostitute, just an expensive one." I'm paraphrasing because it's been six years since I heard it.

I haven't read any of the books, but I have read an internet read-through of the first book, and... is it wrong that I constantly expected there to be a Big Lebowski-esque twist where it turns out Christian isn't actually a Self-made businessman, just a Spoiled Brat whose mother humours him and lets him run some meaningless subsection of her empire?

It's a shame; these actors are going to have trouble finding decent work after this.

I believe you're thinking of one of those Winston Churchill anecdotes.

'Would you sleep with me for a million pounds?'

'Oh, my, Mr. Churchill... well, I suppose...'

'Would you sleep with me for five pounds?'

'Mr. Churchill! What kind of a woman do you think I am?'

'We have already established what kind of a woman you are; now, we are haggling.'

(Chruchill was a dickhead.)

And this thread is already better than the script.

If the movie becomes a hit, they'll get work. And perhaps some decent work after some times (like the twilight actors).

Anyway, Tam and others already said what I wanted to say, so perhaps we can only hope this movie will bomb.

(But he was an almost honest dickhead)

edited 29th Jul '14 6:35:10 AM by Quag15

"Mr. Churchill, you're drunk."

"And you, my dear, are ugly, but tomorrow I shall be sober."

He's ~dark~ and ~damaged~ and ~brooding~.

Having a sort of Byronic hero for the female protagonist to redeem seems a pretty common thing in romance novels; this just takes it a bit further by having bondage stuff and abusive controlling mindgames (just judging off the trailer, mind; I haven't actually read the book, so I could be completely wrong).

No, you're pretty much right on target.

I don't know if it was that exact one, but that is the gist. I'm sure more than one person has told anecdotes like that.

Many people are like that woman. Put enough money in front of them, and they'll at least consider leaping beyond their comfort zone and doing something stupid or degrading. Probably not most people, and definitely not all, but many. Enough to get butts in seats for movies like this, surely. The fantasy of having a rich person into you, added onto the kinkiness of delving into a world most vanillas won't tread themselves? Yeah, this will probably make back its expenses at least.

Of course, I really do hate that the movies like to dress down attractive people and make them pretend they're anything but attractive. It's stupid. Get actresses and actors who look closer to average, THEN have them say "look at me. There isn't much to tell."

Eh, it might be common in romance novels, but it's just stupid and sick. In real life, people like that don't generally get redeemed. They either commit suicide, die by accident, or get caught by the law and thrown in prison where they belong. At least Byron went out trying to fight for something, as opposed to catching an STD or committing suicide when his bipolar medication ran out.

And if I'm not mistaken, he doesn't get redeemed in the book, his sickness just sits there and corrupts her as well.

edited 29th Jul '14 6:45:40 AM by Journeyman

That's because in the original version of the story, he was a vampire.

Well, the thing with that is that I've seen loads of really beautiful people on social media put themselves down in exactly that kind of way, especially women. I don't think the idea there is that she isn't actually good-looking, but that she has low self-esteem. She'll presumably overcome this through bondage.

I agree. The heroines of a lot of romance novels are almost indistinguishable from victims of domestic abuse, in terms of their mindset. I've seen this referred to as 'beauty and the beast syndrome' by people who run women's shelters. It's absolutely fucked up that those are the stories that women are socialised to find attractive, but I think it's important to note that this film is just one example of that kind of creepiness, and that this stuff is endemic to romance and especially to erotica.

edited 29th Jul '14 6:56:50 AM by imadinosaur

At least from the read-through I read, I get the impression that Christian is essentially a combination of several "hot boy" stereotypes, but ones that are completely incompatible with each other.

For example, part of his appeal is supposed to be that he comes from a rich family, lending him somewhat of an aristocratic persona, of a guy who's been raised to appreciate art and culture. But at the same time, we're meant to see him as a prodigal, self-made man who started his own business from scratch (though as I said earlier, it's easy to get the impression that he's just lying about this, particularly since he's almost never seen doing anything vaguely business-related other than irresponsibly throwing money away). And to top it off, he also needs to have a Dark and Troubled Past involving having a whore for a mother... though whatever sympathy you might feel for him because of that is ruined since he was clearly adopted into fabulous wealth at a very young age, making his brooding about his childhood just come off as ungrateful Wangst.

We really need more romance and erotica stories where a beautiful person gets tired of being treated like crud by other beautiful people and finds happiness with a genuinely plain looking but overall decent human being. Not a supernatural being, and not someone who makes your ordinary person look like an absolute sinner in comparison. Just a person.

And then once that's the norm, we can step further into two average looking people getting together. About time we stopped being socialized on beauty and were actually taught to value other people as human beings without all the underhanded attractiveness tricks used in the business.

Eh, I could see them as compatible if there was a scene where we find out his adopted parents disinherited/disowned him when he grew up, so he HAD to make his business from scratch because he didn't have family money to fall back on. Which would cause him to look badly at his parents and his past, since he had everything and bitterly lost it. But I'm guessing either such a scene doesn't exist, or the read through didn't reach it.

edited 29th Jul '14 7:05:46 AM by Journeyman

I'm sure it's all tied into the prudishness inherent in a lot of First World cultures. Erotica is seen as this late-teens early-twenties thing and so the only folks who write it are the ones who can't get it right because they're already into the fringe as it is. If we can just lose the overly stuck up view our cultures take of sex, I'm sure this sort of thing will work itself out in healthy ways.

Book is shit, film will be shit.

I get it.

edited 29th Jul '14 7:25:28 AM by VeryMelon

Well... yes, but I don't think that's anything like the whole picture. I don't think it's a coincidence that a lot of the things we're talking about (fetishisation of female self-sacrifice, men with uncontrollable urges, male domination of women) correlate with traditional gender roles. Just being less stuck up about sex won't solve those underlying problems.

edited 29th Jul '14 7:25:31 AM by imadinosaur

Okay, but it's a start. Literature and movies should be used to work the public around to more egalitarian viewpoints, but the conservative nature of the industry makes it difficult to get such films out there to start with.

It's going to be the next Snark Bait of the internet; I can just feel it. Twilight? Forget that; this will be the creepy, unsexy snark bait of the web.

edited 29th Jul '14 8:24:18 AM by WaxingName

The book's already pretty much Snark Bait. The Gilbert Gottfried clip I posted earlier is a good example of that.

Yeah, but is it as big as Twilight is? I'm not seeing it... yet.

In the beginning she has to do an interview (replacing her journalist friend who's sick) the grey guy. However, she didn't even prepared her interview. No questions written, no techniques prepared, nothing.

Trust me, it's up there with Twilight in terms of sheer badness and research fail.