50 Shades Of Grey - Do You Think Movie Degrades Or Empowers Women?

DavidRamsay99

I went to see the movie the other night because it is one of the film events of the year and having not read the books I felt before I should have an opinion I should go see it for myself. I was expecting to see a trashy high budget porno but I was pleasantly surprised to be watching an excellent erotic psychological thriller as intriguing as classics such as Eyes Wide Shut, Basic Instinct, Salon Kitty, Dangerous Liaisons and especially The Night Porter.

Feminists claim the movie glorifies male domination of women and normalizes sexual and domestic abuse. Conservatives denounce the film for apparently making kinky sex mainstream. They miss the subtle points completely.

The film really shows how the sexual expectations of the sexes are at war both within and outside. Anastasia is an innocent virgin who is intimidated by Christian who the represents raw masculine sexuality she is too timid to surrender to. Her pathetic photographer friend and her bashful work colleague cannot take what they want the way Christian Grey can. She is happy to lose her the burden of her virginity and finally conform with her peers especially her best friend who is happy to leap into bed with men but she wants her new lover to eventually be her happy ever after and to please him feels under pressure to give into his S&M obsession. Grey cruelly takes advantage of this delighted that she is a virgin that he believes can be molded unlike the sexually experience women he encountered before.

Christian appears to be dominant but he is ultimately pathetic and needy. He thinks by dominating Anastasia he delusionally thinks he can crush his own romantic yearnings and keep her firmly in his toy box so to avoid any messy emotional complications. Anastasia slowly but surely turns the tables and it is she who seduces him symbolized brilliantly by the closing of elevator doors that mirroring an earlier scene in which Christian seduced her.

The message I took from the film is that it is an attack on the archetypal womanizing behavior of selfish emotionally stunted men who want to create a self-destructive distance between the sexual act and love. They want sex without romance or marriage or fatherhood or children and impoverish themselves. Grey's arrogant inability to abandon control leaves him lonely while Steele's surrender paradoxically liberates her from her sexual and emotional isolation. She is firmly in charge at the end challenging Grey to grow up and embrace an adult loving sexual relationship or risking losing her forever. In contrast his brother Elliot leaves behind his womanizing and begins a relationship with Anastasia's best friend.

The movie nicely prepares us for the sequel with one presumes the ball in Grey's court. He must become a man and give up childish things. The man must earn the right to sleep with the woman by doing the running in regards to seduction but afterwards the woman takes control forcing the man to abandon his old bachelor ways or else risk losing a chance at happiness. To have sex and love means giving up one's freedom and saying goodbye to one's old easy life. Maturity means not regretting the change.

What do you think?