(Photo from Fiftyshadesmovie.com)
“Fifty Shades of Grey” is perhaps one of the most controversial books of the past few years since it came out in 2011, and its movie that came out Feb. 13, just leads to even more.
The most controversial issue of the book is perhaps the fact that it has multiple mentions of a contract dealing with sexual agreements which is ignored several times and the way it deals with the women’s issues of consent and respect.
After one of the ECHO writers saw the movie (which she regrets), she is unsure as to whether the movie really is the huge problem feminists make it out to be.
In the movie, the main characters Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) and Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) are in a relationship which deals with the bondage and discipline, dominance and submission and sadism and masochism (BDSM), and they use a contract to state the terms, which Christian allows Anastasia to negotiate. She is even told she can leave at any time, which she eventually does.
Anastasia does negotiate with several of the terms in the contract and treats it like a business meeting, refusing to give Christian any of the power he seems to want to hold over her. She leaves the meeting feeling satisfied with the changes made to the contract.
The other matter pushed into the fray, is feminism. Christian is seen by several feminists as a man who feels the need to dominate every woman he sees and has no respect for them. Though he does want to dominate and is a dominant in his relationship with Anastasia, Christian admits that in his first BDSM relationship, he was a submissive.
There is only one reason that a person should not see this movie; it’s simply a terribly written movie. There seems to be no plot or subtext for anything going on, and it gets really boring, really quickly. Perhaps if the writing were better, then the staff would have a better understanding of what people are taking offense at.
