50 Shad3s: Chapter 4

TLDNR: 
Ana buys a camera.

Confession:

I have not seen the movie yet. I made one of my pilgrimages to New Orleans to participate in a religious festival and pretty much all of my friends were too busy with their spiritual commitments to go see a movie with me, so I didn't, and so far, I haven't. Looks like it's successful, which everyone ought to have assumed despite all the inside-baseball grumblings about its problems. It being "good" or "bad" should never have weighed into our guesses about its popularity. The source material is not good, and it's the most successful human endeavor in history, basically, so why should it matter whether or no the movie is "good"? What does that even mean anymore? Ugh how postmodern.

But I will see it and I'll tell you all about it I swear.

Oh hey discussion question before we get started in earnest:

Is 50 Shades pornography? 

50 Shades: The Movie Is Coming!

The marketing machine behind the 50 Shades of Grey movie, out this week for V-Day, has gone completely dysfunctional. Basically all of the press is bad. If you've encountered any press at all, you've heard bad press.

Two themes:

1. The leads don't get along.
2. The director and EL don't get along. 

Here's an extra bad one, tho, that I'm going to share with you. Spoilers for the end of the first book, tho I can't imagine that the sort of person worried about spoilers would be here reading this blog, so w/e. 

'Fifty Shades of Grey' Author Overruled Director's Preferred Ending. [Hollywood Reporter]

Most relevant bits:

In the ending favored by James, who wrote the original film script with Kelly Marcel (Saving Mr. Banks), the final word in the film is "stop." But in the ending favored by the director, which apparently came from a rewrite by Patrick Marber (Notes on a Scandal, Closer), the last word in the movie was "red," which is used in the trilogy as a "safe word."

Ok so the article kind of doesn't give enough context for the reader to understand that both of these versions leave us with a pretty big problem. I'm not going to go into any analysis of the difference between "stop" and "red" because I don't know the context. Astute readers of this blog will know that, in the final spankening that ends Book I, Ana does not say either "stop" or "red" but instead endures all six of the spanks that Christian found her deserving. After that she gets just real angry at him and bounces, basically. 

So whether the last word is "stop" or "red" the audience is still confronted with an ending wherein the romantic leads break up. And it happens basically right at the end. So, how do you make it work? How does the movie show us that final, climactic spankening, and Ana's negative reaction to it, while still making us feel like we just saw a romance for Valentine's Day? And how does the movie make us want to watch the inevitable sequel? Because unless this thing is a total bomb there will be a sequel. And it won't bomb utterly just because there are so many fans desperate to go and go a bunch of times. That's the thing about this: it doesn't have to be good in order to please its built in audience. In fact, it's probably better if it's bad, as far as they're concerned. 

So basically EL and director Sam Taylor-Johnson disagreed on how to handle the tone of the end and I gotta tell you: I agree with Sam Taylor-Johnson. I don't know anything about Taylor-Johnson, but she's not EL James and therefore I trust Sam's instincts utterly, at least where debates with EL are concerned. 

That's kind of my biggest question going into this: can Taylor-Johnson make the ending seem like less than a total bummer? I don't know! 

Probably not! I kinda liked the ending but only because I like CG being miserable and I was rooting for them to break up for the whole book and so when they did, I was happy. I am perhaps not a typical audience member. So no idea. No idea how this movie is going to try to handle the conclusion but I have a hard time imagining it working very well. Theory: I bet there's some shit after the credits where Ana like, I dunno. Quietly does something in her room that suggests that she misses CG's kinks. Ugh. So now I'm going to have to watch the thing, and also stay past the credits? W/e. My sacrifices are famous and also ongoing. 

Anyway. The movie is coming. I suggest not watching it. Or watching it with me, if you really have to watch it. And if you do have to watch it, because you got dragged there or something, go ahead and read some of my earliest essays. Nothing can prepare any of us for this particular film experience, I don't think. But I've tried, is the thing. I've tried absolutely as hard as I can, so please. Don't let my efforts be for nothing.

Don't thank me. Be on the lookout for poor souls who seem likely to end up watching this movie, and send them here. And then they can thank me. It's kind of like a pyramid scheme, only with you getting people to thank me.

Thank you.

50 Shad3s: Chapter 3 part 2

Hey I need a new band name so help me out if you can. Or if I should accidentally string any words together on accident that work as a band name in the midst of this post I'll try to notice them. One of my pals suggested picking a band name based on some of my post tags, which led her to "Gazpacho Fingerblast" which is totally available on bandcamp if you want it. I mean I like it, obvs. But I don't love it. I mean, I love it but I'm not in love with it, if you get me. You get me, right? Cool.

SO last week we were pretty much just talking about how the book objectifies Ana, and now we're going to talk about that some more. Hurray! I mean that's basically a theme throughout but sometimes it's way worse than others and it's worth taking some extra time to address now and then.

First, we  had the whole thing with all the hickies that appeared on Ana after they did sex and she was angry about it and rightfully so. Her reasoning was largely just to complain that this was a pretty high school type of move for CG to pull and she was totally right but also? It's pretty gross how CG demands to quite literally control Ana's appearance as proof that he possesses her.

He was pretty explicit about it: "Well, you won't take your top off again." I am going to mark you as mine. You are a thing and I own you. 

And then his other thing was getting just way too excited about Ana shaving her pubes. That whole section was pretty gross, just because even when Ana takes a little bit of initiative and tries to make a decision about her sex life, CG has to barge in and take charge again. It doesn't even really bother me that she did it for him, with nothing to gain herself other than the pleasure she she hoped to take from pleasing CG. That's a perfectly legitimate reason to do a thing.

What bothers me, I guess, is that CG pretty much operates like a shitty boss. He's like the boss who takes credit for every idea anybody around him comes up with. At the end of the scene he might as well say, "Wow! Sure was smart of me to insist you shave your lady situation!" (Editor's note: Lady Situation is like, 4/10 as a band name.) 

And he just bullies his way in and pretty much mansplains Ana's vulva to her. Right? "Hey I'm much more familiar with this sort of thing than you are, silly girl, so let me take over." Ugh.

Hey do you remember how this book tried to convince us that Ana only started shaving her pits after she met CG? That Ana was like, an adult woman in America who hadn't decided not to shave her pits for her own, personal reasons, but like, wasn't aware that this was a thing that adult women in America tended to do? That was funny, huh? Good times.

And now, I guess we're primed to continue! Neat I guess.

50 Shad3s: Chapter 3 part 1

tldnr
Ana sees that Christian gave her a bunch of hickies and she's mad for like one minute. 

Hey so this is important:

The film version of this trainwreck is coming, and soon. I plan to watch the movie version of this somewhere, somehow. Do you want to watch with me? I mean, it's not going to be good. It's going to be bad. But it'll only take like, two hours. And let's be real: I can't even get through like, half a chapter of this dumpster fire in two hours. So surely you could put up with a two-hour movie. I know you could. Your moral support would mean a lot to me. So, I dunno. Leave a comment! Or something. If you want to participate in the official Complainist viewing party. I'll be drunk.

So. Another chapter of this. So.

I'm going to tell you now: the plot does not start yet. I hope you aren't expecting the plot to start yet? Because it does not start yet. No, it does not start yet at all. It's another one of those chapters that follow a false cliffhanger but the false cliffhanger is resolved immediately but only sort of. Which is to say that the false cliffhanger is always a symptom of what a super shitty dude Christian is. So the immediate problem might be addressed, but the larger problem--Christian is shitty--goes unresolved. He's still shitty. And he'll always be shitty. And the only way to "resolve" his shittiness would be for Ana to, I dunno. Seek asylum somewhere? It's tough getting involved with super rich people because they're difficult to escape.

But yeah. Let's read another chapter! Probably they'll make up real fast and eat some food and drink some food and have sex and then get in another fight about how shitty Christian is and then the chapter will end and you'll be like, "Wait did Alden accidentally write about Chapter 2 a second time instead of writing about Chapter 3?" and you'll never know. None of us will ever know.

Where were we?

50 Shad3s: Chapter 2 part 2

So.

I realized the other day that I say "So" instead of "um." It's not much better. Just a pointless syllable that gives me an extra little moment before I have to proceed. It's hard to dive into these things; you'll forgive me just a little bit of procrastination before I leap in. So.

Here's what's bothering me the most: so there was never any plot in this thing, in the standard sense. Just a general, unpleasant tension between Ana and CG punctuated by either big dumb fights or sex. Just two character bumbling back and forth between these two poles, both basically uninteresting.

And that's where we still are, only they're married now. In real life, of course, the wedding isn't where the story ends. But this is a book, and that's where the book is supposed to end, because it's a big deal or whatever. So now that we've raced through the wedding, into territory unknown, where will we stop? I don't know where we will stop. I have no idea where this will stop or why it even started. Why did it even start? Oh well.

So.

Onwards and upwards.

Where were we?

50 Shad3s: Chapter 2 part 1

tldnr
CG is mad about Ana taking her top off but a jet ski cheers him up a little. 

So. Chapter 2.

I'm having a harder time sticking with this. I think it's weakened me, in general. Like, I think I used to be kind of smart or whatever. But I think I'm less smart now than when I started. I think that this is actually making me a worse person? Reading this book? Thinking about this book? I've become that piece of cheese that you find in the back of the fridge, and you open it up, and you're like, "Huh. Well. This looks like cheese. And it's something in the blue family; it was always moldy. But was it this moldy? Is this safe to eat?"

I was always moldy. But was I always this moldy? I don't know. You tell me.

So where were we?


Our story thus far:

Ana Steele is married to billionaire / kink-enthusiast / child-abuse survivor Christian Grey. He is domineering and they are usually upset with each other except for when they're having sex. 

1. Ana takes her top off on a beach while reminiscing about the wedding and Christian gets mad.

Not off to a very good start! Hey. Onwards, I guess. 

50 Shad3s: Chapter One

TLDNR
Ana and Christian are on a beach honeymoon and maybe people see Ana's boobs.

Having a difficult time getting back into this, pretty much because it's so, so terrible. You get to the end of the chapter, and these people are just doing the same stuff that they always do. Having their little fights which hint that Ana is straight-up going to get murdered if she strays from Christian's rules. Doing rich-people stuff that somehow feels false, like it was thought up explicitly for the sake of sounding rich to readers who are not actually rich.

Oh and you know that thing on TV shows where they have somebody get married because I guess that's good for ratings or whatever and people like watching weddings? EL decided she was having none of that! The young couple's entire engagement and wedding is dispatched with boring efficiency. Great, I guess! Gets us through this first chapter, and onto the rest of the book! Whatever that's about. I have no idea, yet, what this book is about. Probably the same as the other books.

But holy shit this is a dumpster fire.

Ok. Am I prone to hyperbole? Sure. But omigod this is so brutally bad. Here's what Chapter 1 is like: Chapter 1 is like fanfic by a 50 Shades superfan. It's fanfic of fanfic and it's just bullshit. It's so bad that it's gone past good and back to bad again.

I feel bad for having potentially overused the phrase "dumpster fire" in my recent life so I might need to retract that. Instead I'm going to call this chapter a shitcano, which I definitely haven't overused because it's a dumb nonsense word that I just mashed up right now. (Editor's note: gets about 3.5k hits on google so you're not that original, Eagle.)

Here's the thing: there just isn't any book in this book. There's no story. There are none of the conventional things you need to like, make you read a book.

Since there's no story in this story, you don't really need to be offered a plot refresher but hey. I'll do it anyway because I'm a very generous person.

Ana Steele is engaged to billionaire / kink-enthusiast / child-abuse survivor Christian Grey. He is domineering and they are usually upset with each other except for when they're having sex. 

. . . only now we'll have to update this straight away because [gasp] they're already married! We learn it immediately so don't worry. No spoilies. After the jump!