Fifty Shades of Misunderstanding

Right now, I feel like I’m about to jump into shark-infested waters. Because I feel it is important to make a point about the movie “Fifty Shades of Grey” - a movie I enjoyed, despite the choppy story line & the missing parts that, as a reader of the books, I wish were in it.

I have read the trilogy numerous times. It is a nuanced love story about a fabulously wealthy, emotionally stunted mid- 20s CEO & a quiet but sharp, sexually innocent college student. The story is laced with erotic sexual encounters, which make the books unpalatable for some who are uncomfortable with reading anything that explicit.

What the movie & the books are NOT about is domestic violence, physical or sexual abuse, stalking, isolating, violence against women or abuse of any kind. The books & movie touch upon the BDSM lifestyle to some extent, but people who live the “lifestyle” will tell you that the movie’s portrayal does a disservice to them. Chrstian fails to provide aftercare to Ana, an important component is BDSM “scening”. He buys cable ties, but they are generally not used directly on the skin, because they can cause bruising. He fails to communicate to her at important points & he also fails to ensure she knows she can use her “safeword” to stop the final scene where she asks him to show her the extent of his need to punish her. At her request he strikes her six times with a belt, when she should have stopped him at one. As a neophyte she loses sight of her option to control the scene, with disastrous results.

The movie makes much more sense if you’ve read the book - as it is with most book-to-film efforts. Those of us who know the back story know that Chrstian’s sexual experiences were very limited; he himself was seduced when he had just turned 15 by a female friend of his mother - inarguably molestation & statutory rape of a minor. He spent six years as an exclusive sexual partner to this woman as her submissive. He had no normal “vanilla” experience with which to compare sex. It is no wonder his tastes are “singular” as he puts it.

Is Chrstian a stalker? No more than any other love-struck young man. The only difference is he can & does obtain easily accessible information about her - but this point is made in the book, not the movie. Again, the scriptwriter has dropped the ball.

Does he isolate Ana to control her? No. No. No. He asks for her to sign a Non-disclosure agreement to ensure confidentiality. But he introduces her to his family, and his brother is dating Ana’s roommate, which doesn’t bother him at all. Ana flies cross country to spend a few days with her mother. Chrstian doesn’t want her to go - because he’s in a new relationship & wants to spend time with her. In the book he offers her use of his private jet & when she declines he unilaterally upgrades her plane ticket to first class, hardly isolating or controlling. Another point left out of the film.

He buys her first edition books by her favorite 19th century author, Thomas Hardy. Value - $14,000 on e-Bay. He buys her an Audi A-3 as a graduation present & sells off her “deathtrap” VW - partly because, as is seen in subsequent book scenes, he is over-the-top safety conscious. Her computer is broken - he buys her a MacBook Pro. Clearly, he lives in a rarified economic world, where these gifts barely make a dent in his petty cash fund.

But all these things are interesting side notes to the main issue: at every turn in this movie Ana consents to their relationship. The ink on the NDA isn’t even dry when she asks, “Are you going to make love to me?” Every time she says no, she means no & Chrstian honors her refusal. She decides she wants to go home & he promptly puts her in one of his fleet of cars & drives her from Seattle back to Portland. At one point he holds up a necktie & asks her, “Do you want this?” And Ana smiles & offers her wrists to him to be tied up - because, as she says (again in the book), “I like it rough. I like it gentle. I like it with you.”

There are a variety of points that can be criticized about the movie - the choppy scenes, the lack of appropriate lead-ins, the missing characters that help to round out the story. But what is not at issue is the idea that this movie is somehow degrading to women or promotes violence or abuse. And it has been my experience that the vast majority of critics of either the books and/or the movie have neither read the books nor seen the movie.

If you don’t like the movie that’s, of course, your right. If you don’t like the books you have that right also. But don’t get lured into holier-than-thou diatribes about what disgruntled critics claim to know, when they’ve never seen nor have they read what they’re criticizing.

I hope the screenwriter, producers, director & author will take to heart the criticisms the faithful fans have expressed & use some of that $500 million, at last count, to make a longer, more faithfully portrayed second & third movie. I am sure the Harpies will once again trot out their placards & boycott attempts. But many millions of us will line up, anxious to see Chapters Two & Three of the ongoing erotic soap opera that is the Life & Times of Chrstian & Anastasia.