50 Shades of Silly

Forbidden Love - Pic courtesy of Wikipedia

by Trebor Snillor

This week we’re having typical Texas roller coaster weather. 78 degrees yesterday and 30 degrees tomorrow. It’s a nippy 53 right now, as we make that transition. My house is in complete disarray as my kitchen gets rebuilt. I must learn patience which has never been one of my shining qualities. Now, on to our topic.

50 Shades of Grey (spoiler alert)

To avoid getting in the way of workmen at my house, I went to see 50 Shades the first day it came out, 2/13/2015. This move has recently been done to death by critics and social media, so I’ll offer my entire movie-going experience – not just a review of the movie itself.

I thought that AMC 15 would be swarming with people, even on the matinee but it wasn’t. The theater was maybe 30% full – probably still a good headcount for a weekday matinee. I thought I’d be the only man and was surprised to see a lot of other guys. It was probably 60% women, 40% men. There were many couples and quite a few older people.

50 Shades is a romance movie, of sorts. A wealthy handsome business titan, Christian Grey, sets his sights on sweet demure Anastasia Steele. He wants her not as a wife or a girlfriend but as a sex slave. The premise is one of “forbidden love” – it alternately reminded me of Brokeback Mountain or Looking for Mr. Good Bar.

Having seen a few S&M videos before (by happenstance rest assured) I wasn’t sure what to expect. The S&M scenes in this movie were lame and tame by practically any measure. This was S&M sanitized and softened for the tastes of suburban women’s book clubs. Anastasia was in no real danger. I found myself laughing sometimes nervously and then later deliberately because of unintentional humor. The whole audience giggled inappropriately all throughout the movie. It seemed like a women’s soft-core porno building slowly to its peak -- pardon the orgasmic wording.

It’s interesting that feminist females and right-wing chauvinist men are oddly in full agreement – they feel that movies like this are the “downfall of civilization”. The women are exploited like chattel! But Madonna and Miley have informed us across the years – it’s not exploitation if the woman chooses it. She might just really be kinky and wild. One of a modern woman’s options is to be as chaste or as chased as she wants to be. The rule is really that there are no rules. So everybody chill and put your judgments away.

In this particular movie, Anastasia is a sweet, virginal lamb – falling for an emotionally blocked wolf. She ultimately decides she has no taste for whips and chains. In fact, as the movie draws to the end it seems that Anastasia is breaking Christian out of his S&M delusions and bringing him into the world of real feeling and emoting.

Was this a great movie? Absolutely not. Even the characters’ names sound cheesy and made up like something from a XXX grind house. Would I recommend this movie? Absolutely! It was unintentionally hilarious. If you have some fun friends who enjoy double entendres and silliness you will be able to laugh it up together. This movie entertains us with guilty pleasure and naughtiness. If you have a spare two hours – it’s worth the price of admission.

© 2015 Snillor Productions