There are several classic ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day: going out for a nice dinner, to a movie, and maybe some romantic…bondage?
This year, Fifty Shades of Grey is the most anticipated Valentine’s Day blockbuster release. Based on the saga by E. L. James, Fifty Shades of Grey follows Anastasia Steele’s (Dakota Johnson) problematic relationship with the formidable Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). This series is marked for its erotic content, revolving mostly around what is defined as BDSM, or bondage-dominance-submission-masochism.
Readers of the books are thrilled to see the soon-to-be-released film, but others have raised concerns about the film’s content and the depiction of the relationship between Steele and Grey.
Most of these concerns revolve around Steele and Grey’s sexual relationship as one that glorifies abuse instead of portraying a safe and healthy display of BDSM.
Fifty Shades of Grey was written originally as Twilight fanfiction, which is already problematic to begin with. The Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer is characterized by Bella Swan’s relationship with her vampire boyfriend, Edward Cullen.
Young readers around the nation, including myself once upon a time, envied the romance between Bella and Edward. Upon further analysis though, Bella and Edward’s relationship is anything but healthy. Edward exhibits traits characteristic of a possessive partner, some of which that qualify as psychological abuse.
For example, Edward repeatedly tells Bella what she can and cannot do, specifically in relation to her friendship with Jacob, giving himself ultimate control over Bella. These behaviors are not healthy and are considered abusive. And that’s just one example.
Having established the dangers of basing a story with a solid foundation on such a problematic relationship, Fifty Shades of Grey is already set up for the opportunity to exhibit signs of abuse, and follows through on that point. Steele and Grey’s relationship in Fifty Shades of Grey does qualify as abusive as well. Not only psychologically, but physically too.
While Christian Grey’s sexual treatment of Anastasia Steele throughout the novel is seen as a portrayal of BDSM, it is anything but.
BDSM is a type of sexual fantasy that requires trust and respect of one’s partner. If one feels uncomfortable in the act or uses the “safe word,” the other partner is expected to respect that decision and stop immediately.
Christian Grey fails to do this.
Throughout the novels, he ignores Anastasia’s protests when she feels uncomfortable. He goes so far as to say that he doesn’t care whether or not she is okay with it.
The worst part about this situation is that it raises concerns for how Hollywood and the media will portray this relationship. The Grey-Steele dynamic has already been wrongly interpreted as a genuine example of a normal dom-sub relationship, so it brings questions of what will happen when it is visually displayed for the public to see.
If Hollywood or the media manages to reflect this relationship as an unproblematic one, it could lead to issues of desensitizing the public to a real form of abuse and blurring the line between roleplaying and violence.