I’ve purposely avoided reading Fifty Shades of Grey, mostly because as someone who writes about sex and kink when he isn’t writing about how Kim Kardashian walks around with an intravenous drip that funnels pee into her bloodstream, I can’t bring myself to read bad Twilight fan fiction with hints of poorly executed BDSM play. But the book has taken off anyway, and now Angelina Jolie is in talks to direct the inevitable movie because yes, the movie is happening whether you like it or not. Deadline reports:
You know that the gazillion-selling steamy novel trilogy Fifty Shades Of Grey has reached outlandish proportions when The New York Post devotes today’s front cover to the idea that women are stocking up on ropes to be used for bondage purposes. All of this has apparently been spurred on by the kinky relationship between the couple in the book trilogy. Things are heating up on the movie front as well for Universal Pictures, which won a seven-figure auction to turn the three books into movies. I’ve heard rumors about the possibility of Angelilna Jolie having a conversation or two about directing it. This has been buzzing around for a couple of weeks. The studio says that no discussions have been had, but they note that if she was interested, that the studio would be also. They loved her directorial debut, In The Land Of Blood And Honey. As for Jolie, I’m told she’s completely focused on her next film, Maleficent, at Disney and isn’t entertaining other offers at this moment.
The major problem I have with this is that the book basically fetishizes not kink, but basically a sort of diet kink, wherein those participating in it have no fucking idea what they’re doing. And believe me, the easiest way to screw up a kink scene is to go into it with no prior knowledge of how to do it safely. Seriously, the book contains flogging, which if done incorrectly, can cause kidney damage (if it hits the lower back) or tear off skin (if the strands wrap around the torso). Look, I know fan fiction is meant to be fantasy, but the book is advocating playing with someone you neither know nor trust, which is the dumbest thing you can possibly do. So yeah, I’m not the biggest fan of Fifty Shades of Grey.
