Do you mean Salo, because that movie could not be more different to this, and has nothing to do with BDSM.
As for ‘Fifty Shades’, I almost feel compelled to see it, just because I hate criticizing something I haven’t seen. I enjoyed Secretary, but that was a romantic comedy with BDSM as a setting (the scene where the heroine meets a string of perverts is a classic romcom trope, but one which maaany women I know laughed at in recognition).
I feel like a lot of people in the BDSM world are too worried about appearing ‘normal’ to acknowledge that underpinning most safe-sane-consensual real-life good relationships is a darker, more threatening fantasy, which seems to be what 50SoG is representing. Being tied up is only thrilling if you imagine that the answer might be ‘no’ when you ask to be untied - if the answer is automatically ‘yes’, then it’s something other than BDSM.
TV shows like Castle have done episodes on the ‘lifestyle’ that are ridiculous and unrealistic, but ultimately sympathetic to the people involved (contra something like Pulp Fiction, where they are sub human freaks). That’s the sort of thing that makes alternative lifestyles more ‘mainstream’.
Yeah, really, there is no comparison to Salo/120 Days, that movie was not meant to be arousing (*see below)
In the end, whatever we say the public will vote with their pocketbooks, and have been doing so for a while now, in a big way. We already know a movie or book being artistically inferior does not preclude it being commercially hugely succesful, or striking a chord that resonates with a large segment of the public. Fill in your own examples.
The times can also affect things – I mentioned 9 & 1/2 Weeks before, the book was kinda sorta Greyish but never became a hit. It was just not its time ( and that’s also important, in the Web age, word-of-mouth can propagate much more effectively, and kindred spirits to whom to propagate it are easier and safer to find). Then when made into a movie there was no consciousness of a book and the movie was perceived as just a Naked Kim Basinger vehicle. (Mind you, mid-1980s, Naked Kim Basinger is A Good Thing. But then they went and cast Mickey Rourke as the would-be alpha male…)
(*BTW: Sadism as created by De Sade was NOT, repeat NOT anywhere close to what your average all-American suburban wife in leather pegging hubby in gimpsuit mean by the S in S&M. De Sade’s books are filled with John-Galt-scale philosophy monologues, intercalated with extreme tortureporn/scat/snuff scenes, showing how those with power can *literally *shit on people and get away with murder.)
Which ISTM would be sort of expected from the book’s evolution out of what was originally a Twilight online fanfic.
There can be all the interest in the world on the anonymous internet; but that may not translate into box office sales.
First of all, for the most part, men aren’t going to go see the movie. Second; reading a novel in the privacy of your own home because you have a light S&M fantasy is one thing; but actually going to the movies may be another.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see a biggish opening weekend; followed by interesting dropping way off (especially if Dave Berry’s review is accurate).
That’s like saying bungee jumping is only thrilling if you think the supervisor might have cut the cord. Anyone who is incapable of understanding the distinction between allowing the sub to pretend they are in peril and actually putting them in jeopardy needs to stay the fuck away from this movie and BDSM in general.
<yawn> 50 Shades of [DEL]Boredom [/DEL]Gray isn’t new.
Check out Kim Basinger in 9 1/2 Weeks or Carré Otis in Wild Orchid to see a smug, a-hole guy teach a uptight repressed woman how to make love. Mickey Rourke made a career out of playing these pompous idiots.
I never understood the attraction of some guy dominating or controlling a woman. I realize its a sex game with boundaries and a willing partner. It still doesn’t appeal to me. I never like game playing in my relationships. Keep it real.
There’s a good point at the end there. Dislike of this film has made for strange bedfellows. It would be fun to see a conservative Christian family group protesting the film next to some BDSM group.
From reading that review, wow. Yeah. Didn’t do their research. People who just know the book or movie will have the wrong idea.
Imagining that the answer might be “no” when you ask to be untied (or rather, when you say the agreed-upon safeword*; begging for mercy can be part of the play) is thrilling… in romance novels. Not so much IRL.
It’s fun to watch so many of the critics fall all over themselves to denounce the movie. It’s the sort of reaction I can imagine coming from conservatives if Hillary ever got elected.
Shrug. I don’t get the hype for this or the concern. Have we not seen a ton of graphic depictions in movies and cable these days? The book reads like badly written young adult fiction, but there’s no accounting for taste. One thing to be sure is product placement will be rampant throughout this thing. This is all about how materialism is sexy, and that’s what the producers will cash in on. It’s the ONLY reason why this junk will make millions, and why the television talk shows will be ass licking the actors, more money in the coffers pockets.
What manipulation? Real BDSM has agreed on rules and boundaries. You can’t make the sub do anything they don’t want to. You set limits before. If they change their mind in the middle of play, they have the safe word.
It’s just a different way to have fun. Some couples like walks on the beach, others like BDSM.
Exactly. 9 1/2 Weeks was worth watching only because of Kim Basinger. I would have never gone to that movie just to see the story and sex bondage games. The dress up game with her in a guys suit was fun.
Thanks for missing the point. Unless you think true safety in bungee jumping would mean not even climbing the tower.
I’m not going to pretend that I can sum up BDSM in one sentence, but the fantasy underlying that kind of sexual expression (almost) always has to have some sort of nastiness behind it, where there is a hierarchy, and where the peril is “real”. The reality is where SSC has to be considered, but the last thing submissive partners want to be reminded of is “this isn’t real”.
My point was that there is always this nervousness where think piece writers believe that they’re the only ones savvy enough to separate fantasy and reality. I’m not defending 50 Shades here, because I haven’t seen/read it, but I wish there was at least a second given to the thought that movies and books are part of the fantasy part of life, not the reality part.
9 1/2 Weeks was worth watching only because of Kim Basinger. I would have never gone to that movie just to see the story and sex bondage games. The dress up game with her in a guys suit was fun.