Saturday 10 February 2018

Fifty Shades Freed (2018)

I hated Fifty Shades of Grey. It was not only a clumsily made movie, poorly acted and painfully put together, it also misrepresented BDSM so flagrantly by having nothing to do with consent and empowerment. Instead it was about romanticising an abusive relationship. And the sex was so vanilla (carried into this file quite literally in one scene featuring ice cream) it felt like a let down after all the hype about how "naughty" it was supposed to be.

Then came the even worse disaster Fifty Shades Darker, a sequel which takes everything about the first and makes it even less. Silly, cliched, and hardly sexy, the Fifty Shades movies were 2 strikes so far...

And with the final chapter (let's hope!), Fifty Shades Freed (the worst title yet??? are they trying to compete with Fast and Furious films for horrible titles?), the series is sent back to the dug out. Strike out.

Christian and Anastasia are finally happy! They get married and she gets pregnant. They get to have kinky (well in some peoples' minds) sex. Can't we just let them live happily ever after?

They show their dysfunction in the very first scene. Laying on the beach together Christian lectures Ana, cause he's an abusive fuck, on not showing her breasts on a nudity friendly beach despite her desire to tan her upper body. Just because he is such a jerk, he smacks her ass to tell her when he's done and once he's gone she silently defies him. Ooooo how romantic.

Things get really romantic when Christian flips out over (1) her not using his name professionally, (2) stalks her over it, and (3) flips out over her happening to work with a beautiful man. The plot centres around jealousy, harassment, and domestic violence all wrapped up in a sexy disguise. There is no actual dominance or submission in these stories, it's a bastardization of that, a violation of that. It's gender violence and its gross. Christian is a controlling abuser and the films make us see it all as love. This is not what love is. I'm not talking about the ropes. I'm talking about the abuse Ana suffers and is gaslighted into thinking is sexy.

And it is all wrapped up in fast cars, yachts, champagne, and other symbols of desire and aspiration. Yuck. Every time we see Christian act like a dick he buys Anastasia something and she smiles. The way the film shows her to be a "strong woman" is by having her repeatedly choose to be with a dick. But it's her choice. Another way we see her being "strong" is to bitch slap any pretty girl who happens to talk to Christian. Because nothing says love like ensuring your partner is your property.

The idea of the Grey books/films as sold as romantic at all is simply disgusting. I can critique how badly both leads act throughout, or the horribly cheesy dialogue, or just how untitilating the direction is. All of this would be legit cause these movies are horribly made movies. But really what makes these films so distasteful is that they sell an unhealthy narrative as romantic.

Thanks goodness it's over.

Fifty Shades Freed
Starring: Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Kim Basinger, Marcia Gay Harden
Director: James Foley
Writer: Niall Leondard

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