Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

To the women of America: 4 reasons to hate 50 Shades of Grey
The Matt Walsh Blog ^ | July 25, 2014 | Matt Walsh

Posted on 07/31/2014 12:31:18 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

To the women of America:

Please do not underestimate the significance of this. Here, now, you have been given the opportunity to grab ahold of our society and drag it back from the precipice. You cannot cure all of our ills, but, if you answer the call, you can at least help us take one small step toward peace and prosperity.

This is truly a seminal moment in our history. The weight of our future, our children’s future, our children’s children’s future, partially rests on the decision you are facing. Your task, ladies, is simple. All you must do is not buy tickets to 50 Shades of Grey when it’s released in theaters on Valentine’s Day.

Not one ticket.

Weekend box office total: $0.

The biggest flop of all time.

A more massive bust than Battlefield Earth and Gigli combined. A financial failure so staggering that it results in the immediate termination of every employee at the movie studio responsible for producing it. A categorical and unanimous rejection of what is sure to be the most abominable, morally and mentally bankrupt ensemble of subpar acting and stilted dialogue ever cobbled together and presented, through any medium, to any audience, anywhere, at any point in history.

Am I overstating my case? Maybe, but stay with me.

As you may have noticed, the first 50 Shades of Grey preview debuted this week. Apparently it premiered on the Today Show at 8AM, which surely enchanted the millions of parents who might have made the mistake of turning on network television in the middle of the morning while their kids were in the room. Silly moms and dads, what makes you think you can do something like that without being greeted by a nice dose of sadomasochism and stylized sexual violence? Besides, why do you even have problem with a trailer for a movie based on a book that romanticizes a sociopathic pervert who sexually dominates a young, impressionable woman? Puritans. Your kids are in preschool now, it’s about time they learn about this stuff.

The preview seems to have reinvigorated 50 Shades of Grey fever. My social media feeds have been clogged by, fortunately, plenty of women condemning the movie (and the book) for its idiocy/immorality, but also many women excitedly proclaiming their eagerness to see it. In a startling and unsurprising twist, I’ve noticed that some of the women who give me a hearty ‘AMEN’ every time I write a post condemning pornography, are the same ones gushing frantically about this film. They don’t want their husbands watching porn, but they’ll not only watch and read porn themselves — they’ll advertise that fact to the entire world. As if the hypocrisy isn’t bad enough, they had to add in a touch of public emasculation.

Classy move.

But it’s not too late to fix this.

The movie won’t be released for another several months, so there’s still time to make the right choice. Either millions of women (and some henpecked, kowtowing men) will run off to watch this trite, lascivious garbage while the movie executives laugh as they swim naked in their vat of freshly printed millions, or we will all stand up in one voice and say, “Alright, Hollywood, you appeal-to-the-lowest-common-denominator trolls, we won’t play this game any longer. We all might disagree about quite a bit, but we can certainly agree that we’re too smart, too moral, and we have too much character and self-respect to spend 10 dollars watching this monstrosity. Freedom!”

And then we’ll paint our faces blue and charge into battle.

Imagine the message that would send. Imagine the Hollywood elites as they look at one another, stunned and shell shocked. “Dear Lord, the plebeians have become self-aware. They have… standards. They won’t sit obediently and devour whatever load of vapid, lifeless excrement we try to shovel into their anonymous faces. The jig is up, boys, we’re doomed.”

Imagine. Just imagine it.

Farfetched? Perhaps. Unlikely? Maybe. Probably unachievable at this point? Yes, definitely, but let me dream. And, more than dream, let me try. Let me try to bring about this Utopia. Let me try to explain why you, women of America, are too good for this movie:

1) Because you aren’t stupid.

I confess that I haven’t read the book. In fact, if I found myself stranded on a desert island with just 50 Shades of Grey and a screwdriver, I would stab myself in the eyes with the tool so that the option to read the book would be permanently removed, even when I’m on the verge of going insane from boredom and solitude.

(Although I guess I could just toss the book in the ocean and then use the screwdriver for something more sensible, like opening coconuts. Too late now. Rookie mistake.)

But I don’t need to read it to know how incredibly, inconceivably idiotic it is.

Today, someone on Facebook quoted a line from the novel:

“Finally, my medulla oblongata recalls its purpose, I breathe.”

I thought this was a joke, so I looked it up.

Nope. Not a joke. Completely real. That line actually appears in a best selling piece of literature. That line was written by someone masquerading as an author, approved by someone masquerading as an editor, published by someone masquerading as a publisher, and then consumed by millions of people masquerading as literate.

I found some other excerpts that are almost as bad/good:

“That’s the bottom line. I want to be with him. My inner goddess sighs with relief.”

“Her curiosity oozes through the phone.”

“My scalp prickles as adrenaline and fury lance through my body, all my worst fears realized.”

“My inner goddess is beside herself, hopping from foot to foot.”

This is some very, very stupid material. It reads like a thesaurus procreated with a script from a soft core porn and then the baby fell into a vat of Lifetime Channel DVDs. My inner goddess is rolling her eyes, my inner brain is hurting.

I hope your medulla oblongata recalls its purpose and stops you from seeing this tripe.

2) Because you don’t go for cynical, boring, corporate marketing ploys.

This isn’t really a film. Film is art. Art exists for a reason. It speaks to us. It communicates a truth. Art is beautiful, moving, real.

This is a business decision. It’s about as artistic as the end cap display at the grocery store. It’s a marketing gimmick. It exists to be consumed, and for no other reason. It will enter into your mind — your medulla oblongata, if you will — and lessen you. It will steal another piece of your humanity. It’s the opposite of art — it’s a complete inversion. It is to art what a black hole is to the sun.

Nobody responsible for this movie ever at any point said to themselves, “Geez, now this is a story that really needs to be told.” It doesn’t need to be told and it isn’t a story. It’s loveless sex and degradation. No narrative, no message, no redemption. If that’s all you want, you’ll find plenty of it at the strip club down the street.

And if you just want to hear about a wealthy man who sexually manipulates and dehumanizes women, all you need to do is turn on the news. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, anyone? There’s your real life Christian Grey.

Yes, of course, plenty of other terrible movies have been conceived, produced, and released for absolutely no reason but to make money for Hollywood. The new entry in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series could be a perfect example of this. But, compared to 50 Shades of Grey, even a film about mutated, crime fighting turtles comes out looking like Casablanca.

3) Because you’re a Christian.

If you’re not a Christian then move on to the next point. If you are, then move on to Scripture:

When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures. – Galatians 5:19

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. - Matthew 5:28 (in this particular case, substitute “man” and “him” with “woman” and “her”)

Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more. – Ephesians 4:19

Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. - 1 Peter 4:1–3

But most importantly, we have to remember that sex is an act of love, an act of giving. And love has never been described better than this:

Love is patient, love is kind… it is not self-seeking… Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. – Corinthians 13:4

The problem with the sex portrayed in this movie, or in any trashy romance novel you find at the airport, or in many other films and TV shows, or in many actual relationships, is that it’s always self-seeking, never honest, never truthful, never trusting, and never protecting. There is no hope in it, no kindness, no sacrifice. It’s selfish and removed, which makes it stale, which is why people tire of it so quickly and become so bored with it all, which is why they consume so much porn and bounce between so many different one night stands.

Christians might wrestle with these temptations, but they shouldn’t try to make excuses or pretend that it’s OK in this case because they really enjoyed the book. That’s nonsense, a cop out, and they know better.

4) Because you’re a feminist.

If you aren’t a feminist, this still applies. If you are a feminist, I can’t possibly understand how a disturbing fantasy about a wealthy man physically dominating a woman could ever be considered acceptable in your circle. Are we sure E.L. James isn’t Bill Clinton’s penname? Does John Edwards have a co-writing credit on this thing? I haven’t checked, but I’m half expecting Woody Allen or Roman Polanski to be listed on IMDb as executive producers.

I’ve long struggled to define feminism, but if 50 Shades of Grey makes the cut, then feminism is dead and buried.

Surely the movement is worthless if it won’t loudly reject a book about a woman’s adventures in being manhandled and used by an emotionally stunted playboy.

But surely feminism can easily clear a bar so low and finally condemn this mindless, guttural sewage.

And surely there is hope for our society if we can all awaken from our moral and intellectual slumber enough to come to our collective senses over 50 Shades of Grey.

Surely that is not too much to ask.

Surely.

Surely I am a naïve fool.

This thing will be a box office smash and we all know it.

Oh well. On the bright side, it’ll probably spawn 8 sequels and 14 remakes, which means I’ll be able to reuse this post a bunch of times.


TOPICS: Books/Literature; Computers/Internet; Society; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: hollywood; moralabsolutes; movies; pedophilia; porno; pornography
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-35 last
To: Jonty30
I know somebody who read it and they are convinced the narrator was one who was a minor age.
Your friend is not alone.

50 Shades of Grey Trilogy Normalizing Child Sex Abuse

By M. Catharine Evans and Ann Kane

Why isn't the blockbuster trilogy 50 Shades of Grey just another bosom-busting trashy romance novel?  After all, the endless sex scenes should have relegated the books to the erotica section in bookstores.  Instead, they have been mainstreamed to an adulating population begging for more.

Looking farther into the pedestrian prose of author E.L. James, aka Erika Mitchell Leonard, we find more than just a titillating tome.  It's hard to believe that this story ever made it out of the online venue called "fan fiction."  In a normal world, the author would have been ostracized by literary critics for her lack of plot and her juvenile language.  But much worse than the poor writing are the disguised themes of pedophilia and child abuse.

We don't live in normal times, and we are bombarded with the results of the old maxim "sex sells," which now reads "BDSM sex sells."  The trilogy which emphasizes BDSM has sold 25 million copies worldwide and has made its publisher $145 million, according to the Wall Street Journal.  The books have been on the NYT bestseller list for 25 weeks.

On top of all this, James is hitting the circuit with another media blitz in advance of selling her fourth book, which will be out "just in time for Jesus' birthday," according to a rep from Vintage Press.  In addition to a U.S. book tour, a movie deal with Universal, and a how-to magazine launched on August 28 titled Fifty Shades of American Women Who Love the Book and Live the Life, James will be on Katie, the new Katie Couric daytime talk show, on Monday, September 17.

From Fifty Shades magazine:

Fifty Shades of Grey is much more than a book. It's a movement. From online-only sensation to global phenomenon, it has kick-started a sexual revolution and its' the catalyst for a national conversation about lust, love, erotic fiction and the give-and-take that occurs in any successful relationship. It's also hot as hell. Fifty Shades is a dominant force in the culture, and like you, we're more than happy to submit to it.

Apart from the millions of women eating this stuff up, there are many book reviewers and commenters on other blogs who have suggested that the main male character, Christian Grey, has pedophilic tendencies.  Says one who's read the trilogy: "The calling each other baby, the baby oil used during sex, the pigtails worn by the female character, the remarks about skipping and cartwheels ... [Grey] telling her she is a child, how naive she is, how innocent she is, he tells her when to sleep, how to eat, dress, act ... she doesn't even know how to work a computer properly even though the author gave her the age of 21, take away that fake ID age of 21, and the girl in 50 Shades is exactly that. She's a little girl."

After a review of the language used in the book, and having done research on pedophiles, we agree.  We would be hard-pressed to claim that the trilogy is anything but a sick story of an adult 27-year-old male dominating through coercion, sex, and complete control a young lady claiming to be 21 years old but who acts and talks like a child.

The bondage/dominance going on between an adult and a child is not only immoral, but illegal.  In an appearance on The View last May, Joy Behar asked James why she thinks some libraries are banning the books.  The Brit replied that she didn't understand the "strange thing that is American culture."  Then why in the world did she set the story in Seattle?  James's anesthetized response shows her lack of empathy for victimized children.

The story goes like this: Ana Steele, a college student from Portland, Oregon, falls in love with a masterful billionaire, Christian Grey, from Seattle.

Here's a commentary from TIME Magazine:

Grey dearly wishes that Ms. Steele, as he often calls her, would sign a nondisclosure agreement as well as a contract in which she agrees to let him control everything she eats and wears and to let him "flog, spank, whip or corporally punish" her as he sees fit. And she can't ever touch him. Also, she's a virgin[.]

Ana, as her lead character is known, is a 21-year-old university student with no computer, no smartphone, and no e-mail.

Consider these two passages from the first book:

"You're lucky I'm just scolding you."

"What do you mean?"

"Well if you were mine you wouldn't be able to sit down for a week after the stunt you pulled yesterday." (p.67)

"Eat," he says more sharply. "Anastasia, I have an issue with wasted food...eat."

"I can't eat all this." I gape at what's left on the table.

"Eat what's on your plate. If you'd eaten properly yesterday you wouldn't be here, and I wouldn't be declaring my hand so soon." ...

Swallowing my last piece of pancake, I peek up at him. He's eyeing me speculatively. "Good girl," he says. "I'll take you home when you've dried your hair. I don't want you getting ill." (p. 76)

Chronological age doesn't determine maturity as much as emotional age does, so the fact that Grey "enslaves" a childlike Anastasia presents us with enough evidence to show we're not dealing with just another erotic novel.

The mass marketing of the books is off the charts.  In several interviews, James is portrayed as "just a mother of two" who "giggles" when asked specific questions about the words she wrote.  There are lead-ins like "The Shy British Mum Behind50 Shades of Grey" and "a Nutella-loving wife and mother of teen boys, who worked in the nonglamorous end of TV production."

However, this shrewd, ostensibly self-deprecating 20-year media veteran had fame in mind back in 2010.

"Don't tell anyone," wrote Erika Leonard to an internet friend in April 2010.  "I have visions of being interviewed by TIME magazine for revolutionizing publishing."

Doing well in publishing these days takes a lot of savvy.  Not only has James managed to make millions off her books, but she has manufactured another sexual revolution -- this time giving women the message that being sexually abused and treated like a child is romantic and can even "change your man" from his beasty self.

One of the most freakish lines is in the epilogue of the third book, Freed.  Grey and Ana are discussing the baby in her womb, and the baby's movement makes Ana say, "... she likes sex already."  How quaint: the child in utero is already sexually charged.

Dr. Mary Calderone, niece of poet Carl Sandburg and the "Grand Dame of sexual enlightenment," claimed that "we know now that the penis erects in the womb" and "a child is sexual even before birth."  She was the medical director of Planned Parenthood from 1953-1964 and a co-founder of SEICUS (Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States), which was primarily responsible for installing sex education in schools.

At a SEICUS symposium in Liverpool in the 1960s, a speaker said, "If we do not get into sex education, children will simply follow the mores of their parents." Quel tragique!

Has James read up on Calderone's theories?  The British author has waged war on conservative American values, and her movement to further objectify women has been deceptively couched in yanking women's romantic chains while she recklessly portrays a pedophilic man as a flawed human being who needs the love of an innocent girl.

Read more Ann Kane and M. Catharine Evans at Potter Williams Report.



21 posted on 07/31/2014 6:14:27 AM PDT by Bratch
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

SO glad Charlie Hunnam (Jax Teller of Sons of Anarchy) turned down the role of Grey...
Could not stand it!


22 posted on 07/31/2014 6:25:02 AM PDT by matginzac
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

bfl


23 posted on 07/31/2014 6:29:24 AM PDT by Skooz (Gabba Gabba we accept you we accept you one of us Gabba Gabba we accept you we accept you one of us)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet
I'd rather see this made into a movie. Yum!


24 posted on 07/31/2014 6:46:17 AM PDT by KosmicKitty (WARNING: Hormonally crazed woman ahead!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: KosmicKitty; Darksheare
Wow, all the time the rumors I've read about the book are untrue. The whole time it's been all about chicken. It's amazing what you can learn on FR.......

:-)

25 posted on 07/31/2014 6:50:45 AM PDT by Lakeshark
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Lakeshark; KosmicKitty

Lol!


26 posted on 07/31/2014 6:54:23 AM PDT by Darksheare (I don't have a copy. one's free..... Even robots will kill for it!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: Bratch
The article goes past it being a logical stretch to it simply not being logical. A 21 and 27 year olds' relationship is not perpetuating child abuse, regardless of the domination/submission games they are playing.

Maybe the only worth while feature of "50 shades" is providing is a big target upon which people can vent?

27 posted on 07/31/2014 8:30:29 AM PDT by Durus (You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality. Ayn Rand)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: Jonty30

I do too and I read a good article once saying the same thing.


28 posted on 07/31/2014 11:35:30 AM PDT by Shimmer1 (Ok, the joke's over. Bring back the Constitution.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: marygam

Afraid of jeopardizing your faith. Really! Oh that all our people felt that way!


29 posted on 07/31/2014 11:38:17 AM PDT by Shimmer1 (Ok, the joke's over. Bring back the Constitution.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: Durus

You should read the article. It makes much more sense than the excerpt. And they are saying that Ana being “21” is not accurate, the book really describes a young girl. They make a compelling argument, in my opinion


30 posted on 07/31/2014 11:43:40 AM PDT by Shimmer1 (Ok, the joke's over. Bring back the Constitution.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: Shimmer1

I did read the article and it goes beyond a leap of logic. The book doesn’t describe a young girl, it describes a “dominant” training a “submissive”. Period. They completely misunderstand the concept of domination and submission in “50 shades” and use it as a wind mill to tilt against with all the myopia of Don Quixote. Far from a compelling argument, it misses the entire concept of the book, which is to present a well established fetish (BDSM) in alluring way to the general public.


31 posted on 07/31/2014 12:31:09 PM PDT by Durus (You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality. Ayn Rand)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: NorthMountain
But I'm more interested in how you got that "e-accent" in your post.

Hold down the Alt key and type 0233 on the number pad, with the number lock off.

Several foreign letters can be typed this way, but some of the codes that are letters in other programs have special functions. Alt-0234, for example, acts like the back arrow on top of the browser window and erases the post that you are typing.

Alt 0233 - é, Alt 0232 - è

32 posted on 07/31/2014 5:57:10 PM PDT by exDemMom (Current visual of the hole the US continues to dig itself into: http://www.usdebtclock.org/)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

I wonder how well pseudo-pedo rape fantasies will do on screen?


33 posted on 07/31/2014 6:00:19 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Jonty30

I have read articles saying the same thing.

This is a pseudo-pedo rape fantasy


34 posted on 07/31/2014 6:01:29 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: exDemMom
Trés bien!!!
35 posted on 07/31/2014 6:08:12 PM PDT by NorthMountain
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-35 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson