So, people are voting for 50 Shades with their feet (and dollars).
If you’ve payed any attention in class, you pretty much know what it’s about:
Young woman submits to generally anything this guy wants do to her sexually.
As a friend remarked, “The movie didn’t seem to have any plot line other than that.” Uh, porn flicks don’t have plot lines. But the run-away success of the film, at least dollar- and publicity-publicity-wise, raises many questions for me:
* Exactly who’s going to see the movie, mostly men or women? Women I suspect.
* Why?
* Is it because they are truly interested in the topic? To pick tips for the bedroom?
* Or are they simply rubber-necking, not wanting to look at the bad car accident, but you simply can’t help yourself?
* How many women see this woman and think ‘I so wish my guy treated me like that?”
* Do guys really wish their gal would submit to such treatment? Really?
*What does the success of this film say about the state and vitality of feminism today?
*Did the character misunderstand the admonition to “Lean In”? Is the character an “empowered woman”? Are the women who see the movie?
* Did any dads of daughters see the movie?
Here’s how weird this cultural moment is:
We have the potty-mouthed Chelsea Handler (Does she eat with that thing?) inflicting blunt-force trauma on the movie, the book, the author and everything they represent.
And Russell Brand provides an impassioned pulpit-pounding, hell-fire sermon against the movie and porn in general. (Given that it’s RB, there’s a tad bit of language.)
Let me know your thoughts on these questions. I’m curious.