In Defense of 'Fifty Shades of Grey'

After my blog post 'Fifty Shades of Shame', I've been taken to task by a couple of people who claim I've been too harsh on the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. Now that I've finally finished the first book, I've decided to dig down (way, way deep down) and find seven reasons why Fifty Shades may not be as bad as I and many others make it out to be. Be warned, there will be spoilers. Here goes nothing:

1) It may not seem like it but the characters do have talents and interests outside of the bedroom. Anastasia has a degree in English literature and her knowledge of the literary canon is semi-impressive. I would imagine that for the heroines of most romance novels, Romeo & Juliet and/or Pride & Prejudice would be the literature of choice. Anastasia's interest in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'urbervilles is at least something different. Christian has a keen interest in flying planes, has an eclectic taste in music and, according to Anastasia, is excellent on the piano. Neither Anastasia nor Christian are fully rounded characters but by indicating these interests/ talents, E.L. James at least tries to make them seem that way.

2) Though most of the laughs are unintentional, the book can be very funny. The cheeky e-mail exchanges between Christian and Anastasia are a case in point. I particularly liked one instance where, after asking Anastasia if she's looked through his contract which binds her to his S&M practices, she replies 'yes, nice knowing you'. Also the fact that Christian is 27 yet speaks as if he's an anal-retentive 60 year-old is a masterstroke of comic writing.

3) The sex scenes are entertaining and insightful at times. No seriously, they can be. I mean I didn't know what vanilla sex is before reading the book. Nor did I know so many everyday objects could make such useful S&M toys.

4) If you imagine that Fifty Shades is a modern adult retelling of Bluebeard or Beauty and the Beast it's not as bad as it seems. Part of the antagonism towards the trilogy is that its roots are in Twilight fan fiction. If it was actually based on a fairytale narrative, it might have seemed a bit more intelligent and have greater credibility. I mean E.L. James is definitely no Angela Carter but a thesis comparing Fifty Shades to the above fairytales could yield some interesting results.

5) There are enough red herrings to keep readers coming back for more. What secret is Christian keeping about his past? Will Christian and Anastasia get back together? These are questions which can only be answered once you've read Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed.

6) The book is actually not as misogynistic as it seems. The fact that Christian gives Anastasia quite a bit of power in their relationship attests to this. She may end up with a  a sore heart and a sore ass but at least she has the freedom to navigate the relationship as she sees fit.

7) Well I read the whole book and I've now written two blogs on it. Hence despite the fact that I call it boring and ridiculous, I must have liked it to some extent if I can't stop talking about it!

And there are my seven reasons. With that, this is where it all stops. I've ended my contract with Christian and Anastasia . The Red Room of Pain will have to live on without me.  I'm now Fifty Shades Freed.

Source for Pic : ashionista.com/2012/06/fifty-shades-of-grey-to-blame-for-spike-in-sales-of-rope-neck-ties/

'Hunger Games' is Food For Thought

Right now  Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games trilogy has taken over my life. I'm presenting a paper on it, writing an essay on it and now writing a blog post about it. The question is, why? I've never really been into popular young adult  fiction. This is mainly because I find it difficult to follow a series of books. I usually prefer to be done with a single group of characters after one book. Keeping track of them for two or more is a hell of a lot of work. Plus, I hate to generalize but I get the impression that, with the exception of a few gems, much of it is Twilight with different front covers and character names.

In many ways The Hunger Games trilogy suffers from the usual flaws of this genre. It is not particularly well written, it has one of those icky love triangles and the the story is told, rather annoyingly, through the eyes of Katniss Everdeen, the strong-willed female protagonist. This greatly  limits our engagement with the world Collins attempts to create because we are never given the opportunity to see what happens outside of Katniss's head (the strength of the first film is that it does remove us from the inner workings of Katniss's mind). More than this, as the trilogy progresses, the narrative becomes increasingly more complicated and Collins appears to  continuously battle to steer it towards its conclusion.

With all these faults, why am I so besotted with The Hunger Games? Well, regardless of these flaws, the trilogy is not just gripping but also surprisingly insightful on a broad range of subjects. Though the trilogy has rightfully been deemed a fusion between 1984 and Lord of the Flies, it's not as contextually bound to a particular time period or thematic concerns as these works are. A single book in the trilogy could be read from numerous different perspectives.On one hand, it could be read as a commentary on the inner workings of the media and the artificiality of reality TV. On another, it could be said to bear the markers of a Christian allegory. In her continuous efforts to sacrifice herself for her family and lead her district to freedom, Katniss essentially is a female, futuristic Christ-like figure. Then there are the various political or historical narratives that  can be associated with the trilogy. Collins formulated the idea for the trilogy while watching a news broadcast on the war in Iraq. Indeed, there are many associations that could be made between the events of this war and the narrative which folds in The Hunger Games trilogy. However, the trilogy could just as easily be associated with, amongst other things, the politics we face in South Africa which present us with a very different kind of war. Is the Capitol not essentially like the ANC in some ways? The separation of the districts itself also speaks to issues of xenophobia that still plague our country on a daily basis.  In my studies I associate the trilogy with Holocaust narratives. The fact that I can draw a comparison between a a trilogy that takes place in a very distant future and the terrible events that transpired in Nazi Germany between 1939-1945, attests to the richness one can find when digging into the subtext of The Hunger Games trilogy.

I think what is most impressive about The Hunger Games trilogy is that by presenting young adult readers with all these varying subtexts, the trilogy allows them to engage knowingly and astutely with the world around them. Unlike the brainless, misogynistic  Twilight which, as Stephen King attests to, is all about how to get a boyfriend, The Hunger Games is about engaging with the world we lived in in the past and the world we live in today. It encourages readers to think, question and (in some cases) take action. The success of the trilogy is testimony to the fact that young readers are becoming increasingly more preoccupied with learning about their socio-political reality and, in doing so, approaching it from a challenging and analytical perspective. If a teenager who reads The Hunger Games is inspired to become president one day then Collins has done a fantastic job.

Source for photo 1: http://screenrant.com/hunger-games-movie-books-facts-kofi-160434/
Source for photo 2: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/mar/22/the-hunger-games-review

Fifty Shades of 'Shame'

So I'm almost, almost done reading the first book in the trilogy of this  Fifty Shades of Grey crap that everyone's been "raving" about and let me tell you, the rumours are true: its god-awful. The first few chapters are pure Danielle Steele and the rest...well it's just a bunch of talk about ass-whippings, erections and nipples half the time. I pity the trees that were sacrificed for the printing of these books. What's even more troubling for me though is how much Fifty Shades reminds me of Shame, a critically lauded art-house film I saw recently.

Directed by Steve McQueen (no relation to the actor, I think), Shame tells the tale of Brandon (Michael Fassbender) who, on the surface, appears to be a nice enough hard-working guy (his job is never really revealed or explained). Behind closed doors, however, Brandon is a hardcore sex addict who will take any opportunity to put his lower body to 'good' use. He is constantly jerking off to Internet porn or hiring prostitutes to get some real vaginal or anal action. It seems to be a perverse enough existence until his wayward sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) shows up and moves in with him. Her arrival (as well as her sexual encounters with his boss) somehow inspire Brandon to attempt to abstain from sex. Yet that proves to be impossible and he starts doing it all over again, even throwing men into the mix near the end of the film (the film shows no signs that he's bisexual, just that he's desperate for sex that he'll have it with anyone or anything). And that's it... well mostly. There is an attempt at developing a narrative around Brandon's relationship with Sissy but it's pretty much lost amidst all the sex.



Like Fifty Shades, Shame really has nothing of importance to say. Just like the novel's infamous Christian Grey, we have no insight into who Brandon is beyond his sex addiction. We just know that (again, like Christian) he constantly walks around with an intense look on his face, constantly on the prowl for someone to fuel his desires. Women are also mostly just there to be played with and then disposed of. It's really just a depressing porn movie. Yet critics (at least the American ones) seem to be lapping it up. The film has a metacritic rating of 72% and Roger Ebert (my favourite US film critic) scored it a perfect 100! Ebert justifies this score by claiming that Shame is a fine feat of acting and filmmaking.

 



Okay so I kind of agree about the acting part. Michael Fassbender is actually pretty damn good in this film. Sure he seems completely tortured throughout the film but at least he's able to show us some glimpse of Brandon's humanity. Also you've got to admire a man who's willing to go commando on camera. Now that must be someone who really will do anything for his craft. Other than that though, there really is not much filmmaking going on there. The sex scenes are at the endless length that the one's in Fifty Shades will probably be when the film produced (yes, there is indeed a film in the works) and even the non-sex scenes are pretty much just long scenes of people hanging around looking desperate. Long scenes of people looking desperate worked in Lost in Translation because the characters were actually interesting, complex and endearing. Here they're pretty unsympathetic and McQueen seems obsessed with exploring how many ways he can degrade them further and further through the long shots of his camera lens.





Besides Fassbender's performance, the only way I can justify critics' interest in Shame is that critics like porn. However this porn is a very different kind to the "mommy porn" that Fifty Shades is acclaimed for. See "critic porn", as Shame demonstrates, requires the film to at least look like its trying to be artsy and pretentious. If you have two solid actors who can look distressed when having sex, then bingo it's no longer a guilty pleasure. If there are long, long scenes which emphasise this distress...well that's even better. See as long as the emotion's there and its unpleasant, critics will hype pretentious porn as a cinematic masterpiece about the desperation of humanity. With some films this is indeed true but certainly not here. Though there isn't much dialogue in Shame, I can almost picture Brandon saying Christian's lame words: "I don't make love, I fuck". Sorry critics, Shame is sadly your Fifty Shades.


Source for Picture 1: http://www.moviemandan.com/2011/12/shame.html

Source for Picture 2: http://youarenotlostyouarehere.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/popcorn-time-movie-review-shame/

Why 'Smash' deserves some audience lovin'

When it comes to my popular culture preferences, I'm usually the one who is known for liking stuff which everyone a) thinks is junk, b) ignores or c) has given up on. I was probably the only person left who liked Desperate Housewives (may that poor, poor show rest in peace) and I may also be one of the few that looks at The Hunger Games as an important piece of pop literature (more about that in a later blog). I figure now that I'll also probably be the only person who finds many, many redeeming qualities in a new TV series called Smash.

Now conceptually, the show itself may ring alarm bells for many of you. In the grand tradition of Glee, it is yet another one of those musical dramedies that uses an eclectic mix of pop and Broadway songs to complement its narratives. Like Glee, it also has many, many of those cringe-worthy moments where characters yack on about how much they love performing on stage and how they dream of stardom (blah, blah). Indeed this is a show which possesses many of the trademarks which have made a large number of viewers of both Glee and that legendary (and now infamous) Fame franchise, simultaneously swoon and vomit.

The plot of the series itself also seems pretty much a case of "been there and got the t-shirt". Our story begins when sweet, wannabe Broadway performer Karen Cartwright  (played by American Idol alum Katherine Mcphee)  arrives in New York City with her politician boyfriend Dev (Raza Jafrey). As with all Broadway ingenues, Karen is struggling dismally to land her big break and she has little choice but to succumb to that job most young actresses end up doing (waitressing). Yet, Karen's luck changes when songwriting duo Tom Levitt (Christian Borle) and Julia Huston (Debra Messing) come up with the genius idea of putting on a musical about the life of the legendary Marilyn Monroe. When Karen auditions for this prospective production, the show's director Derek Wills (Jack Davenport) is immediately smitten with her and sees her as the spitting image of Marilyn.Things look like they're finally about to turn around for Karen. However, she finds herself having to contend for this role with Ivy Lynn ( Megan Hilty), a chorus girl with much greater experience on the Broadway stage. Ivy is more determined than ever to make Marilyn her own break-out role and she'll do whatever it takes to get it.

So yeah, yeah sounds a bit like the family-friendly version of Black Swan for musical theatre lovers, right? Well the magic of Smash is that it's actually far more than that.  In Glee and Fame, most of the narratives revolve around students desperately trying to convince their parents that the arts is a worthwhile career or trying to convince their teachers and peers that they do actually have talent These are issues which do indeed arise in Smash. However,  Smash departs from this conventional set-up in the sense that its focus is primarily on the craft of theatre-making. Within the show's first 15 episodes, we are exposed to every facet of the theatre-making process. We witness producer Eileen Rand's (Anjelica Huston) struggles to attract investors to the Marilyn production. In equal measure, we witness the creative battle which is unleashed between Derek, Julia and Tom as their visions for the show conflict significantly with one another. Then, of course, there's the battle between the director and his performers, most notably Ivy and Karen. We are privy to the workshopping of the play, the technical rehearsals and the play's previews. If you know nothing about the behind-the-scenes workings of the musical theatre, this is your education.

There's something refreshing about watching a show that's about the bare bones of theatre-making. It shows us that the theatre environment is certainly a magical one. Yet, it is equally a soulless and ruthless space where humans strengths and weaknesses are pushed to their ultimate limit. There is not a character in Smash that is not at risk of suffering the safe fate as the beloved Marilyn and yet they continue to create and perform because they don't know who or what they are without the "safe" confines of the theatre. This is, indeed, the theatre experience at its most damaging, complex and authentic.

On another level, the music of the Marilyn show itself is sublime. Written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman, the songs are a wonderful throwback to classic Broadway, the type that used to be more frequent before the likes of  Bono and Green Day started moulding  musical theatre to fit  the format of the gimmicky overwrought pop concert. Admittedly some of these songs (Let Me Be Your Star) are corny but others (I've Never Met A Wolf..., Twentieth-Century Fox and Let's Be Bad) are clever, sassy and infectious. In fact, when the show is at its weakest, it is the performance of these numbers that offer its redemption. The songs are performed either in their workshop mode or in the way the cast and crew envision them being performed on stage with the full costume and lighting effects. Whatever the mode of performance, these numbers make the Marilyn show (later named Bombshell) look like a pretty stellar and polished production. I've grown more and more weary of musical theatre over the last couple of years but this is the kind of production I'd be dying to see. Even if these performances are the only thing in Smash you watch, they are well worth it.

Another area where Smash succeeds is in its characterization, particularly in term of its gay characters. Because Smash is about musical theatre, it's obvious that gay characters would be part of the package. However, unlike Glee, Smash does not deal in stereotypes. Particularly impressive is the character of Sam (Leslie Odom Jr), a dancer in the show who starts a relationship with Tom. The image of gay dancer characters we are traditionally accustomed to seeing on film and TV are often stereotypically over-the-top and effeminate. Sam breaks the mould by being a character whose interests also exist outside the world of theatre. He's a fanatical sports fan as much as he is a dancer, a fully fledged and dynamic character, rather than a caricature. Most importantly, Sam comes from a religious background. Ordinarily,  religion is represented as something that hinders parents relationships with their gay children and  causes gay men and women to suppress their true identities. Here, Sam not only has a stable family relationship, he also uses Christianity as a form of self empowerment that informs his identity rather than suppresses it. Now that's something you don't see every day.


Of course, I'm not going to dispute the flaws  that critics have found with the show. Debra Messing  was always one of the weaker links in Will & Grace and here she does no better as she takes her Grace Adler persona into more dramatic territory. A sub-plot involving her affair with a cast member who plays baseball legend Joe Dimagio (Marilyn's first husband) is excruciating to watch, as are her interactions with her nice enough husband and extremely docile son. Despite the fact that Karen is hailed as a vocal powerhouse in the show, Mcphee really isn't that impressive. Her voice is very much of the run-of-the-mill pop variety and she seems to battle to reach the wide vocal range required for a Broadway performance. Hilty, on the other hand, is outstanding and the thought that Karen would be Ivy's strongest competition in reality is laughable. The show also suffers from having a couple of irrelevant supporting characters, most of whom will thankfully be gone by next season.

Pop music is Broadway's nemesis and does the show no favours here. Smash's efforts to appeal to Glee audiences by slipping in pop numbers in certain scenes gets increasingly annoying and whoever had the "bright" idea of letting Mcphee sing This Is A Man's World should be shot. Smash needs to have faith in its Marilyn numbers because that's all it really needs.

All these faults aside, Smash is, in fact, somewhat of a revelation. It suffers from teething problems and its certainly not perfect. However, it's fresh, original and progressive and, unlike some other prime-time shows of its genre, at least it tries.

Source for Photo 1: http://www.tvovermind.com/smash/smash-behind-the-scenes-look-musical-songs/
Source for Photo 2: http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2012/03/smash-renewed-for-second-season-can-awake-also-make-the-cut.html