The Antisocial Socialist

Previously on 50 Shades of Grey, they did more paperwork than sex, and both were quite boring. Also, David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, fucked a dead pig’s head. That didn’t happen in 50 Shades of Grey but it happened in real life, and I thought you should know about it if you didn’t already.



( Harder, faster, and with more paperwork! )

Cliff Lawton: That's your thing, isn't it? Everything has to be in absolutes, everything has to be black and white. You know, "I love you -fuck off". There are lots of shades of grey, you know!
Jamie Macdonald: I know that, I'm looking at fifteen of them right now! — The Thick Of It: Spinners and Losers

I almost didn’t see this movie.

I knew it was going to be bad. I’ve seen enough giggling over excerpts from the book to know the source material was unsalvageable—unlike, say, Twilight, where the book is fucking terrible and the movie is an interesting attempt to make it less shit. (Note: It’s still shit. It’s just less shit, in interesting and instructive ways.)

Greater wits than I had already deconstructed both book and film before I got around to seeing it. What more, I thought, could I possibly add to the lulz?

Not to mention, I have a certain discomfort with mocking authors like SMeyer and E.L. James. Yes, they are shit. They are utter shit. But they are also feminine shit. A lot of dudely authors write things that are equally shit or even worse shit. I have yet to read a lifestyle piece about slobby armchair generals who read John Ringo and fantasize about gunning down Arabs and raping teenagers, but for some reason housewives with e-readers fapping to Edward Cullen are hilarious and fascinating to people who, unlike me, get paid to comment on pop culture. It’s a problematic double standard.



See, the thing is, this is fantasy. It’s not my fantasy. (My sexual fantasies are of superior quality and also much hotter.) But I respect that other people have their fantasies, including fantasies about acts and scenarios that they would not want to happen to them in real life. In real life, they know that things like stalking and gaslighting aren’t actually cool or fun, but that’s what makes it hot to their imaginations. So I try not to judge people for liking terrible porn as long as it’s not porn of actual people getting hurt in nonconsensual ways.

But then my co-worker was telling me about the movie, and how bad it was, and did some (having seen it now, accurate) impressions of facial expressions made by various actors in it, and I started laughing hysterically and then she dared me to watch it and, as has been established, I cannot resist a dare.

And I realized, watching it, that while there has been plenty of pixel spillage over whether or not 50 Shades of Grey is Bad For Women, there has been not nearly enough about how it’s Bad For Cinema and Storytelling In General and also Bad For Your Eyes To Have To Watch. It’s a visual and narrative abomination and everyone involved with this project should be relegated to the ninth level of filmmaking hell (the one where Leni Riefenstahl remakes Human Centipede with you as the last bit of centipede while D.W. Griffith rattles on about his theories on race relations). It’s ostensibly a movie about masochism, but nothing in it is as masochistic as having to actually sit through it. As I did. Twice. To bring you this review.

Like I said in my initial (stunned) reaction, it’s like Ayn Rand wrote a porno, only less loving and tender.

So to be clear, I don’t wanna kinkshame anyone here. If being stalked, harassed, tied up, and brutally beaten by soulless billionaires gets you hot, more power to you.



Your kink is okay.

But you have terrible taste in movies and that is not okay and you should feel ashamed about that.

Also, CONTENT WARNING: Contains lots of discussion of sex, consensual and otherwise, stalking and abusive behaviour, images that are only marginally SFW, and film theory.

On with the review.

( I watched 50 Shades of Grey so you don't have to )

CLIFFHANGER!