So, little old me spent my Saturday night watching “50 Shades of Grey” because it was on HBO and I thought “why not?” After I watched it, I needed to re-ask myself: “Why?!” Not only did I waste my Saturday night watching crap, I also got really angry throughout the film, then slept like crap since I was so angry. Let’s visit the reasons I hated the film and then turn to the reasons I was so angry and cussing at my TV for the 2 hours it was on.
The short and sweet version of the plot: senior college student, Anna, meets billionaire, Christian Grey. He seduces her to be his “submissive” then continues to mistreat her. For the whole film. And in between small plot lines, there’s a lot of sex, ties being used as handcuffs, and whips. It’s extremely telling that I can summarize this film in two sentences. Not only was the plot extremely lacking in tangible plot lines that the average day movie-goer could relate to, the script was awful. Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan were decent as the lead cast members, but their lines were terrible. They obviously had nothing to work with.
Now, onto the more important business of the film: my overall anger towards its major themes. Lets cover the first one: Anna is Grey’s submissive. Just think about this for a moment: if Anna was the billionaire and she wanted Grey to be her submissive, do you think the film would be considered a porn? Do you think for one second, that society would find a woman beating a man (yes, I consider taking a whip to someone as beating) as a film to pay money to watch? I think not. That film would be found in one of the skeezy porn cinemas.
Moreover, this idea of a woman as a submissive feeds directly into the idea that society grapples with: a woman is an object. We have all heard of the “trophy wife” or a woman as “arm candy,” but this film has taken that logic to a whole new level. Throughout the film, Grey continuously reminds Anna “You’re mine.” There is no situation where a woman should be treated as such a minimalist object, especially as a sex slave. That’s exactly how Grey treats Anna: a sex slave. He makes her sign a non-disclosure agreement, negotiate terms for that agreement (including the use of some extremely forceful items), and do everything he says.
Not only is Grey a sadist psychopath, Anna is a weak female. She is so blurred by Grey’s gifts and the “new experiences” he is introducing her to, that she can’t see past them to see herself. We are first introduced to Anna as she mumbles through an interview with Grey and cannot think for herself. She is constantly trying to please her roommate, Grey, and her parents, but never herself. This is a HUGE problem and an even more detrimental theme of the film. A woman should be worth much more than her body. She has a mind. She has a soul. She has a heart. A body gets old. A soul stays intact and doesn’t, for the most part, change. Grey saw Anna as a body to torture. He did not see her as a soul to be nurtured and loved. Anna kept on asking Grey throughout the film why he can’t sleep next to her, why she can’t touch him, and why they can’t do couple things. Grey couldn’t do it for he saw Anna as a sex slave and nothing beyond that. Why didn’t Anna think more highly of herself than to fall prey to a crazy creep like Grey.
The most telling scene of the film that was the pinnacle point of my anger was when Grey introduced Anna to what he expected of her. Grey asked Anna about her past relationships. When Anna said she had not been with anyone ever, Grey said “we need to remedy this situation.” Excuse me?! This is not a “situation” that needs to be remedied. Anna was totally caught up in the moment that there was no fight in her to say “Wait, what, asshole?” Literally, I was appalled with the writing, the disgusting way in which Anna is seen as a weak female, and Grey as the man that needed to remedy a situation that in all reality wasn’t a situation to even begin with.
Obviously, my disgust and hatred for the movie could probably be expounded beyond the above 3 paragraphs. People do not need a movie in which women are treated like objects or trash. They get that enough in real life. Moreover, people do not need another porn movie. You can get that free off the internet. So, why pay? It saddens me that people want to go and see trash films like this. It saddens me that an author could imagine a relationship like this. Who am I kidding? It’s not a relationship, it’s a boy meets girl meets whips. That’s all. No substance beyond that.
QuizzChem 
funny that I watched it last night to! I wasn’t paying as much attention as I was working on my boxes at the time.
However, I agree entirely with your assessments because I thought the same thing. Even asking “what’s the big
deal people made of this movie?” Though I didn’t read it, the book was a huge success as “mommy porn” which I’m sure had more detailed salaciousness because each reader could envision their ideal Anna and Christian. I think Dornan was too young and “fratboyish” for the part; too hard to believe that he was the successful entrepreneur. Not suave enough for me. And because there wasn’t much back story in the movie – or I didn’t pay attention, I never found out how he got his money; if it was a family business, etc. etc.
Yes, the sex scenes were explicit, but not shocking as it seemed to lack the true eroticism meant to titillate. It seemed rote and mechanical, and almost boring in its repetitiveness. The full nudity lacked a sense of romanticism that first hooked Anna, the virgin. Hard to believe she had no pre-conceived ideas about what her first encounter might be like.
I compare this movie to an old one: “9-1/2 weeks” with a young, sexy and roguish Mickey Rourke and gorgeous Kim Basinger who gave a more believable erotic strip tease performance in the middle of an interesting, albeit disturbing story. Though the manipulation was hard to take, especially knowing what we do now about date rape and abuse, but it still had better performances and an intriguing story.
Several bothersome details about 50 shades include that Christian was given up for adoption by a crack whore mother, and he was a submissive of a friend of his adopted mother, where he learned all this s & m behavior. And we the audience say “well, that explains a lot!” But Anna should’ve seen the red flags and had an “aha” moment and suggested he seek therapy. Obviously, there’s plenty of weird relationships in his family including his mother who is a well-known doctor (psychiatrist?). Basically, so many story lines could’ve been developed from all these issues, but never were.
Final comment: C’mon girls? Why are you still falling for all this? didn’t you see what happened in “Fatal Attraction”??? now there’s a scary, sexy movie with an interesting twist and shocking outcome. Lesson: when you encounter weird psycho guys like this . . . RUN!