Point blank: yes, Fifty Shades of Grey is pretty damn sexist. Christian and Ana reflect an extreme conservative ideal of relationships: he is the dominant man, lavishing her in expensive gifts and taking control of every aspect of her life, even buying the publishing house she works for and appointing her the head of a division. It’s a topic I have written a lot about, both for media studies classes and in my thesis, and there are a couple of ways to look at Fifty Shades other than the same tired think pieces about submission and feminism that will no doubt start popping up all over again. That being said, my friend Torii texted me to ask what I thought of the series and I just couldn’t help myself. I don’t want to be one of the many bloggers rehashing the same arguments about the Fifty Shades series and its implication for feminism, its conflation of abuse with BDSM relationships, and how much the writing sucks. James’s best selling series, the first theatrical trailer for the film adaptation dropped this morning and the internet lost its mind. Like any self-identifying feminist who reads a lot of women’s erotica, I have a lot of opinions about Fifty Shades of Grey.
