A Disturbing Look on Love

Anxious adolescent and adult girls waited in line on Valentine’s Day for what they thought was going to be the romantic video of the year, Fifty Shades of Grey. Many of them had read the book beforehand and were expecting the variety of erotic practices that were to come. However, no one expected the scenes to be so disturbing to watch and far from anything that could be considered romantic. For the few individuals that are unaware of this movie, it is primarily based around a college graduate Anastatia Steele, whom falls hopelessly head over heels for the well known and admired Christian Grey, a man whom finds pleasure in hurting women in bizarre ways. Although some may classify these bizarre actions as simply being a representation of BDSM I classify actions such as shoving a marble up Anastatia’s vagina as being a form of sexual abuse that would not be tolerated in the real world and would send a man to jail.  

I strongly agree with the media consumers that were surveyed and interviewed within the article “Mainstreaming Kink: The Politics of BDSM Representation in U.S. Popular Media” whom stated that increased exposure to representations of BDSM has not at all resulted in acceptance of BDSM or even the feelings of understanding. In fact, my increased exposure of BDSM has led me to feel disgust towards these sorts of practices. I’ll never forget hearing my friends come back from seeing this movie and talking in disgust about how terrible and hard it was to watch the overall movie because of the abuse that it represented. They also talked about how sad it is that younger individuals where in the movie theater and could find this behavior as being a representation of love, when in fact it is one hundred percent not. With “Understanding the role of entertainment media in sexual socialization of American Youth: A review of empirical research” stating that the media serves as one of the most critical educator about sexual relationships for youth, this is a deeply concerning issue when movies like Fifty Shades of Grey are being produced.

Therefore, when an email was sent out to my entire sorority labeled “An open letter to young people about Fifty Shades of Grey” I was captivated into reading what a psychiatrist had to say about this number one movie. Within the first paragraphs readers are made aware of the large problem that is faced within society and that is the issue that individuals believe that everything they see on television is real and glamorous. This is the most puzzling statement because as I stated earlier glamorizing and displaying to individuals a harmful relationship is not okay and could easily result in more sexually abusive relationships, a problem that our society already faces as a whole. Also, if individuals are trying to normalize BDSM in the real world then showing Christian Grey constantly supplying Anastasia with alcohol throughout the movie so that she is impaired to make her own judgments is the wrong way to go about this.

http://www.miriamgrossmanmd.com/an-open-letter-to-young-people-about-fifty-shades-of-grey/

Overall, I argue that Fifty Shades of Grey definitely could be considered a disgusting movie as it lacks the ability to distinguish between what is considered a healthy and unhealthy relationship and what the overall benefits of partaking in BDSM are.

                                                                        References

Ward, L. M. (2003). Understanding the role of entertainment media in the sexual socialization of American youth: A review of empirical research. Developmental Review, 23(3), 347-388. doi: 10.1016/s0273-2297(03)00013-3

Weiss, M. (2006). Mainstreaming kink: The politics of BDSM representation in U.S. popular media. Journal of Homosexuality, 50(2/3), 103-132. doi: 10.1300/J082v50n02_06