With the success of "Fifty Shades", a couple of familiar issues have resurfaced.
Fifty Shades of Grey is currently dominating the North American box office, raking in $81.7 million domestically and $239.7 million globally. Not bad for a film based on glorified Twilight fanfic, right? The movie, which centers around the shy and inexperienced college senior Anastacia Steele and her domineering love interest Christian Grey, went on to break a few records this weekend, including the highest gross for a Presidents' Day weekend opener and the biggest debut for an R-rated flick.
Fifty Shades of Creepy?
Meanwhile, all over the blogosphere, people are raging against the unhealthy relationship patterns that E. L. James' story ostensibly promotes.
"Christian Grey is an abusive stalker, packaged as a romantic hero," writes Arthur Chu over at The Daily Beast. There's also criticism about the category of lifestyle porn Fifty Shades neatly falls into - similarly to Sex and the City, Chu notes, the movie is ostensibly about sex and relationship, but is set against a backdrop of covetable luxury, as seen from E. L. James' middle class perspective.
Some claim that the biggest problem of Fifty Shades is it masks the abusiveness as a feminist statement.
Watch the Fifty Shades trailer below.
"For a film that’s supposed to be about the collision between deep emotional need and raw human sexuality, it is cold and clinical to the point of feeling sterile in everything from aesthetics to characterization," writes Mark Hughes for Forbes. Even more importantly, Hughes points out, "The film seems to think that noting women can experience sexual gratification sometimes while playing typical subservient roles to male gratification is some kind of empowering message.
More: Ok, Let's Do This: Fifty Shades of Grey Reviews
While those are problems of the story and not exactly the adaptation, Sam Taylor-Johnson and co. have done little to make the Fifty Shades story less... creepy. Still worth seeing? Check out the trailer above.
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