Or maybe that title should read Fifty Shades of IN Trouble?
Let me go back several years to a simpler time, when I was young and naive and thought no one would ever intentionally hurt me...
*cue the wavy lines they use in the old movies to indicate a flashback*
I was a freshman in college, thinking of majoring in Theater Arts, and a friend introduced me to another actor. We dated, we had sex that didn't do anything for me, I moved on....
Or so I thought.
But he was very obsessive, determined we would marry and I would be his submissive little wifey. (Cue Bugs Bunny link: http://www.talkingwav.com/cartoon/bugs_22.wav) When I still refused, he played hard ball, insisting that "a woman needs calcium at every meal", he brought me milk and antagonized me until I drank it. I would wake up the next day tied to his bed, naked, with nothing but bruises and body aches to clue me in as to what had happened once I finished the milk....
Suffice to say that, with the help of some very good friends, I walked away from that situation and try to never look back into that darkness.....
Now, back to current day and the women who are flooding Facebook with this whole "Fifty Shades of Grey" craze. Encouraged by several friends, I started to read the book once....and it raised so many red flags and brought on so many nightmares that I returned it to the library. Christian Grey is SO much like that man I met in college that I can't force myself to read the rest, much less see the movie.
So, to make friends stop asking me what I thought of the movie, I posted this:
I even have backup in the form of multitudes of articles, like this one, that also saw what I saw in that book...http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/consent-isnt-enough-in-fifty-shades-of-grey/385267/
But, as my dad used to say when he was warning us against being too opinionated, "Open mouth, insert foot."
I have been absolutely barraged by fans of the book who didn't see that, when she gives a safe word and he refuses to stop, that's rape, and when a man does such a thing to his own wife, that's domestic violence. Courtesy of one sour apple, I've never delved further into the barrel of BDSM culture, but I know people who have, and they say this is NOT a good representation of their world....
Please don't try to insist that you're right and I'm wrong, as even briefly skimming the top of that long ago relationship for the sake of the few lines I wrote above without having to dive back into my nightmares to defend why I feel the way I do....but I HAVE to ask....
What do you think of all this hoopla? Is this book trilogy really worth all the media coverage, or did the author just manage to hit the right people at the right time?
Of course, while I would try to make it sound like my interest is merely clinical, there is a darker shade to my question. I'm trying to market my own books in every way I can and suggest ploys to Northern Bard Publication to get those ever popular "New York Times Best Sellers" in our stable of authors...
I want to know who I need to do the BDSM treatment to in order to get the kind of media attention this first timer got......
Let me go back several years to a simpler time, when I was young and naive and thought no one would ever intentionally hurt me...
*cue the wavy lines they use in the old movies to indicate a flashback*
I was a freshman in college, thinking of majoring in Theater Arts, and a friend introduced me to another actor. We dated, we had sex that didn't do anything for me, I moved on....
Or so I thought.
But he was very obsessive, determined we would marry and I would be his submissive little wifey. (Cue Bugs Bunny link: http://www.talkingwav.com/cartoon/bugs_22.wav) When I still refused, he played hard ball, insisting that "a woman needs calcium at every meal", he brought me milk and antagonized me until I drank it. I would wake up the next day tied to his bed, naked, with nothing but bruises and body aches to clue me in as to what had happened once I finished the milk....
Suffice to say that, with the help of some very good friends, I walked away from that situation and try to never look back into that darkness.....
Now, back to current day and the women who are flooding Facebook with this whole "Fifty Shades of Grey" craze. Encouraged by several friends, I started to read the book once....and it raised so many red flags and brought on so many nightmares that I returned it to the library. Christian Grey is SO much like that man I met in college that I can't force myself to read the rest, much less see the movie.
So, to make friends stop asking me what I thought of the movie, I posted this:
I even have backup in the form of multitudes of articles, like this one, that also saw what I saw in that book...http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/consent-isnt-enough-in-fifty-shades-of-grey/385267/
But, as my dad used to say when he was warning us against being too opinionated, "Open mouth, insert foot."
I have been absolutely barraged by fans of the book who didn't see that, when she gives a safe word and he refuses to stop, that's rape, and when a man does such a thing to his own wife, that's domestic violence. Courtesy of one sour apple, I've never delved further into the barrel of BDSM culture, but I know people who have, and they say this is NOT a good representation of their world....
Please don't try to insist that you're right and I'm wrong, as even briefly skimming the top of that long ago relationship for the sake of the few lines I wrote above without having to dive back into my nightmares to defend why I feel the way I do....but I HAVE to ask....
What do you think of all this hoopla? Is this book trilogy really worth all the media coverage, or did the author just manage to hit the right people at the right time?
Of course, while I would try to make it sound like my interest is merely clinical, there is a darker shade to my question. I'm trying to market my own books in every way I can and suggest ploys to Northern Bard Publication to get those ever popular "New York Times Best Sellers" in our stable of authors...
I want to know who I need to do the BDSM treatment to in order to get the kind of media attention this first timer got......
i haven't been able to read any blogs in forever, and it figures that when i finally do get on everything is 50 shades. i never read the books ON PRINCIPLE. and not the principle that is against rape culture and abusive relationships, because at the start i didn't even know that the books promoted that, it was just a side perk. i was against the way that the books got published in the first place.
ReplyDeletei will try and tell this as briefly as i can. 50 shades started off as twilight fanfiction. edward was a successful business man or something with a dark secret and i guess a bdsm obsession. bella was a college student. jacob was in there somewhere, too. anyway, i don't know how familiar you are with fanfiction, but especially when it is written about something with a fanbase like twilight, stories get HUGE followings. it doesn't matter if a story is written well or not, people are so excited to read about their favorite characters in new situations that they become obsessed. anyway, her story was posted on the normal fanfiction sites for free (as they all used to be), but then, for the last chapter i believe, she would only post it on a site that required readers to "donate" to the author before they could read the story. her obsessed fans did not mind paying a few dollars to read the end of a story that had followed for so long. (fanfiction readers are very loyal and supportive of fanfiction writers. the relationship can actually be pretty awesome. unless it's abused like this.)
anyway, she got so many donations that she ended up changing the names and a few major twilight references, took her fanfiction down from everywhere online, and headed to a publisher. "look at my book," she told them. "i already had thousands of people pay to read it. you should totally buy it." and because publishers care more about money than stories these days, they jumped on it. remember the loyalty of fanfiction readers? they were more than willing to go out and buy the books when it came out. this got word out about it. others read it. some loved it, some absolutely hated it. when things get reactions on either extreme, it generates more talk. when things are talked about, they get more popular. to be a best seller, you just need to sell a certain amount of books in one day (which is why 99c book promotions can come in handy). she got that and more. it ended up becoming the most sold paperback ever, displacing harry potter sadly. and that is how a first timer got that kind of media attention.
Wow! I really didn't know that, Sarah! Thank you. (Though now I'm kicking myself, as I had a Star Wars fanfiction in college, well before the world of the internet had opened up, and may have been able to become a popular writer if I had thought to follow through.)
ReplyDeleteSince I thought the Twilight fan craze was a little insane, I'll stick to my guns as a non-fanfiction writer at this point. I'd rather be what Stephen King calls a "real writer, with real world values" than sell a million by riding someone else's coat tails to stardom.
Thank you again for your feedback!