50 Shades of Grey; the movie

[KUSA]

[CapnAwesome]

Bored middle aged women with unfufilling sex lives is a crazy big market. There is a whole (shitty) billion dollar genre of literature made just for them (romance novels.) A billion dollar (shitty) genre of television made just for them (soap operas.) What a crazy thing the free market is.

[thesummerqueen]

Am I the only one that is completely unable to understand why this book is so popular? Even after watching people on television talk about it, I'm still not sure why anyone actually likes this book. All anyone ever says is that it's dirty. So fucking what? I mean, I have yet to see anyone say, "I like this book, and this is why."

Can someone explain this to me? I just don't get it.

No. As someone who does read erotic fiction (the best I've found has been on the net, not physical books from stores) and frequently reads silly romance novels, the books contain nothing new or attractive. The characters are stock romance characters unfortunately, including all of the abusive and manipulative actions that Mr. Grey displays, and all the vapidity of Ms Steele.

Women love reading books in which the characters are as stupid as they are, because then they can engage in the fantasy that some handsome billionaire will sweep them off their feet and they can avoid doing anything to improve themselves as human beings because miraculously he will find them interesting despite their idiocy or stereotypical natures. It's probably similar to guys watching porn in which I've noticed that many times the guy is fairly average looking, and the girls are always good-looking to hot. Everyone wants to think they can score five or six levels past their own ranking.

The problem with these books is not how badly written they are. It's how many women seem to think that they're a good model of romance. They're terrible. Grey is a shit-head and abusive, and the author portrays everyone who engages in BDSM as a fucked up individual. Fuck her and the person who decided to publish her books.

[CapnAwesome]

Women love reading books in which the characters are as stupid as they are,

That cracked me up so hard.

Good over all synopsis of the appeal of the book and romance novels though.

[thesummerqueen]

Women love reading books in which the characters are as stupid as they are,

That cracked me up so hard.

Good over all synopsis of the appeal of the book and romance novels though.

Some romance novels are quite funny and do not fit this mold. The story won't be high literature, but the dialogue CAN be snappy, and the characters can be portrayed as equally quick-witted and intelligent and interesting. That's why I still enjoy reading in the romance genre: it's like watching a show on CW (American TV channel) where you know all of the actors are going to be way more good looking than they have the right to be, and the issues and dialogue presented will be light and sparkly as flavored carbonated water. Sometimes you just don't want anything heavier, and that's okay.

I can't even agree with a friend that it's okay that 50 Shades is out there because it "gets people talking". I've read many good sub-standard books involving BDSM which were equally bad across the board - bad writing, bad dialogue, bad characters, etc - which somehow managed to NOT include an abusive relationship portrayed as the sort of thing to strive for. I've also read VERY good fanfiction involving BDSM. Some of the best? Fanfic'ing the Harry Potter series. Go fucking figure. This stuff is shit-in, shit-out: you input a love of Twilight, you're going to get bullshit in your output box. Maybe if she had spent a while reading something of a higher literary attainment, and maybe done a little reading about what ACTUALLY goes on in D/s relationships, she'd have made something less worthy of scorn.

It's appalling that so many women continue to worship this shit, and I'm sorry to say that it's symptomatic of the contributing factors in women continuing to be nearly-second class citizens in this country.

[Creed of Heresy]

Being intelligent in math doesn't equal being intelligent, it just means you're good with numbers. ;D Someone can be a great mathematician, and yet still vote republican. Just sayin'. Knowing something, and applying it, are different matters entirely.

And don't even get me started on Michael Bay, that fucking hack...

[Norman Humann]

Someone can be a great mathematician, and yet still vote republican. Just sayin'. Knowing something, and applying it, are different matters entirely.

You're talking about the difference between knowledge and the skill of applying it in practice. I know what you mean. Lots of well-educated people who, despite having all the facts to reach the conclusion, can't figure it out for the life of them - they never learned crticial thinking or questioning and just don't see the connection between facts. I think it was Bill Maher who talked about the smart stupid person, on the book about coming back from heaven which was written by a neurosurgeon.

But still, I disagree on the notion that intelligent people can't enjoy football.

But I think we digress. So, 50 shits of Grey...

[Creed of Heresy]

It's appalling that so many women continue to worship this shit, and I'm sorry to say that it's symptomatic of the contributing factors in women continuing to be nearly-second class citizens in this country.

If by symptomatic you mean "one of the causes" then, yeah.

Social reinforcement of opinions of the masses, especially in the media, tends to hammer the point home. Keep telling women that they should marry rich instead of take care of themselves, and guess what happens? I'll give you 20 internet bucks if you guess it right. SPECIFICALLY internet-bucks. Theoretical internet dollars.

Also, am I the only one who, upon hearing the name "Mr. Grey," immediately thinks of Dreamcatcher instead?

Probably.

Also "Ms. STEELE." Mr. Grey. Steel. Grey. Steel is gray. DUHUHUHUHUH HOW FUCKING ORIGINAL AND CLEVER fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Anyway, at any rate, I've RPed smuttier, raunchier, and sexier literature over Trillian than what was in the books, the movie need not bother applying.

The success of this movie is pretty much what I thought about the success of Grown-Ups 2 over Pacific Rim at the box office domestically.

Man, there's another turd that needs to be removed from pop culture. Adam Sandler. I used to think he was funny.

Then I turned 14.

[thesummerqueen]

Bill Maher fits the description with his abject bullshittery on alt medicine.

[Creed of Heresy]

Someone can be a great mathematician, and yet still vote republican. Just sayin'. Knowing something, and applying it, are different matters entirely.

You're talking about the difference between knowledge and the skill of applying it in practice. I know what you mean. Lots of well-educated people who, despite having all the facts to reach the conclusion, can't figure it out for the life of them - they never learned crticial thinking or questioning and just don't see the connection between facts. I think it was Bill Maher who talked about the smart stupid person, on the book about coming back from heaven which was written by a neurosurgeon.

But still, I disagree on the notion that intelligent people can't enjoy football.

But I think we digress. So, 50 shits of Grey...

Eh, I just hate sports with a passion. XD Hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars going to a bunch of musclebound dumb-fucks who can barely string a sentence together using words more advanced than what is taught to high school freshmen to save their lives, glorifying real, actual physical abuse between human beings, meanwhile impoverished people starve in slums and children die of hunger in Africa...

It's just one of those things. I simply despise sports. Perhaps to an irrational extent, even.

---

Bill Maher fits the description with his abject bullshittery on alt medicine.

I liked Bill Maher for Religulous. I haven't really felt any need to like him outside of that, however. I didn't know he was an anti-vaxxer or anti-"western" medicine though. I looked it up to see how he had worded it.

I did a -_- face, shook my head slowly, and passionately clicked the X button on that page's tab.