Expensive-looking 50 Shades of Grey thread of mommy-porn

[Necrometer]

I'm 100% with The Kill, but I am also totally enjoying Geoff & KRB's mourning of literature. It's absurdist but awesome. I wonder if there are some women on a cinema forum somewhere just finding out about blue movies and absolutely losing their minds with rage...

[Necrometer]

There are "musicians" in popular "bands" that don't even do anything and just dance around over a sync track. We accept it as part of that medium because musicality isn't the focus.

I hear there's not a lot of sex in it, though. It doesn't really seem like porn. I don't think women are all over it because of that.

I think it's like Twilight, except instead of vampires the hook is being cared for by a rich man.

It's like a poorly written romance novel.

Right, but romance novels are definitely female porn (and those have been hilarious for a long time now). And these things are funny because (like filmed porn) they sometimes fall into the chasm between proper art and utilitarian/LCD smut. I think we (as men) are particularly amused by the shit because it less clearly registers as erotic (since it's built for differently-wired brains) and it therefore registers as attempted-literature exclusively.

[Kurt Russell's Beard]

Popular literature has been shit for a while now...even most of my favorite waiting-in-an-airport authors have had their talent (and what seems like their will to live) destroyed. I have no idea what's happening...if it isn't Western culture going down the shitter it feels like everyone just gave up all at the same time.

There are very real numbers to back up the decline of literature. And it's not just that bookstores have closed because everyone has moved their business to Amazon. The number of books sold, period, anywhere, has been in serious decline. The only feeding frenzies in reading lately have been these poorly-written series that emotionally manipulate kids and women, since their minds are weak, so that's what publishers are trying to push. I can't complain. I'm here wasting time on a message board instead of reading.

[Necrometer]

I'm here wasting time on a message board instead of reading.

Is someone dictating it to you?

[Kurt Russell's Beard]

Right, but romance novels are definitely female porn (and those have been hilarious for a long time now). And these things are funny because (like filmed porn) they sometimes fall into the chasm between proper art and utilitarian/LCD smut. I think we (as men) are particularly amused by the shit because it less clearly registers as erotic (since it's built for differently-wired brains) and it therefore registers as attempted-literature exclusively.

Yup, you're right about that.

[Whee of the Dead]

Aren't these type of bashings the main reason we're on this forum, Ross? Do you think I can go to work and hear people rant about this shit and Prometheus?

[Necrometer]

Popular literature has been shit for a while now...even most of my favorite waiting-in-an-airport authors have had their talent (and what seems like their will to live) destroyed. I have no idea what's happening...if it isn't Western culture going down the shitter it feels like everyone just gave up all at the same time.

There are very real numbers to back up the decline of literature. And it's not just that bookstores have closed because everyone has moved their business to Amazon. The number of books sold, period, anywhere, has been in serious decline. The only feeding frenzies in reading lately have been these poorly-written series that emotionally manipulate kids and women, since their minds are weak, so that's what publishers are trying to push. I can't complain. I'm here wasting time on a message board instead of reading.

This. All of it.

I think this very real trend is coincident to a romance novel going viral, though... the fact that mommies even have e-readers on which to consume their mommy-porn might even be taken as a positive thing? Again, people are probably just reading Twilight and Harry Potter on them. Blame capitalism, like I always do.

[Necrometer]

Aren't these type of bashings the main reason we're on this forum, Ross? Do you think I can go to work and hear people rant about this shit and Prometheus?

Thank you. Because, honestly, I'm not ANYWHERE in real life subjecting people to my rants about this book or the decline of literature. Seriously. I just am in complain and argue mode when I post here sometimes, and it's fun. Not saying I don't believe what I've said here-- I do-- but I'm not at work telling doctors "HAVE YOU READ THIS 50 SHADE OF GREY BULLSHIT??"

I am also totally enjoying Geoff & KRB's mourning of literature.

[Necrometer]

The thing I'm most guilty of in the past 10 years is in no way challenging myself with new books. I'd say two out of every three books I read are "re-reads" of things I either love a ton or haven't read in so many years that I want to see if they stand up. It's been a while since I've really found and fell in love with a new author and that smacks of poser.

Does this trend apply with other entertainment/art mediums? Music, film? I have the similar experience and I think a lot of people do as they age. It's a combination of things being less impressive as you become a refined appreciator (aka being jaded?), things actually tending to be crappier nowadays (or is this a phantom effect carried over from being jaded?), and simply lacking the (free)time/energy to dig new stuff up... and it's a negative feedback cycle when you do bother: "hey, that experiment in new stuff didn't pay off - back to the classics!"

[Kurt Russell's Beard]

Most of my book purchases in the last five years have been buying the classics, or re-buying my beloved paperbacks as hardcovers. I don't read a lot of new fiction. Because most of it is a waste of time. Seriously. Age vets great works, it's not a perfect system, some worthwhile novels are buried (but that's part of the fun, finding them), but you know that a classic has some value. Take the year 1867, for example. We have two good novels from that year, Dostoevsky's The Gambler, and Ibsen's Peer Gynt. Yet thousands of novels were released that year. And we recognize two as really notable. Maybe the year 2012 will have two novels that in 100 years they'll look back on as being wonderful. But I'm not going to wade through a hundred new novels this year and try to find them, fuck that. I'm going to look at the great novels we already know are pretty great. A man could blindly read new novels all his life and never accidentally read the good ones. Fuck that kind of life.

[Raw Ting]

The thing I'm most guilty of in the past 10 years is in no way challenging myself with new books. I'd say two out of every three books I read are "re-reads" of things I either love a ton or haven't read in so many years that I want to see if they stand up. It's been a while since I've really found and fell in love with a new author and that smacks of poser.

Does this trend apply with other entertainment/art mediums? Music, film? I have the similar experience and I think a lot of people do as they age. It's a combination of things being less impressive as you become a refined appreciator (aka being jaded?), things actually tending to be crappier nowadays (or is this a phantom effect carried over from being jaded?), and simply lacking the (free)time/energy to dig new stuff up... and it's a negative feedback cycle when you do bother: "hey, that experiment in new stuff didn't pay off - back to the classics!"

I was just thinking about this the other day, when trying to discover new bands. I always find myself going back to the tried and true, the cream of the crop. I don't want to wade through endless piles of shit to find one stand out band, but every now and then when it does happen it is cool. Jaded at 25

[riley-o]

I really hope she threw a British spelling after "disorientated"

she is from the uk

Yeah but she immediately points that out like she's one-upping you, "I know I'm going to get called on this being wrong, but I'm actually right ! Surprise !" It's that she assumes her audience won't know there's differences in British English but assumes they'll know those words are "wrong" that's presumptuous and funny. Like, is her inbox just getting flooded with emails pointing out that she spelled instalment wrong ?!

[Kurt Russell's Beard]

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/07/06/tak ... -vacation/

Sweeping the nation. End times.

[Kurt Russell's Beard]

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/07/06/tak ... -vacation/

Sweeping the nation. End times.

"...complete with bottles of pinot gris, rides in Audis (the car of choice for Christian Grey, the novel’s titular billionaire sex machine), and helicopter tours of Portland and Seattle. "

Didn't fancy hotels offer this stuff anyway?

Yes.

I have to thank Christian Grey for showing me what women really want. A hot, mega-rich dude. Women are just as shallow as men, yay!

[featherboa]

I'm like 3 pages late, but

http://www.theshallowsbook.com/nicholas ... llows.html

Is Google making us stupid? When Nicholas Carr posed that question in a celebrated Atlantic essay, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply?

[Necrometer]

TLDR

I think the more important question is why THIS book is being treated as something sexually liberating for women when it simply reheats age-old, misogynistic gendered stereotypes, sprinkles some S & M on top, and gives itself a veneer of authenticity by virtue of coming from a female writer. I mean this in every way subscribes to traditional, and yes sexist, notions of romance in which the female is submissive from the start - and likes it that way. I mean for f**k's sake, does she really have to be a virgin? REALLY? Talk about cliche and abborhent. As someone who practices S & M as a submissive, I can guarantee that a BDSM sexual experience does not BEGIN on such unequal footing. In fact, its very serious that ground rules are agreed upon prior to the encounter, and its important the the dominant person is acting with care and attention to the sub's pleasure. In this novel, its just wholesale domination, in every aspect of her life, without regard to her pleasure, and it seems that its more the sexualization of gendered inequality that happens all over our society, than an exploration of the psycho-sexual aspects of bdsm. Call me close-minded but I'm seriously annoyed that the first mainstream-embraced novel about bdsm features a *virginal*, naive, dumb college student and an immensely powerful and rich executive who *manipulates* her into submission - in every aspect of her life.

I really hope she threw a British spelling after "disorientated"

she is from the uk

Yeah but she immediately points that out like she's one-upping you, "I know I'm going to get called on this being wrong, but I'm actually right ! Surprise !" It's that she assumes her audience won't know there's differences in British English but assumes they'll know those words are "wrong" that's presumptuous and funny. Like, is her inbox just getting flooded with emails pointing out that she spelled instalment wrong ?!

hahahaha... even mid-level tards (who don't know there's more than one English) are mad enough at her horrible writing to hit her with hate mail

[Necrometer]

Some scientist I'm helping today said "it is what it is", meaning "I'll take what I can get". For the record.

[THE KILL]

I don't get the selective outrage over what this board makes fun of? Shitty music? Go ahead-- 20 plus page thread! Shitty people? For sure-- A MAN AND A WOMAN MEET!! Shitty books? Stop being butthurt intellectuals.

Nah man I just don't care enough about you guys' music tastes or your penchant for ridiculing people you don't like to read those shitty threads. I'm a lazy poster anyway.

By the same token... I want a writer to be able to at least write a LITTLE bit. My example above was that Grisham was seen as the anti-christ by some nose-in-the-air literary types (not me) but at least he could put a sentence together. Is it wrong to hold even these basest of standards? That our singers be able to sing without computer help and that our writers not use "murmured" 120-some odd times in a 200 pages book?

I agree with you, but shitty books/ films/ music being incredibly successful isn't a new phenomenon. The Harry Potter books are almost as shitty as this 50 shades of grey nonsense but they sold like hot cakes anyway. You could argue that they were kids'/ young adults' books but there are so many grown-ups and people who should know better (literature students for example) who read that shit that it's not funny anymore.

Music nowadays is really shit, though. I blame ze blacks...

There are very real numbers to back up the decline of literature.... The number of books sold, period, anywhere, has been in serious decline.

Not sure what my stance is on this.... on the one hand I feel it's just one more medium being replaced by another/ other one(s), but yeah, somehow I still think reading is more valuable than watching a film. Which is surely nonsense? I don't know. I certainly wish my pupils would read more, but still...

[THE KILL]

I really hope she threw a British spelling after "disorientated"

she is from the uk

Yeah but she immediately points that out like she's one-upping you, "I know I'm going to get called on this being wrong, but I'm actually right ! Surprise !" It's that she assumes her audience won't know there's differences in British English but assumes they'll know those words are "wrong" that's presumptuous and funny. Like, is her inbox just getting flooded with emails pointing out that she spelled instalment wrong ?!

Haha typical north-american inferiority complex

[THE KILL]

I think the more important question is why THIS book is being treated as something sexually liberating for women when it simply reheats age-old, misogynistic gendered stereotypes, sprinkles some S & M on top, and gives itself a veneer of authenticity by virtue of coming from a female writer. I mean this in every way subscribes to traditional, and yes sexist, notions of romance in which the female is submissive from the start - and likes it that way. I mean for f**k's sake, does she really have to be a virgin? REALLY? Talk about cliche and abborhent. As someone who practices S & M as a submissive, I can guarantee that a BDSM sexual experience does not BEGIN on such unequal footing. In fact, its very serious that ground rules are agreed upon prior to the encounter, and its important the the dominant person is acting with care and attention to the sub's pleasure. In this novel, its just wholesale domination, in every aspect of her life, without regard to her pleasure, and it seems that its more the sexualization of gendered inequality that happens all over our society, than an exploration of the psycho-sexual aspects of bdsm. Call me close-minded but I'm seriously annoyed that the first mainstream-embraced novel about bdsm features a *virginal*, naive, dumb college student and an immensely powerful and rich executive who *manipulates* her into submission - in every aspect of her life.

Yeah, that's just about it, you're close-minded. It's a sexual fantasy, and those do not have to conform to anyone's political/ sexual ideology. One of the most popular sexual fantasy among women is being raped (apparently, it's one of the stables of romance novels/ women porn), but it doesn't say anything about their stance towards human rights etc. Women and men get off on non-PC sex/ sexual fantasies and there's nothing you can do about it, so lighten the fuck up you bourgeois fuck. Jeez...

[THE KILL]

LOL WAT

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/f ... lis-335866

Bret Easton Ellis Wants to Adapt 'Fifty Shades of Grey,' Has Director and Cast in Mind
12:45 PM PDT 6/11/2012 by Philiana Ng
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Michael Buckner/Getty Images for Dewars
Bret Easton Ellis
"Completely committed to adapting Fifty Shades of Grey. This is not a joke," he wrote on Twitter; David Cronenberg was bandied about as Ellis' ideal pick for director.

Fifty Shades of Grey has Hollywood blushing and author/screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis is putting himself up for consideration to adapt the best-selling E.L. James novel.
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Ellis took to Twitter to announce his intention to transition Grey from book to big screen: "I'm putting myself out there to write the movie adaptation of 'Fifty Shades of Grey' ...," he wrote Saturday morning. If Ellis' nearly 292,000 followers thought he was kidding, he made 100 percent clear of his desires.
"Completely committed to adapting Fifty Shades of Grey. This is not a joke. Christian Grey and Ana: potentially great cinematic characters," Ellis wrote that evening after sharing that he had contacted his agent about putting himself up for the job.
PHOTOS: 11 Biggest Book-to-Big Screen Adaptations of the Last 25 Years
After calling protagonist Christian Grey, an enigmatic wealthy businessman, "a writer's dream," Ellis continued on his efforts to meet with the studio. On Sunday, he wrote that his team had been informed: "Okay. Today the team has been briefed and we will be approaching the studio this week about BEE adapting 'Fifty Shades of Grey' into a film."
He even went so far to say filmmaker David Cronenberg, who directed A Dangerous Method and Cosmopolis and who he had worked with briefly for American Psycho, would be his ideal pick to step behind the camera. This comes days after news surfaced that Angelina Jolie was once linked to direct.
"I think David Cronenberg is a great idea for directing Fifty Shades of Grey and we worked together on American Psycho in its initial phase," Ellis wrote.
PHOTOS: The Dirty Dozen: Films That Narrowly Avoided an NC-17
Though several tweets that seem to have been deleted, Ellis also teased his picks for Christian and college student Anastasia who gets wrapped up in a complicated sexual relationship with him.
"The casting of Christian in 'Fifty Shades of Grey' wouldn't be up to me but I have certain actors in mind. And a particular actress for Ana," he wrote.
Ellis wrote, according to Digital Spy: "Cronenberg and Alexander Skarsgård is a no-brainer. I've seen Alexander naked so many times at the gym that we both attend: perfect casting."
"Thinking more conventionally for Ana in Fifty Shades of Grey: Scarlett Johansson or Kristen Stewart. Alex Pettyfer as Christian: too young?," he said. Aaron Johnson and Ryan Gosling ("In a perfect world") were also put into the fray.

[THE KILL]

[The Harry Potter books are almost as shitty as this 50 shades of grey nonsense

Not even in the same ballpark. Harry Potter isn't Faulkner, but it's at least competent. 50 Shades of Grey isn't just subjectively bad, as in "Oh I don't like the writing style", it's to the point where a college 101 class wouldn't accept it.

Hey man, if the quality of a book is below a certain threshold I don't bother pondering whether it's more or less shitty than another shitty book. It's just shit and I will role my eyes at you in a very aggressive fashion if you admitted to liking it.

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

So you enjoyed Harry Potter, huh? Pffff...

[THE KILL]

I think the more important question is why THIS book is being treated as something sexually liberating for women when it simply reheats age-old, misogynistic gendered stereotypes, sprinkles some S & M on top, and gives itself a veneer of authenticity by virtue of coming from a female writer. I mean this in every way subscribes to traditional, and yes sexist, notions of romance in which the female is submissive from the start - and likes it that way. I mean for f**k's sake, does she really have to be a virgin? REALLY? Talk about cliche and abborhent. As someone who practices S & M as a submissive, I can guarantee that a BDSM sexual experience does not BEGIN on such unequal footing. In fact, its very serious that ground rules are agreed upon prior to the encounter, and its important the the dominant person is acting with care and attention to the sub's pleasure. In this novel, its just wholesale domination, in every aspect of her life, without regard to her pleasure, and it seems that its more the sexualization of gendered inequality that happens all over our society, than an exploration of the psycho-sexual aspects of bdsm. Call me close-minded but I'm seriously annoyed that the first mainstream-embraced novel about bdsm features a *virginal*, naive, dumb college student and an immensely powerful and rich executive who *manipulates* her into submission - in every aspect of her life.

Yeah, that's just about it, you're close-minded. It's a sexual fantasy, and those do not have to conform to anyone's political/ sexual ideology. One of the most popular sexual fantasy among women is being raped (apparently, it's one of the stables of romance novels/ women porn), but it doesn't say anything about their stance towards human rights etc. Women and men get off on non-PC sex/ sexual fantasies and there's nothing you can do about it, so lighten the fuck up you bourgeois fuck. Jeez...

Be sure to check your fantasies in with the Political Police before you rehearse them in your mind.

Exactly.

[Necrometer]

Cronenberg would CRUSH this shit - I sincerely hope that happens


and casting Kristen Stewart would probably implode my brain

[Necrometer]

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

I think the more important question is why THIS book is being treated as something sexually liberating for women when it simply reheats age-old, misogynistic gendered stereotypes, sprinkles some S & M on top, and gives itself a veneer of authenticity by virtue of coming from a female writer. I mean this in every way subscribes to traditional, and yes sexist, notions of romance in which the female is submissive from the start - and likes it that way. I mean for f**k's sake, does she really have to be a virgin? REALLY? Talk about cliche and abborhent. As someone who practices S & M as a submissive, I can guarantee that a BDSM sexual experience does not BEGIN on such unequal footing. In fact, its very serious that ground rules are agreed upon prior to the encounter, and its important the the dominant person is acting with care and attention to the sub's pleasure. In this novel, its just wholesale domination, in every aspect of her life, without regard to her pleasure, and it seems that its more the sexualization of gendered inequality that happens all over our society, than an exploration of the psycho-sexual aspects of bdsm. Call me close-minded but I'm seriously annoyed that the first mainstream-embraced novel about bdsm features a *virginal*, naive, dumb college student and an immensely powerful and rich executive who *manipulates* her into submission - in every aspect of her life.

Yeah, that's just about it, you're close-minded. It's a sexual fantasy, and those do not have to conform to anyone's political/ sexual ideology. One of the most popular sexual fantasy among women is being raped (apparently, it's one of the stables of romance novels/ women porn), but it doesn't say anything about their stance towards human rights etc. Women and men get off on non-PC sex/ sexual fantasies and there's nothing you can do about it, so lighten the fuck up you bourgeois fuck. Jeez...

I think her frustration is justified - if she's into kinky shit and that's important to her, then this book goes viral and runs the absolute worst PR campaign of misinformation against BDSM... she has every right to her feelings and response

but no one is "to blame" because E L James was initially just fucking off posting Twilight fan-fic, never realizing that she was actually going to be telling so many people that it's perfectly natural for a sub to be actually weeping during her first flogging

I already addressed this with the rape-fantasy-fulfillment angle so I don't disagree with your response either