50 shades

So before I get told this thread belongs in the entertainment section, I'm not giving the movie a critique, nor am I asking for one; I haven't even seen it. I just wanted to see how people philosophically view the fact that it's allowed to become as popular as it is and the potential effects of it. You can use other movies as examples if you want, this just seems to be the hot topic. I figured a pornsite would at least give me a neat opinion given the content within 50. Not to say that 50 shades is really good enough to really be porn, or even to be deserving of getting published.

Regardless, upon this hitting theaters a boatload of people pretty much immediately started saying not just that it was garbage, but going as far as to claim it was making the world a worse place. This is because of stalking, some rape-ey scenes or just flat out rape scenes, etc. It's argued that imagery portraying these things in a non-negative way leads to people doing the actions depicted. Alternatively, you also get the argument that media isn't responsible for the choices of individuals.

Thoughts?

What do you mean by it being 'allowed' to become popular? It is popular because a lot of people wanted to read the book and watch the movie.

The potential effects of it? Most likely zero long lasting effects, maybe BDSM as a sexual expression becomes more popular, even though a lot of noise is being made about 50 Shades not being about BDSM.


If the world became a worse place after this movie, it would be because of the specific people who do wrong and cause the harm, not the film. The people who think that a fictional story or entertainment represents reality are the reason for the world becoming a worse place, not the film. The people who think that a action performed in fictional media (books, games, movies, tv) is also acceptable to perform in reality, because it was performed in media would be the reason why the world would become a worse place, not the media.

I suppose I didn't use the best of wording. I mean the amount of appreciation towards it "allowed" it to become a popular topic of conversation even among those who dislike it.



This is where I tend to lean.

Smut. The term you're looking for is smut. It's basically the writing-form of porn.

On topic, I haven't read the book or really paid any attention to the movie buzz. People tell people it's bad literature and I believe them, since I wasn't going to read it anyway.
As for its popularity, I suppose it could be harmful if it incidences of rape to increase, though I doubt that'll happen. If rates of people with BSDM fetishes increases, who cares as long as it's between two consenting adults?

Studies have been done to correlate the relationship between the media and human behavior. I haven't taken the time to review these studies, but I've heard countless times that the results concluded that the media does not influence human behavior in a negative way. It may cause certain emotions to stir up in people, but it won't directly cause someone to lose sight of reality and enact what is depicted. Of course there are exceptions, for instance, people with mental disorders could be influenced by the media in negative way.

Anyways, I didn't pay any attention to the 50 shades hype when the book came out, and I'm not paying any attention to the movie.

I'm in the same camp as you to be honest. I haven't read the books or seen the movies, but I do know people who have lifestyles of BDSM with their partners, and by this I do mean lifestyles - not just a simple kink used to spice up their love life.

The media has a bad habit of falsely accusing things to be a cause of a problem that is going on. "Video games cause violence" is a major one I think we're all very aware of. Rape is a problem, and this movie is an easy target for media to latch onto or women's health organizations to point and blame for continuation of female abuse.

I think the largest problem with the book/movie is that if it does inspire individuals to try out BDSM, the book at the most teaches bad practices of BDSM.

BDSM has very strict guidelines of safe, sane, and consensual. I saw a humorous little snippet stating "Fifty shades of grey is only romantic because the guy is a billionaire. If he was living in a trailer it would be a criminal minds episode."

Anybody wanting to venture into the realm of BDSM should do plenty of research and safety be one of the utmost important detail and the very most the book could do is lead to unsafe environments by people who are "lost in the moment" and jump into the pool before first learning how to swim. An example of what I mean is the type of material you use to bind someone and not paying attention to potential pinched nerves and causing nerve damage to your spouse. Aftercare is another huge detail.

50 Shades is just your generic (pseudo romance) porno (often called erotic) book aimed for younger adult females. Some friends did read it and it's far from being something new, but it's a good porno material for the schlick anyway. It's impact is close to zero as the relevance of the book aside for schliking is minimal, it's like say "oh, but that random porno video with 40.000.000 views changed the world", it didn't.

Why it is so popular, then? Well, the sexual acts and BDSM are portrayed in a quite more direct way that those books are often to do so. For example it's quite standard to see "and then, Mr. Vincent materialized the marriage with repeated movements inside Ms. Eliza", but it seems on 50 Shades the description is a bit more direct, though can't tell the exact style as I just know of the book for friend's tells. And because the young adult female demo. is quite hysteric with "controversy" and "scandals", it became a boom. Those always silent schlickers had a quite common and exciting thing to talk about without being so extremely judged because yeah, books looks like are more feminine, elegant or whatever than porn, even if both are porn. It is so hard to admit you like porn? Heck.

I've read parts of some, too, they aren't bad for the lewd, but it's hard to watch them as more than porn even after the grandiloquence. Anyway, the movie just followed the popularity of the book, and just like all the book to movie adaptations done by popularity, it seems the movie is worst as it isn't even that good for the lewd aside helping to couples to touch themselves in the cinema or just laugh at it.

Maybe the bigger relevance is that as girls aren't so shy to talk about they read a "romance adult book" and much less about a so popular one, they are sharing the experience with their boyfriends a lot more. A thing that isn't exactly negative to be honest, talking about lewd with your partner is often productive and positive even in the face of bad examples, as things are being talked in the first place.

What Ziggy said is how I feel about it.

I read the trilogy since I like smut works and I've honestly read better. I probably will just stream the movie when I feel like it since it looks meh. A better film on this kind of thing in my opinion is The Story of O.

As for if this will have a negative impact on society, it's unlikely. Again, as Ziggy said just because this movie portrays BDSM poorly that doesn't mean we have a group of rapist come out as a result. People who have the intent or ability to do something bad will do it regardless, but what triggers that just depends. People want something to blame as causing X issue and a hype up piece of poorly written smut is an easy target. It's easier to blame a book then to blame an incident that happened 10 years ago to traumatize a person into raping (every case is different, but you don't just become something overnight).

The movie had a crazy good opening weekend last week on Valentine's Day, but this weekend the sales plummeted, which is very telling. The reviews for the movie aren't good, especially word-of-mouth, if you can't tell. The movie will have as much societal impact as Hot Tub Time Machine 2.

The only way this movie will impact people is by making older women hornier and in increasing the sales of certain sex toys. I also remember a couple of years ago when the book was exploding in popularity that scientists on the UK predicted a baby boom (more babies being born) because of this book. I wouldnt believe such a sad piece of fan fiction would have that much impact on people but there you go.
The mc of this book is a pretty creepy guy and the girl is spineless. It does promote some questionable values.

Tons of movies have negative aspects that are portrayed in a positive way. Look at any action movie and do a head count of how many people the hero basically kills in order to reach an end result. Or even the whole horror genre wants you to really like the "villain" more so than the hero.

50 Shades is mainly just a fad for our society. It got a lot of buzz because of the graphic nature of the book and potential movie. It 2-3 months everyone will be talking about something new and 50 Shades will be forgotten, mainly cause the movie apparently isn't that great.

I think people are using terms like "impact society" too easily. For something to impact society, it has to be the one responsible for said impact; it has to be the cause, and not just a related factor. For example, if I see a McDonalds advertisement and I subsequently go out and buy one of their hamburgers, I'm the one responsible for buying that burger, so on and so fourth. Bantering around this sort of premise is the goal I had in mind upon making the thread.