All right, y’all. This is a rollercoaster ride through a shit storm, so strap in.
Back when the book first hit shelves, I was ecstatic. Kinky fiction was hitting the main stage, people were reading about it and talking about it, BDSM was on its way out of the dungeon and into the light. This was progress for the scene I’d always felt a part of. As someone who is into bondage, I’ve found myself explaining to curious people why I like it, what I get out of it, what it entails, and assuring people that yes, kink can be part of a healthy sexual relationship. People are into different things, and as long as those things are taking place in a healthy way between consenting adults, there’s nothing wrong with getting kinky. I thought that this was finally going to remove some of the taboo surrounding kink, fetishes, and BDSM. In some ways, it has. The conversation was started and people who were previously not comfortable expressing themselves in the bedroom were given license to do so. So, before I tear this movie and its source material a new one, credit where it’s due–more people are being adventurous with their partners because of this book, and that’s pretty great.
But, oh, do I have problems with Fifty Shades.
I’m hardly the first person on the internet to say that this book and the subsequent film are terrible. E. L. James clearly has no idea what a real, healthy d/s relationship looks like and it shows. The lead character, Christian Grey, is not the type of dom one should aspire to be. He’s a possessive stalker, an abusive and manipulative person, a man who has been deeply damaged by his past and is not in the right headspace to be a loving, caring, attentive dominant to his subs. It bothers me on a very basic level that there are some people who read this as a romance and sexual guidebook into the world of kinks and fetishes. There are no role models in these books, no one to look up to. Yes, the conversation has started, but it has lightyears to go before it’s on the same page many of us have been on for years.
I had heard a lot about the book before I made myself read it, and I felt that I had to do so in order to be able to tell people exactly why I think it’s so terrible. It was in this same spirit that I watched the movie a few days ago, and the only way I got through the whole thing without ragequitting was by taking notes and lambasting the everloving bejesus out of it.
So, all that being said, let’s begin, shall we?
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The movie starts out with the main character, Anastasia Steele, going to Seattle to interview Christian Grey, a billionaire entrepreneur, for a profile for the student newspaper at the college she attends. She’s doing the interview to help out her friend, Katherine Cavanaugh, who is sick with the flu and can’t reschedule. She doesn’t ask anyone in her journalism classes, she asks her socially awkward English Lit major roommate to do this favor for her. In the book, Ana spends the opening paragraphs bitching about this task she’s been saddled with and isn’t looking forward to it at all.
My issues with this movie begin with the interview, which is only about ten minutes in. Any hope I may have had that it wasn’t going to be as horrible as the book are dashed immediately,
After interrupting Ana’s question about the secret to his success by finishing it for her (rude), he gives a canned explanation that ends with “The secret to my success has been identifying talented individuals and harnessing their efforts.”
To which she replies, “So, you’re a control freak?”
No, that’s not even a little bit what he said. Also, even if that’s what she was thinking at the time, WHAT PERSON SAYS THIS OUT LOUD? Especially during an interview.
She asks him about his projects in agriculture and feeding the poor, particularly in Africa, and she says, “Perhaps your heart might be a bit bigger than you want to let on.”
“There are some people who say I don’t have a heart.”
“Why?”
“Because they know me well.”
And there’s red flag #1. There’s a saying that goes something like, “If someone tells you they’re an asshole, believe them.” It’s safe to assume that this applies here.
Then she asks, “Are you gay?” because that’s the next question on the list. Okay, fuck Katherine Cavanaugh for having her ask that question. She’s not writing for a goddamn tabloid. And fuck E. L. James for putting that in the book for no reason other than to highlight how uncomfortable Christian is at the notion that someone thinks he might be gay. He was actually offended by the question, which says a lot about the author, in my opinion. This has literally no bearing on the rest of the narrative except to emphasize just how hard Ana’s bombing this interview.
During this scene, he’s supposed to be showing an interest in her and she’s supposed to be practically jumping out of her clothes at how hot he is, but there is almost no chemistry at all between these people. The director either didn’t know how to show that they do, or it just isn’t there. I’m gonna go with a combination of the two, although I can hardly blame the director for not making an Oscar-worthy film given the source material he had to work with.
Christian, after their ten minutes is up, cancels his next meeting to continue talking to Ana even after she asks him some invasive and irrelevant questions that she should slap Kate for having her ask. He decides that he should have a turn asking questions in a getting-to-know-you way and leads with, “What are your plans after you graduate?”
Then she acts like she doesn’t know. She’s about to take her senior year finals and she doesn’t know what she wants to do for a living beyond moving to Seattle with Kate. It’s like her entire life hinges on other people and she doesn’t have a personality outside of that. This is probably by design, as Bella was exactly the same way.
Finally the interview is over and Ana returns home. When talking about the interview with Kate, Ana asks why she had her ask if Christian is gay and Kate says Christian’s never been photographed with a woman, as though that explains anything. Ana says, “Maybe he just wants to keep his private life private,” and Kate responds, “And now you’re defending him.” Like that’s supposed to prove that she likes him. No, bitch, she’s being a REASONABLE HUMAN who doesn’t think it’s necessary to ask a total stranger about their sexual preferences in a profile piece for a student newspaper.
Then Kate steals Ana’s sandwich like the huge bitch she is.
Cue a scene that’s supposed to show that Ana can’t stop thinking of Christian (for whatever reason, it’s certainly not because of his charm) by daydreaming in class with his pencil in her mouth. Freud would be so proud.
Ana goes to work after a cursory appearance from Jose, who will henceforth be known as Fake Jacob so no one forgets that this was originally a Twilight fanfiction. She’s at the hardware store talking to her mother who is explaining that her boyfriend, Bob, broke his foot and for some reason this means she can’t fly in for her daughter’s graduation. WTF? Why? Unless the fucker has screws coming out of his foot, he should be okay to get on a plane. This conversation serves absolutely no purpose at all for the narrative, except to introduce a completely unnecessary character to the audience.
Christian shows up at Ana’s job like a fucking stalker (he lives in Seattle and, although I’ve never been to Seattle, I’m guessing that there’s at least one Home Depot in the city) and has her help him shop for supplies. They look at the cable ties and masking tape and she shows him two different kinds, saying that he should take both, so he does, then she calls him a connoisseur of masking tape.
I am not making this up.
Then he asks for rope. She cuts him a length and ties it off, and he’s impressed like she just demonstrated her shibari skills or some shit. She says, “You’re a complete serial killer now.” He answers with, “Not today,” and I then ask myself why is she not the least bit weirded out by this? She asks him if he wants coveralls to protect his clothes and he says “I could just take my clothes off.” Oh good, now you’re a serial killer who murders people in the nude. Awesome. How any woman could resist is beyond me.
Then he mean-mugs her coworker for daring to touch her shoulder. You can’t be possessive of something you don’t possess, Christian, you unbelievable dick.
They get to talking about the article Kate’s writing and he offers to take new photos for her. This is for a local student rag, by the way. Not People or TIME–this billionaire is offering to do an impromptu photo shoot for a student newspaper. And Ana doesn’t think this is the least bit odd.
There’s some more awkward dialogue and Ana winds up telling Christian, “I find you intimidating.”
“You should.”
Big Red Flag #2.
They go out for coffee because EXPOSITION. He cuts the date short and dashes her hopes of this big ball of nope turning into a relationship by telling her, “I don’t do the girlfriend thing”. She goes to step off the curb and he pulls her back in time to avoid being hit by a cyclist. The book made this a really big deal for some reason, like he saved her from certain death and she owes him a life debt now because she totally could have been killed by some dude on a bicycle.
Then after having shown no sexual tension AT ALL up to this point, he touches her face and she starts melting into her shoes. Honestly, if I hadn’t read the book and therefore had some idea of where this was going, I’d be wondering what the actual fuck was happening. Everything in this movie so far is dependent upon you knowing that; 1. Christian is infatuated with her and is into BDSM, not murder, and; 2. That Ana is suuuuper turned on by his looks and his money because at this point she knows literally nothing else about him. While he’s touching her face, he starts in with the I’m-not-the-man-you-want speech.
“I don’t do the girlfriend thing.”
“I’m not the man for you.”
“You should steer clear of me.”
“I have to let you go.”
Ana should be taking him at his word by this point, but she’s too obsessed with this hot guy who has deigned to notice her and she wants to bang him. Later on, we find out that Ana’s a virgin. Not that there’s something inherently wrong with that, but I think that ‘s contributing to the fact that she’s confusing being turned on and with what a blossoming relationship feels like since she only has minimal experience with both.
Back at her apartment, Ana gets a package of books and says, even before she can read the titles, “These must be from Christian.” Why? What would make her think that they must be from Christian? Also, this means that the second she walked out the door of his office he was on Amazon ordering these books to be overnighted to her house. I don’t even know anymore with this movie.
There’s a scene where Ana and Kate are finishing up with their finals and they go out to a bar with Fake Jacob to celebrate. After she’s had a few too many, she drunk-calls Christian from the bar. He picks up on the fact that she’s drunk and says, all intense-like, “I want you to go home right now.” Then the funniest thing in the movie happens when she starts making fun of how wishy-washy Christian’s been so far. “Come here, no go away, let’s go for coffee, stay away from me,” and hangs up on him. That got an actual out loud giggle out of me.
Christian calls her back and says “Stay where you are, I’m coming to get you.” Like no one has ever been drunk at a bar before without something horrific happening to them and this is OMG SRS BSNS. He sounds like he’s legit in fear for her safety. Keep in mind, he’s only known her for two days at this point.
Ana goes outside for some air and Fake Jacob starts making moves on her while she’s drunk as fuck. This is called “being hella rapey”. He tries to kiss her while she’s pushing him away and saying no, and then Christian shows up in a knight-in-shining-armor move and shoves Fake Jacob away. I’d applaud him for that but, given what we know of how the rest of this story goes, the fact that he’s concerned with Ana’s ability to consent is kind of hilarious.
Then Ana, still drunk, pukes all over the ground and presumably on Christian’s shoes. She passes out and instead of taking her home, he takes her back to his hotel room. Kate knows that he, a relative stranger, is whisking her now unconscious friend away and does nothing to be a good friend because it’s looking like she and Christian’s brother, Elliot, are gonna be banging it out later and she wants his dick more than she wants to help get Ana back home. Have I mentioned that Kate is a total bitch and a terrible friend? Because she is. She broke the girl code and that shit is unforgivable.
Ana wakes up with a new shirt on and asks Christian, still confused and understandably mistrusting his intentions, if he undressed her. He tells her he didn’t have much choice, and I wanted to scream at him “Yes you fucking did, you perv. Yes you did.” He tells her that he slept in the bed with her while she was unconscious and gets very skeeved out WHICH SHE TOTALLY SHOULD because that’s exactly the reaction she should have when she found out that he’d taken off her clothes without her consent and slept in the bed with her while she was blacked out.
He serves her breakfast, and honestly, what is it with his feeding obsession? We know he’s a sadist, but there isn’t nearly as much fuss made about the fact that he seems to be into feeding kink as well.
He tells her, like he has any right to tell her how to live, “You shouldn’t get drunk like that. You put yourself at risk last night.”
She got drunk at a bar with her friends. Jesus, dude.
Then he rips his shirt off, says “If you were mine, you wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week,” then he crawls on the bed and takes a bite of her toast out of her hand like a goddamn animal.
WHY THE FUCK DO PEOPLE THINK THIS IS SEXY?
She asks, “Why am I here?”
“You’re here because I’m incapable of leaving you alone.”
What about this is romantic? At all?
He then explains, “I don’t do romance. My tastes are very singular. You wouldn’t understand.”
You wouldn’t understand. Like she’s a child. This is more like a Daddy Dom/Little Girl dynamic than anything at this point.
He tells her he’s not gonna touch her without her written consent, and…..okay, look. Ana is a virgin and is unfamiliar with how BDSM works. Contracts are sometimes a thing in the scene, but she doesn’t know that. So when he says “written consent” she should be thinking “That’s seriously fucking weird that he wants me to sign a goddamn contract before he can touch me.”
Then, on their way out of the hotel, they make out in the elevator and I’m still trying to figure out how any of this is happening right now.
He leaves her at her place and says “Laters, baby.”
Laters.
NO ONE SAYS THAT.
NO ONE.
OH MY GOD.
Kate asks her about her night and she says “Odd doesn’t cover it.” Yeah, no shit.
After her shift at the hardware store the next day, Christian’s driver takes her to him even though she should really not be talking to that creep anymore. He’s waiting with his helicopter, and I keep noticing that he calls her Anastasia even after she’s repeatedly told him to just call her Ana. This is indicative of his attitude toward her feelings on just about every single subject ever.
He harnesses her into the passenger seat of the helicopter and says “No escaping now.”
OH MY GOD, YOU GUYS. There are red flags practically falling out of this dude’s pockets.
The music swells and they go on this “romantic” helicopter ride and I don’t know why any of this is happening right now.
They wind up at his house, which is ridiculously nice and Ana is suitably impressed. Then they sit at the table and he hands her a glass of wine (even after throwing a shit fit about her getting blackout drunk, like, the night before) and he hands her an NDA. Right out of the gate. Yeah. He says “My lawyer insists on it.” AND THEN SHE SIGNS IT. WHY, GOD.
She asks “Are you gonna make love to me now?” Ah, I see. She signed the thing because all she wanted was some of that billionaire booty. That’s cool. No, seriously, if Christian was less of a creepy douchecanoe, I’d be okay with this.
“I don’t make love. I fuck. Hard.” Then he shows her the Red Room with all this unnecessary pomp and circumstance because honestly? It’s disappointingly tame. She goes in and starts touching all the things, and I can’t help but think that if she was so unfamiliar with BDSM that she had to reference Wikipedia of all things later on, she wouldn’t necessarily know that the canes, floggers, handcuffs, and assorted toys would be for sex. She’d be thinking back to all the serial killer gear he bought at the hardware store and think that she was seeing his torture chamber and would run screaming for the hills. But she doesn’t, because apparently Ana is aware that she’s not in a horror movie.
“You’re a sadist?” she asks.
“I’m a dominant.”
Those can be the same thing, dude. If you get off on causing people pain, that makes you a sadist. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just the textbook definition of a sadist.
“What would I get out of this?”
To which my answer would be, “Well, if you were a submissive masochist, you’d be getting quite a lot out of this.” But she’s not, so Christian has no business asking her to do any of this shit in the first place.
His answer to that question, by the way? “Me.”
Translation–I’m asking you to be in a relationship with me that you clearly don’t fully understand and I haven’t bothered to explain, and in return you get the D. And my money. Have I told you that I’m hot and rich? Because I am.
And she’s still not running away, y’all.
He asks her to stay with him on the weekends, tells her he won’t even be sleeping in the same bed with her, and she asks, “So we wouldn’t have any sort of relationship at all?”
And he goes “This is the only sort of relationship I have. It’s the way I am.”
At which point, Ana should have said “Well, it doesn’t look like you can offer me the kind of emotional commitment I need at this time, so I think we shouldn’t do this.” But, as I said before, she apparently can’t differentiate between horniness and love, so she stays because she thinks there has to be something more here. That he wouldn’t really hit her if he loved her. That she can fix him, or save him, or that things will be different with her. Let’s recap, shall we?
“There are some people who say I don’t have a heart.”
“I find you intimidating.” “You should.”
“I don’t do the girlfriend thing.”
“I’m not the man for you.”
“You should steer clear of me.”
The man is practically beating her to death with red flags and she still thinks she can make this work because this is Twoo Wuv. I hate this movie. I hate it so fucking hard.
They start talking about her limits and she asks “How could I know what I’d be willing to try?” He asks her what she likes and doesn’t like in bed, then she admits to being a virgin and it’s at this point that a responsible human being would tell her that this thing can’t happen because she has literally no idea what she’s getting into. Instead they have this super cheesy moment and he pulls her back toward the bedroom saying he needs to “rectify the situation.” Because her virginity is an obstacle in the way of him getting what he wants. This scene gets all of my nope.
They proceed to make love even though he just said he doesn’t do that, thus giving her false expectations for this totally-not-a-relationship. He’s stringing her along in the most manipulative way possible and I hate him and I hate this fucking movie.
So the sex scene starts and on the first thrust she’s already moaning. You know, instead of going “Ow” or something moderately realistic when he breaks through her hymen, she’s suddenly an old pro at this because realism isn’t gonna be playing a big part in this story.
They wake up together even though he just told her that he never sleeps with anyone and she lets herself believe that she’s gonna be the one to fix him. That she’s gonna be the one he gets all lovey with even after he showed her his playroom. This is what manipulation looks like, people.
*Random aside: You know, I wouldn’t have minded some full-frontal in a movie that began as a super lemony smut fic. An NC-17 rating would not have gone amiss here. Really, Hollywood.*
He takes a totally-not-romantic bath with her, then takes her into the bedroom and asks “Do you trust me?” She nods, which makes me think that she must be the single dumbest human being on planet Earth. He ties her up with that now-iconic tie from the cover of the book and they start playing with light bondage. Now, there are a lot of people who would be into this. Light bondage is barely scratching the surface of kink. But before they can get into anything else, his mother shows up. She just walks right into his house. Her adult son’s house. Because that’s in any way normal.
Ana comes out in Christian’s shirt and his mother sort of takes the hint by letting him show her out. In trying to figure out how this is anything other than an awkward deus ex machina, I remembered that if this were the Twilight fanfiction, this would have been the fanservice moment where the author introduces a character their readers recognize. In this case, Esmee. So that made it through the editing process. Also, there’s the whole “meet the parents” aspect that happens in real relationships, which we’ve already established isn’t happening here. Except it is. Except it isn’t. And now I’m getting whiplash.
Once they’re alone again, Ana asks how many other women have been in the room he’s designated for her and Christian says he’s had fifteen others before, and she fliches like that’s a lot. She tells him that she’s not thrilled with the notion of being whipped and tortured in the Red Room of Pain, and Christian assures her that that room is more about pleasure. Yeah, for him, sure. Not for her. But if he gave more of a shit about having a willing sub and not controlling his new obsession, they wouldn’t be having this conversation.
She asks if they’d go out on dates and he says that’s not his thing, then he gives the equivalent of the Jareth speech from Labyrinth. You know, the one where he goes “Need me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave.” Which is more or less the way a master/slave relationship would go if this was something that both parties agreed to and were cool with, but Christian has already shown that he’s a terrible dom and Ana isn’t even really sure what a submissive is, let alone if she’d be okay with such an arrangement.
He starts to take her home and they get out of the car and go for a walk for no reason at all except we need some more exposition apparently and he reveals that, at 15, one of his mother’s friends seduced him and made him her sub for six years.
Okay. Here are my problems with that.
1. That’s statutory rape.
2. She took a (probably) virgin boy and put him in the same spot Ana’s in right now. He was a boy who didn’t know what he was getting into at all. This was, at the very least, hardcore manipulation if not outright abuse. And completely fucked up. And now he’s doing the exact same thing to Ana, even though he knows what it did to him. I hate this man so goddamn much.
3. He still talks to “Ms. Robinson” because they’re friends and it’s not Stockholm Syndrome at all. Nope. Not at all.
During this expositional field trip, Christian tells Ana that she’s the first one he’s ever flown in the helicopter, that he’s never had sex in his own bed, never slept next to anyone….only her. He’s setting her up with this false sense of security and letting her think that she’s The One.
So he drops her off at home and she shows up to find that some guy from the Geek Squad is setting up her new computer (courtesy of Christian) and then the movie launches into a full narrative reading of The Contract. The Contract states that, among other things, Christian will arrange for her to get birth control from a doctor of his choosing so as to control her gynecological health. There’s a list of foods she’s allowed to eat, she’s not allowed to drink to excess, she can’t call him Christian and must refer to him as “Sir” or “Mr. Grey”, she can’t touch him without his consent (but he can touch her any time he wants), and I’m wondering why she’s still considering this at all unless she’s down for being his slave.
When she’s researching BDSM on her brand new computer, she can barely stand to look at artistic nudes in bondage. She hasn’t even gotten to the good stuff yet and she’s already squeamish. This does not bode well for her future.
Later on, he asks her how the research is going and she replies with “It was nice knowing you.” He should have taken this to mean “Yeah, no, I can’t do this, I’m done. Bye, Felicia.” He, of course, doesn’t, and instead shows up at her house to try and convince her to be his sub. Without knocking. Just waltzes right in. Then they have sex on her bed because reasons and they do the light bondage thing again, only this time he secures her to the bed frame and uses her shirt as a blindfold. They do the whole done-to-death 9 1/2 Weeks ice thing and he slaps her ass one time. Again, people are into spanking and light bondage. That’s totally a thing, but it’s still not even close to what he’s been talking about in The Contract and I can’t help but think that she’s not gonna take it well when that shit goes down.
See, they’ve had this weekend of hot, romantic sex, she’s lost her virginity, he says he’s done things with her he never does with anyone else, he’s got loads of cash to impress her with, and she’s met his mother. Have we hit all the relationshippy points yet? I think so. But he’s not talking about relationships. He’s talking about having a sex slave to beat on. But she doesn’t really believe that yet, even with The Contract and all of the creepy serial killer “stay away from me” talk.
A couple days later (or maybe it’s only one day, either way I don’t fucking care and it doesn’t really matter anyway), they do the negotiation process and she actually tries to show some balls in this scene. It’s something of a departure from the book in that they have this talk in Christian’s office building instead of a restaurant, probably because someone noticed that that would look like a date, and Christian said he totally doesn’t do dates. Another thing that got past the editing process when the book was going to print, I guess.
Her attitude is almost impressive compared to the total milquetoast she’s been up to this point. She insists that they treat this like a business meeting but the room they’re in is dimly lit with totally-not-romantic reddish light and she should really be squinting trying to read in the almost-dark conference room.
I get that this is supposed to be an amusing scene, their professional attitudes at odds with negotiations about anal fisting, and if I had been enjoying this movie at all I might have really liked it. But then she has to ask what a butt plug is (this was after nixing genital clamps which didn’t require further explanation even though those aren’t as common as butt plugs) and I went right back to Nopeville. She also has no idea what suspension is or why that would be fun, and she has him strike out tape but keeps handcuffs as an acceptable form of restraint and I damn near had an aneurysm.
Shoulda done your research, girl.
Then he does this thing where he “reads” her mood after having known her for…what’s it been, a week now? Less? Whatever, doesn’t matter, it’s still bullshit. She teases him a bit and then leaves him hanging, having still not made any headway on The Contract.
Cut to Ana’s graduation ceremony. The commencement speech Christian gives here sounds more like a mission statement for his company than anything, and he actually asks her if she wants to be his sub on the stage as she’s getting her diploma. And she says yes.
She says yes, you guys. My ability toucan is officially dead.
Then, as a graduation gift, he buys her a car and SELLS HER OLD ONE (a classic Volkswagen Beetle) WITHOUT ASKING HER. That would be grounds for murder if he’d done that to me….but then, if I were Ana, this movie would have only been fifteen minutes long.
They go back to her house for champagne and he winds up putting her over his knee and spanking her three times for rolling her eyes at him. She makes it pretty apparent that she needs more in the way of aftercare for this, like a hug or talking about it or something, but he doesn’t pick up on her cues (or just doesn’t give a fuck) and leaves because he has to go to his office for work. She winds up crying on the phone with her mom because her emotions are all over the place, which is totally understandable after being punished like that for the first time. We get to see that Christian is not a good dom, to the surprise of literally no one.
She goes to see him a few days later and now we come to the moment everyone was waiting for–the first real playroom scene. He starts by slapping her palm, then, her ass, then her belly. It looked like he spent some time playing with her before the belly slap, but still, that’s a sensitive area best saved for when she’s deeper in sub-space. That might just be me, though. She looked like she was into it, so I’m gonna give him a pass on that.
They go to dinner with Christian’s family afterward (where he tries to fingerbang her under the table, which was weird), and Ana lets it slip that she’s gonna go visit her mother, but she didn’t tell Christian beforehand and that was apparently unacceptable. He carries her like a sack of potatoes out into the yard and actually has the gall to get mad at her for not telling him she’s going out of town. This ridiculously macho display starts her off on a series of heated questions about why he is the way he is, why he wants her to be his sub, why he won’t let her touch him, and how hurt she is by the fact that he’s trying to change/train her. She asks him why he doesn’t like her the way she is. And this is where the relationship should have ended if it hadn’t already. Instead, the scene ends in Christian’s admission that the scars on his chest were from his birth mother, who was a crack addict and a prostitute. I can’t help but notice that he didn’t answer any of her other questions because….enigmatic assholes are sexy? I don’t even know. E. L. James is trying to elicit sympathy for Christian here with a cheap abuse victim backstory that is supposed to simultaneously explain why he’s into S/M.
This confession, like the Ms. Robinson thing, serve to reinforce the idea that people who are into BDSM were abused and coerced into the lifestyle, that there’s something wrong with it because the participants are damaged in some way, which is not usually the case. That’s not to say that it doesn’t happen, but Christian really needs intensive therapy if he’s going to continue on with this lifestyle in my opinion.
While Ana’s visiting her mom in Georgia, Christian mentions he’s going to see a friend and Ana thinks it’s Ms. Robinson and gets understandably jealous. He does nothing to assuage those fears (because it totally was Ms. Robinson he was going to see), instead telling her not to worry about it without elaborating. A couple minutes later he realizes he fucked up and tries to call her, but she doesn’t answer (because he was an asshole and of course she’s upset at him). Then in the next scene he just shows up in Georgia, which is clear across the goddamn country, at the restaurant where Ana and her mother are having lunch. So, he’s stalked her to the bar where she was drinking, to her job, and now all the way across America to Georgia, all without Ana having to tell him where she is. The fucker can just find her wherever she happens to be at the time.
Imagine if she really was intent on leaving him and he kept showing up wherever she was to harass her. That. shit. is. scary.
But he takes her out flying in the morning and everything is sunshine and rainbows again. If I rolled my eyes any harder, they’d unscrew right out of my head.
Afterward, Christian has to go back to Seattle for some business thing, and when Ana arrives back in town he looks like he’s been having a rough time. He takes her into the playroom again, then flogs her belly and has sex with her. (Again with the belly thing. I really don’t get that at all.) I have problems with this because it feels like he’s taking out his frustrations on her. Now, BDSM can be cathartic after a rough day, but you have to be going into it in the right headspace and it seemed to me that Christian wasn’t doing this for them. He was doing it to make himself feel better, and that’s not very healthy.
Afterward, Ana again asks why he seems to need to hit her and is incapable of having a traditional relationship with her. He says that he needs to punish her because he’s–wait for it–Fifty Shades of Fucked Up (which would have made a better title). She tells him to show her how fucked up he really is and asks him to punish her hard so that she knows what she’s getting into. So he agrees and takes her back into the playroom. All this without actually talking about why he needs this because healthy communication is too much for these two.
He whips her with a belt six times and she starts to cry, obviously not getting anything out of it at all except pain. He lets her up and she freaks out because he’s Gone Too Far and she won’t let him touch her. All I could think was that she could totally have taken a beating like that if he’d known what he was doing and gradually progressed to the belt instead of just smacking the shit out of her with it cold like that. Some people can take that. Some can’t. Ana can’t, and if Christian was a decent dom he’d have fucking known that. He was doing it to make himself feel better by punishing her for…I couldn’t tell you why, honestly. But it wasn’t in a sexual context for her. There was no warm up, no checking in to see if she was okay, nothing but him smacking her with a belt.
The movie ends with her leaving him. If there is any good in the world, there won’t be a sequel and I can headcanon that she really did leave him for good and that she went off to be happy with someone else.
As I said at the beginning, the only reason I watched this movie was to actually know what I’m talking about when I say that I hate it. Same reason I read the book; I wanted to be able to cite examples for why I hate this story as much as I do. After having done both, I’m at a loss as to how the fans of this series don’t see it for the toxic garbage heap that I and so many others do. Christian is an abusive asshole, Ana is about as one dimensional as a character can be, and the sex scenes are terrible. There are any number of fanfiction authors out there who could write better stuff than this in their sleep. I have no idea why it got to be as popular as it is, but maybe it’ll open the door to better kink fiction in the future.
Hey, a girl can dream, right?
soapbox on sex 