Wednesday, September 26, 2012

50 shades of Twilight

So if you know someone that is considering reading 50 Shades of whatever, you should totally point them in the direction of this blog.  It's monolithic, and a chapter by chapter take down of the book that can hopefully make the people in your life aware of the absolutely appalling nature of how Mr. Grey behaves towards the very unsympathetic protagonist Ana.

Is some of her critique grounded in feminist ideals? Absolutely, and really regardless of the outcome in the novel Jennifer does point out some very dangerous and controlling behaviors that the protagonist fails to identify as creepy.  In the second novel apparently they get married, but the short list of things that Christian employs on Ana in the first several chapters include withholding affection to manipulate her decisions, tracking her via her cell phone and coming to get her after she specifically told him not to, and finally coming over to her house tying her to the bed and having sex with her in response to her emailing him saying she never wanted to see him again.

As an aside Christian's tracking her via cell phone did ultimately save Ana from some very rapey behavior by someone she had friendzoned that was trending towards, well rape.  The important but here is at the time she told him not to come she was not in any danger, because we are adults here we judge on intentions not outcomes.  Ana, who is constantly infatilizing herself whenever sexuality come up (once Jennifer start's pointing this out, it does appear to happen every time she get's sexually excited or engaged the author gives her strong child references dressing Ana pig tails, or describing her like a little girl ect.)

Ultimately the real takeaway from Jennifer's critique has been that the character Ana is not fully capable of making decisions related to her own best interests, and but for the author playing events out to be in her favor the more likely result of this scenario would be a young woman in an abusive relationship that she had no idea of how to end with a man that she doesn't have the wherewithal to say no to in a meaningful fashion.  The violence would likely escalate because Christian can manipulate her to wanting more and she would likely end up killed or beaten unrecognizable and tied up as a fuck toy, isolated with no support network to help her leave Christian.

1 comment:

  1. I didn't read the book - I couldn't finish it because it was so terrible. I have also read other critiques written by the BDSM community about how this type of behavior is not condoned and that some of the scenarios are instances that the community would not support nor promote.

    If you're really going to get into this terrible novel and the origin of creepy stalker behavior go back to Twilight - apparently this was originally written as some fan fiction based on the unhealthy relationship model of Edward and Bella. All drivel. Not books I'd promote to any teenage girl. I wish housewives knew better.

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