WOMENITE

“Fifty Shades of Grey” has some of the statistical data in the market that we haven’t really seen before. The trilogy of fifty shades sold millions of copies and the movie tickets were sold out within days of the announcement. Before we get into the diminutive quality of the books and the movie, I’d like to say that the portrayal of BDSM is not really what it should have been. As a person I understand that there are fellow human beings out there who practice BDSM because they are the people who like to exercise control in the bedroom in ways that some of us would find unorthodox. I write this as I read an article recently about a husband and wife who are in a dominance and submissive relationship. As she writes the article she mentions that the real-life BDSM isn’t how it’s portrayed and the true essence of it may have been lost in the books and the movie. As we all know, the author of the book, E.L James, is not in a dominance and submissive relationship. Therefore, her words are merely experiments performed to cite an experience in a “to-be-famous” book.  So basically the point was to write a book about sex that people would love and that would sell. The fact that this started as a fan fiction from the twilight and later eroticised into BDSM shows that it has been nothing more than a marketing strategy.

Now let’s get into the diminutive quality of the writing, the idea behind the book and the movie itself. A “successful charming-genetically good looking-psychotic” entrepreneur dressed like a gentleman and with such grace and poise that even Lucifer would make love to him. Along with this character of Christian Grey there is “Anastasia” whose character is basically that of a “naïve-easily swooned” chastise interviewing the aforementioned psycho. The issue here is the portrayal of the character Anastasia. The question is why did she have to be a virgin who is a submissive to a man of such sadistic splendour. Why did the woman have to be an inexperienced-naïve-student at the hands of an experienced entrepreneur? Had they both been reciprocating the actions of whipping with the crop, I wouldn’t have had an issue. Had the movie been about a woman dominating the man and the man being a submissive, then it wouldn’t have done well. Don’t we all know that female-central movies haven’t done half as well as male-central movies? The idea advocated by the writer just didn’t digest well with me.It is inarguable that there are far better novels with the impalpably-beautiful story line. Why aren’t these books talked about? There are some of the famous erotic novels such as “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and when you come across novels such as these, it really makes one think that is the crowd really understanding what they’re reading?

In the century we live in, the world is in dire need of movies that focus on women empowerment. Why? Because of the simple reason that women have been fighting for equality in all aspects of life and little has been done with a great amount of effort going into it. I want the little girls now, to be brought up in a world where they have respected and their opinion matters without having to fight for things like equal wages or to not be judged on how short their skirt is! So men out there, help your women because Emma Watson believes in “He for she”.

–Shibani Bal