Fifty Shades Of Late Capitalism
May 10, 2013 6:14 AM Subscribe
While we are still recovering from the trauma that finance capital has inflicted on our public world, a late-capitalist fairy tale manages the pain in the more private and intimate reaches of the sexual daydream. In one version of the story, a wide-eyed mermaid cleverly disguises her essential self in order to win the heart of a prince (The Little Mermaid). In another, a hooker with a heart of gold navigates her way to a happy ending by offering some happy endings of her own (Pretty Woman). Or there’s the sassy secretary who shakes her moneymaker all the way to the corner office (Working Girl). Fifty Shades of Grey follows this long history of class ascendancy via feminine wiles, but does so cleverly disguised as an edgy modern bodice-ripper. [NSFW image]
Without reading Fifty Shades of Grey I can't comment on the validity of this analysis - if true I thought it was quite condemning.
And yes I would agree that even an iPad is still a kind of middle class luxury item.
posted by mary8nne at 6:27 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
And yes I would agree that even an iPad is still a kind of middle class luxury item.
posted by mary8nne at 6:27 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
The Baffler is killing it lately.
And look, that's Heather Havir... Havri.... and that's Heather from Suck, so please be respectful.
posted by notyou at 6:31 AM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]
And look, that's Heather Havir... Havri.... and that's Heather from Suck, so please be respectful.
posted by notyou at 6:31 AM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]
Wow, I have a new-found appreciation for literary analysis. Uncovering underlying assumptions that the author had no clue were there. Cool.
posted by leotrotsky at 6:34 AM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by leotrotsky at 6:34 AM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]
iPad and iPod are luxe brands?
Absolutely. One of the reasons why Android is so popular is because it is much cheaper.
posted by KokuRyu at 6:34 AM on May 10, 2013 [4 favorites]
Absolutely. One of the reasons why Android is so popular is because it is much cheaper.
posted by KokuRyu at 6:34 AM on May 10, 2013 [4 favorites]
Everyone you know has $500 to throw around on a gadget that replicates the purpose of something another gadget they already own?
...every 18 months.
That said, Little Mermaid is from 1837.
posted by DU at 6:35 AM on May 10, 2013 [4 favorites]
...every 18 months.
That said, Little Mermaid is from 1837.
posted by DU at 6:35 AM on May 10, 2013 [4 favorites]
Absolutely. One of the reasons why Android is so popular is because it is much cheaper.
It's still a middle-class luxury item, even if you restrict yourself to America only.
posted by DU at 6:36 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
It's still a middle-class luxury item, even if you restrict yourself to America only.
posted by DU at 6:36 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
Wow, I have a new-found appreciation for literary analysis. Uncovering underlying assumptions that the author had no clue were there. Cool.
Not sure if serious.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 6:42 AM on May 10, 2013 [12 favorites]
Not sure if serious.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 6:42 AM on May 10, 2013 [12 favorites]
So does the inclusion of a middlebrow brand such as iPad undermine the rest of Havrilesky's argument?
How about when it's followed a sentence or two later with this:
How about when it's followed a sentence or two later with this:
Just as traditional, male-centered pornography seems to feature a particularly clumsy, childish notion of sexiness, the concept of luxury on offer in Fifty Shades is remarkably callow. Like an update of the ostentatious, faux-tasteful wealth of Dynasty, Christian’s penthouse, with its abstract art and dark wood and leather, represents the modern version of enormous flower arrangements and white marble and a house staff trussed up in cartoon-butler regalia. No detail of the environment feels organic or specific to Christian himself; instead, it reflects a prescribed corporate aesthetic of enormous wealth that for some reason James approaches with reverence rather than repulsion or dread. By the time this compulsive lifestyle voyeurism starts invading our narrator’s routine visits to the bathroom (“The restrooms are the height of modern design—all dark wood, black granite, and pools of light from strategically placed halogens”), the author’s veneration of arbitrary signifiers of class has begun to take on grotesque, faintly comedic proportions.posted by notyou at 6:44 AM on May 10, 2013 [6 favorites]
It's as valid to read deep political and sociological meaning from a Disney movie as it is to read deep political and sociological meaning from vampire slashfic with all the names changed to allow real publication.
To be clear, that amount of validity is absolutely 0.
posted by jefflowrey at 6:49 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
To be clear, that amount of validity is absolutely 0.
posted by jefflowrey at 6:49 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
Wow, I have a new-found appreciation for literary analysis. Uncovering underlying assumptions that the author had no clue were there. Cool.
Not sure if serious.
Yep. This was a great example to me. I wasn't an English major, and never quite appreciated the value of mining a text so clearly as from reading this article.
posted by leotrotsky at 6:50 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
Not sure if serious.
Yep. This was a great example to me. I wasn't an English major, and never quite appreciated the value of mining a text so clearly as from reading this article.
posted by leotrotsky at 6:50 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
Did anyone else immediately think, upon reading the blurb, “why, how do you do, Mr. Žižek?”
posted by acb at 6:52 AM on May 10, 2013
posted by acb at 6:52 AM on May 10, 2013
Yeeah, I typically avoid the trendy McNovel experience for exactly these reasons. Religious Middle-American (or, on occasion, poor British) housewives do not great novelists make, and yet America can't seem to get enough of them. They make assumptions about life and society that they take for granted, that no educated or even mildly curious person would ever in their right mind accept as baseline truth.
posted by Mooseli at 6:52 AM on May 10, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by Mooseli at 6:52 AM on May 10, 2013 [2 favorites]
In the "old days," it was not so hot a label when you called someone middle class. Now many are delighted to be in that grouping. If you label someone middle class, from which class perspective do you speak? Upper or Lower?
posted by Postroad at 7:02 AM on May 10, 2013
posted by Postroad at 7:02 AM on May 10, 2013
Wow this is exactly what I hated about this book but couldn't put so eloquently.
posted by Joe Chip at 7:03 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Joe Chip at 7:03 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
Sawyer reenters, bearing a paper cup of hot water and a separate tea bag. He knows how I take my tea!
The true horror in Fifty Shades revealed.
posted by MartinWisse at 7:05 AM on May 10, 2013 [18 favorites]
The true horror in Fifty Shades revealed.
posted by MartinWisse at 7:05 AM on May 10, 2013 [18 favorites]
I thought the true horror was the idea that if you bend over for the Man it might not hurt all the time but you'll at least get three squares a day. Which is Western Capitalism in a nutshell. Oh, wait, that's the TFA's point, I guess? Okay, cool.
Actually for me the true horror is the way that book is the archetypical triumph of marketing over merit.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:11 AM on May 10, 2013
Actually for me the true horror is the way that book is the archetypical triumph of marketing over merit.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:11 AM on May 10, 2013
It's still a middle-class luxury item, even if you restrict yourself to America only.
Yeah, but not a "luxe" luxury item.
Anyway, I am sorry for contributing to this derail. So far this looks like an interesting article.
posted by KokuRyu at 7:15 AM on May 10, 2013
Yeah, but not a "luxe" luxury item.
Anyway, I am sorry for contributing to this derail. So far this looks like an interesting article.
posted by KokuRyu at 7:15 AM on May 10, 2013
Wow, I have a new-found appreciation for literary analysis. Uncovering underlying assumptions that the author had no clue were there. Cool.
Not sure if serious.
I don't know if serious either but that's the way I took the article. E.L. James is a pedestrian writer--to be generous--and 50 Shades is hardly worthy of such highfalutin analysis full of proper grammar, $10 words, lofty cultural and literary references.
The 50 Shades trilogy is textbook "Sex and the City"-style chick lit, where luxury brand names are routinely trotted out as substitute objects of sexual desire. Why anyone would attribute any greater significance to it is, well, baffling.
posted by fuse theorem at 7:23 AM on May 10, 2013
Not sure if serious.
I don't know if serious either but that's the way I took the article. E.L. James is a pedestrian writer--to be generous--and 50 Shades is hardly worthy of such highfalutin analysis full of proper grammar, $10 words, lofty cultural and literary references.
The 50 Shades trilogy is textbook "Sex and the City"-style chick lit, where luxury brand names are routinely trotted out as substitute objects of sexual desire. Why anyone would attribute any greater significance to it is, well, baffling.
posted by fuse theorem at 7:23 AM on May 10, 2013
Yep. This was a great example to me. I wasn't an English major, and never quite appreciated the value of mining a text so clearly as from reading this article.
Ah, OK. I'm used to seeing people beat up critics for finding unintentional meanings in stories.
The 50 Shades trilogy is textbook "Sex and the City"-style chick lit, where luxury brand names are routinely trotted out as substitute objects of sexual desire. Why anyone would attribute any greater significance to it is, well, baffling.
Was abuse-as-BDSM a regular feature of Sex and the City? I haven't seen much of it.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:28 AM on May 10, 2013
Ah, OK. I'm used to seeing people beat up critics for finding unintentional meanings in stories.
The 50 Shades trilogy is textbook "Sex and the City"-style chick lit, where luxury brand names are routinely trotted out as substitute objects of sexual desire. Why anyone would attribute any greater significance to it is, well, baffling.
Was abuse-as-BDSM a regular feature of Sex and the City? I haven't seen much of it.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:28 AM on May 10, 2013
The 50 Shades trilogy is textbook "Sex and the City"-style chick lit, where luxury brand names are routinely trotted out as substitute objects of sexual desire. Why anyone would attribute any greater significance to it is, well, baffling.
The fact that it's textbook to trot out luxury brand names as substitute objects of sexual desire seems to be positively dripping with greater significance.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:33 AM on May 10, 2013 [20 favorites]
The fact that it's textbook to trot out luxury brand names as substitute objects of sexual desire seems to be positively dripping with greater significance.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:33 AM on May 10, 2013 [20 favorites]
Sometimes an iPhone is just an iPhone.
posted by Mooski at 7:36 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Mooski at 7:36 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
This would seem very insightful and modern if I had never read Jean Paulhan's preface to Story of O or, hell, anything ever written by de Sade. Most of Sade's libertines were rich people or criminals precisely because those people are free from boring unsexy responsibilities of earning a living and keeping a budget. In the first draft (when it was still Twilight fanfic) Grey had no worries because he was a vampire. (And the same thing applies to Twilight itself.) In devamping Grey James had to make him fabulously wealthy because nobody fantasizes about surrendering control to someone who isn't even in control of their own destiny.
posted by localroger at 7:41 AM on May 10, 2013 [8 favorites]
posted by localroger at 7:41 AM on May 10, 2013 [8 favorites]
iPad and iPod are luxe brands?
Absolutely. One of the reasons why Android is so popular is because it is much cheaper.
Kinda sorta. Android brands are or are not expensive/luxe by producer rather than by operating system. It would just be weird to say "I flashed my Android phone, impressing everyone", because that phone could have cost $99.
There are genuine luxury phones which run Android - the Vertu line, for example - and are hugely more expensive than any single Apple phone, but those are brands that are not known to people outside the luxury goods space or the tech space (where they are often derided as last year's electronics stuck in a gold case and sold at a huge markup to technologically illiterate oligarchs).
The brilliance of Apple's marketing and product design is that their products have a luxe feel, and command a premium, while still being mass-market successes. You could get an iPad covered in Swarovski crystals for if you wanted to, but it wouldn't work any better than an iPad not covered with Swarovski crystals, and would probably look worse.
So, if you're communicating getting the upper end of each product category, the iPad Retina is the luxury tablet, even though the cost difference between it and a Nexus 10 or Galaxy Tab 10.1 is nowhere near the difference between a Sears dress and a Gucci dress. Consumer electronics are actually really interesting in terms of class coding, because there's a fairly sharp diminishing returns curve: a $500 tablet will be massively better than a $99 tablet, but a $10,000 tablet will be only cosmetically different from a $1000 tablet - the narratives people spin about material quality and skill of assembly in e.g. couture fashion don't work the same way.
(That said, I seem to recall that at some point Christian buys Anastasia a MacBook Pro with a terabyte of RAM in it, or something eqaully absurd, so possibly EL James is not an expert on the technical side...)
posted by running order squabble fest at 7:46 AM on May 10, 2013 [5 favorites]
Absolutely. One of the reasons why Android is so popular is because it is much cheaper.
Kinda sorta. Android brands are or are not expensive/luxe by producer rather than by operating system. It would just be weird to say "I flashed my Android phone, impressing everyone", because that phone could have cost $99.
There are genuine luxury phones which run Android - the Vertu line, for example - and are hugely more expensive than any single Apple phone, but those are brands that are not known to people outside the luxury goods space or the tech space (where they are often derided as last year's electronics stuck in a gold case and sold at a huge markup to technologically illiterate oligarchs).
The brilliance of Apple's marketing and product design is that their products have a luxe feel, and command a premium, while still being mass-market successes. You could get an iPad covered in Swarovski crystals for if you wanted to, but it wouldn't work any better than an iPad not covered with Swarovski crystals, and would probably look worse.
So, if you're communicating getting the upper end of each product category, the iPad Retina is the luxury tablet, even though the cost difference between it and a Nexus 10 or Galaxy Tab 10.1 is nowhere near the difference between a Sears dress and a Gucci dress. Consumer electronics are actually really interesting in terms of class coding, because there's a fairly sharp diminishing returns curve: a $500 tablet will be massively better than a $99 tablet, but a $10,000 tablet will be only cosmetically different from a $1000 tablet - the narratives people spin about material quality and skill of assembly in e.g. couture fashion don't work the same way.
(That said, I seem to recall that at some point Christian buys Anastasia a MacBook Pro with a terabyte of RAM in it, or something eqaully absurd, so possibly EL James is not an expert on the technical side...)
posted by running order squabble fest at 7:46 AM on May 10, 2013 [5 favorites]
Sawyer reenters, bearing a paper cup of hot water and a separate tea bag. He knows how I take my tea!
The true horror in Fifty Shades revealed.
posted by MartinWisse at 10:05 AM
I know! Putting in the tea bag after the water has cooled down will make bilge water, yuck.
posted by jb at 7:54 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
The true horror in Fifty Shades revealed.
posted by MartinWisse at 10:05 AM
I know! Putting in the tea bag after the water has cooled down will make bilge water, yuck.
posted by jb at 7:54 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
a MacBook Pro with a terabyte of RAM in it
mmm...terabyte of RAM. This is a fantasy that I could get behind.
posted by jb at 7:55 AM on May 10, 2013 [13 favorites]
mmm...terabyte of RAM. This is a fantasy that I could get behind.
posted by jb at 7:55 AM on May 10, 2013 [13 favorites]
It's as valid to read deep political and sociological meaning from a Disney movie Republicans as it is to read deep political and sociological meaning from vampire slashfic Democrats; with all the names changed to allow real publication.
To be clear, that amount of validity is absolutely 0.
Stand here! Undress! Bend over! Spread your legs!
Yes Sir! (that was a enjoyable-yet dirty article. I approve)
posted by QueerAngel28 at 7:56 AM on May 10, 2013
To be clear, that amount of validity is absolutely 0.
Stand here! Undress! Bend over! Spread your legs!
Yes Sir! (that was a enjoyable-yet dirty article. I approve)
posted by QueerAngel28 at 7:56 AM on May 10, 2013
Stuff with 'late' before 'capitalism' is always really good.
posted by Fists O'Fury at 7:56 AM on May 10, 2013
posted by Fists O'Fury at 7:56 AM on May 10, 2013
Yaaaay it's HH, love her stuff.
So yeah, the collapse of the middle class has turned billionares into the hot new romantic object, funny that. It came from the Kindle BILLIONARES!
posted by The Whelk at 7:59 AM on May 10, 2013
So yeah, the collapse of the middle class has turned billionares into the hot new romantic object, funny that. It came from the Kindle BILLIONARES!
posted by The Whelk at 7:59 AM on May 10, 2013
mmm...terabyte of RAM. This is a fantasy that I could get behind.
In twenty years the operating system won't even boot without a terabyte of RAM.
posted by localroger at 7:59 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
In twenty years the operating system won't even boot without a terabyte of RAM.
posted by localroger at 7:59 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
"Suspended from the ceiling, my body exploded into an impossible number of floating points of pleasure..."
posted by running order squabble fest at 8:01 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by running order squabble fest at 8:01 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
positively dripping with greater significance
I see what you did there.
Was abuse-as-BDSM a regular feature of Sex and the City? I haven't seen much of it.
There are sub-genres of chick lit, some which lean more toward erotica.
posted by fuse theorem at 8:05 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
I see what you did there.
Was abuse-as-BDSM a regular feature of Sex and the City? I haven't seen much of it.
There are sub-genres of chick lit, some which lean more toward erotica.
posted by fuse theorem at 8:05 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
As if that’s not enough, in the third book, Fifty Shades Freed, Christian announces that he’s going to give the publishing company to his new wife, telling her, “This is my wedding present to you.” Sounds just like a wildly successful, ultra-competitive entrepreneur, doesn’t it, to give an entire business to his inexperienced inamorata, so that she can play make-believe at the office all day, while he adds a red mark in the “failures” column of his imperial spreadsheet?
Please, please, someone tell me that there's a Jimmy James-centric Newsradio spinoff in the works to capitalize on the parody potential...
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:05 AM on May 10, 2013
> This would seem very insightful and modern if I had never read Jean Paulhan's preface to Story of O or, hell, anything ever written by de Sade.
I dunno, the thrust seems pretty different with 50 Shades. I skipped straight to the end of O, but isn't O presented as subservient to all comers in the scene, right up to complete objectification? Apparently the hero in 50 Shades gets tied up in the bedroom but also spends time being waited on in a private jet and worrying about how she'll manage The Help. Both characters are in intimate proximity to power, but from the Baffler's reading, the power in 50 Shades is focused a little bit on Anastasia and a lot on everyone else, on Anastasia's behalf. And that power is embodied by a very middle-brow idea of what social class and command looks like.
Also, if I recall, in an alternate ending to O O asks for and receives permission to kill herself. Anastasia apparently receives a company in which to act out a vanity career.
I liked this article. I haven't actually read 50 Shades, so I accepted the explanation that the critical hubbub was entirely over female sexuality and the legitimacy of its expression. This is a more complex and interesting take.
posted by postcommunism at 8:09 AM on May 10, 2013 [2 favorites]
I dunno, the thrust seems pretty different with 50 Shades. I skipped straight to the end of O, but isn't O presented as subservient to all comers in the scene, right up to complete objectification? Apparently the hero in 50 Shades gets tied up in the bedroom but also spends time being waited on in a private jet and worrying about how she'll manage The Help. Both characters are in intimate proximity to power, but from the Baffler's reading, the power in 50 Shades is focused a little bit on Anastasia and a lot on everyone else, on Anastasia's behalf. And that power is embodied by a very middle-brow idea of what social class and command looks like.
Also, if I recall, in an alternate ending to O O asks for and receives permission to kill herself. Anastasia apparently receives a company in which to act out a vanity career.
I liked this article. I haven't actually read 50 Shades, so I accepted the explanation that the critical hubbub was entirely over female sexuality and the legitimacy of its expression. This is a more complex and interesting take.
posted by postcommunism at 8:09 AM on May 10, 2013 [2 favorites]
Yeeah, I typically avoid the trendy McNovel experience for exactly these reasons. Religious Middle-American (or, on occasion, poor British) housewives do not great novelists make, and yet America can't seem to get enough of them. They make assumptions about life and society that they take for granted, that no educated or even mildly curious person would ever in their right mind accept as baseline truth.
Plus, housewives should get back in the kitchen, amirite?
posted by purpleclover at 8:19 AM on May 10, 2013 [2 favorites]
Plus, housewives should get back in the kitchen, amirite?
posted by purpleclover at 8:19 AM on May 10, 2013 [2 favorites]
I think the interesting thing about this is that I will bet like a billion dollars that I don't have that EL James isn't really consciously aware that she is making the rising social mobility = sex appeal for readers = sexual reductionism of women argument in the book (I'm deliberately steering away from "objectification," because I think a lot of BDSM is based on creating spaces where objectification is safe and wanted and okay, and 50 Shades goes pretty far beyond that, it seems.) I don't think the reason capitalist success = sexy is because middle-aged women are all greedy bastards with social ladder-climbing hearts. I think it's because, if you're not on the top rung, capitalism is tiring. You work, and raise your kids, and get bombarded by constant messages that you aren't good enough, and maybe lack meaningful connections because capitalism isn't big on fostering close cooperative initiatives for child-raising and family-building and stuff like that.
So I don't think it's quite fair to say that EL James is intentionally peddling brand iconography in the same titillating way that she's writing about (bad) sex. I think she's thinking about, "What would it be like not to struggle literally all the time?" and in a capitalist society, that comes attached with brands and social climbing and the total protection of a powerful obsessed person who is dedicated to keeping the demands of being lower-class off of you. So it's kind of hard for me to hate her for being so blatantly wealth-oriented, when really I think probably all her audience wants is to think about having a damn break from all this money worry and navigating one's position in the social world. The "radical isolation" is a "moment of transcendence" because it lets the reader insert themselves into a place where they can't fuck up the two major concerns of capitalism: maintaining the social order/class divide or having enough money (which usually translates as power.) And I totally understand that and to some extent sympathize with it.
I will still always hate her for her portrayal of BDSM, though. Kink is not an excuse for abuse.
posted by WidgetAlley at 8:33 AM on May 10, 2013 [14 favorites]
So I don't think it's quite fair to say that EL James is intentionally peddling brand iconography in the same titillating way that she's writing about (bad) sex. I think she's thinking about, "What would it be like not to struggle literally all the time?" and in a capitalist society, that comes attached with brands and social climbing and the total protection of a powerful obsessed person who is dedicated to keeping the demands of being lower-class off of you. So it's kind of hard for me to hate her for being so blatantly wealth-oriented, when really I think probably all her audience wants is to think about having a damn break from all this money worry and navigating one's position in the social world. The "radical isolation" is a "moment of transcendence" because it lets the reader insert themselves into a place where they can't fuck up the two major concerns of capitalism: maintaining the social order/class divide or having enough money (which usually translates as power.) And I totally understand that and to some extent sympathize with it.
I will still always hate her for her portrayal of BDSM, though. Kink is not an excuse for abuse.
posted by WidgetAlley at 8:33 AM on May 10, 2013 [14 favorites]
(I realize, of course, that her vision is something of an idealized middle-class vision of what it means to be rich and on top of the social order, because it's not like rich people don't also have problems. They just have fewer unsolvable ones.)
posted by WidgetAlley at 8:34 AM on May 10, 2013
posted by WidgetAlley at 8:34 AM on May 10, 2013
I like to read pulp novels of various genres because bad writers offer such a naked look into their desires and expectations, so you can get an idea of the discourse about gender, social and economic class, political structures and other concepts that are commonly held in their culture if you relate it to the history of the period.
So I can tell you that I suppose the author of the Baffler article must not have read any modern romance novels, because the thing that she eviscerates is a standard trope. There's also the wealthy woman who falls in love with a bad boy character who has a heart of gold. But I'm struggling to think of a single romance novel I've read that has two members of the underclass falling in love. Either they're both middle class or one of them is wealthy. They're not always ridiculously wealthy, but if there is an income disparity involving a working class character, the other character is always upper middle to upper class.
The luxury signifiers are also a common set piece in those types of novels, along with the nurturing and selfless serving class.
That doesn't make her point any less valid, but it would have been interesting if she'd analyzed how (if it is so) Shades of Grey varies from the standard deployment of those narrative expectations/constructs.
posted by winna at 8:38 AM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]
So I can tell you that I suppose the author of the Baffler article must not have read any modern romance novels, because the thing that she eviscerates is a standard trope. There's also the wealthy woman who falls in love with a bad boy character who has a heart of gold. But I'm struggling to think of a single romance novel I've read that has two members of the underclass falling in love. Either they're both middle class or one of them is wealthy. They're not always ridiculously wealthy, but if there is an income disparity involving a working class character, the other character is always upper middle to upper class.
The luxury signifiers are also a common set piece in those types of novels, along with the nurturing and selfless serving class.
That doesn't make her point any less valid, but it would have been interesting if she'd analyzed how (if it is so) Shades of Grey varies from the standard deployment of those narrative expectations/constructs.
posted by winna at 8:38 AM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]
In some fantasy works, the magic item is Doombringer, the +4 vorpal sword forged by demonfire in the heart of Balrog Mountain.
In other fantasy works, the magic item is a Hermes handbag.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:42 AM on May 10, 2013 [2 favorites]
In other fantasy works, the magic item is a Hermes handbag.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:42 AM on May 10, 2013 [2 favorites]
I think the interesting thing about this is that I will bet like a billion dollars that I don't have that EL James isn't really consciously aware that she is making the rising social mobility = sex appeal for readers = sexual reductionism of women argument in the book (I'm deliberately steering away from "objectification," because I think a lot of BDSM is based on creating spaces where objectification is safe and wanted and okay, and 50 Shades goes pretty far beyond that, it seems.)
I think you'd win that bet, as 50 Shades of Gray actually started out as fanfiction for Twilight.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:50 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
I think you'd win that bet, as 50 Shades of Gray actually started out as fanfiction for Twilight.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:50 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
I thought people were done talking about 50 Shades.
(still a better love story than Twilight???)
posted by Foosnark at 8:55 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
(still a better love story than Twilight???)
posted by Foosnark at 8:55 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
> "That said, Little Mermaid is from 1837."
Well, yes, but the actual original end of that story, where she doesn't win the love of the prince at all, and he marries someone else, and she dies, but she nonetheless receives a chance to gain an immortal soul and go to heaven because of her many good deeds, is a LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT from the win-a-hot-guy-by-disguising-yourself story told in the Disney version.
P.S. Because of this I hate the Disney version with the burning fire of a thousand suns. Also, don't get me started on the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
posted by kyrademon at 9:02 AM on May 10, 2013 [2 favorites]
Well, yes, but the actual original end of that story, where she doesn't win the love of the prince at all, and he marries someone else, and she dies, but she nonetheless receives a chance to gain an immortal soul and go to heaven because of her many good deeds, is a LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT from the win-a-hot-guy-by-disguising-yourself story told in the Disney version.
P.S. Because of this I hate the Disney version with the burning fire of a thousand suns. Also, don't get me started on the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
posted by kyrademon at 9:02 AM on May 10, 2013 [2 favorites]
But I'm struggling to think of a single romance novel I've read that has two members of the underclass falling in love. Either they're both middle class or one of them is wealthy.
That's one of the things that totally turned me off to "feminist*" romance authors like Jennifer Crusie. I like fluffy smutty fun novels as much as the next person who enjoys a brain-hammock, but I was bothered by the constant pushing of the rich-male narrative. Interestingly, I don't think I ever found one where the genders were reversed. In fact, I don't think I've ever read a novel, romance or otherwise, where a poor- or middle-class character was lifted out of the dirt by a rich, powerful heroine (who wasn't later revealed to be evil.) The closest I can think of is Megan Whalen Turner's Queens' Thief series**, and even then, the male character is not so much lower-class as he is sort of... interstitial? He is basically classless as his trade is predicated upon breaching all kinds of social boundaries. So I'm not sure that counts. Is the rich-heroine poor-hero romance novel actually a thing?
* Using feminist in scare quotes there, because all the characters were white, and, as mentioned middle- or upper-class, and good feminism is about intersectionality.
** They are fabulous, go read them.
posted by WidgetAlley at 9:04 AM on May 10, 2013
That's one of the things that totally turned me off to "feminist*" romance authors like Jennifer Crusie. I like fluffy smutty fun novels as much as the next person who enjoys a brain-hammock, but I was bothered by the constant pushing of the rich-male narrative. Interestingly, I don't think I ever found one where the genders were reversed. In fact, I don't think I've ever read a novel, romance or otherwise, where a poor- or middle-class character was lifted out of the dirt by a rich, powerful heroine (who wasn't later revealed to be evil.) The closest I can think of is Megan Whalen Turner's Queens' Thief series**, and even then, the male character is not so much lower-class as he is sort of... interstitial? He is basically classless as his trade is predicated upon breaching all kinds of social boundaries. So I'm not sure that counts. Is the rich-heroine poor-hero romance novel actually a thing?
* Using feminist in scare quotes there, because all the characters were white, and, as mentioned middle- or upper-class, and good feminism is about intersectionality.
** They are fabulous, go read them.
posted by WidgetAlley at 9:04 AM on May 10, 2013
I skipped straight to the end of O
I wasn't referring to Story of O itself but Jean Paulhan's preface Happiness in Slavery which starts off with an account of a slaves from a liberated plantation demanding to be taken back, because as slaves their needs were cared for. Economics are a natural and necessary part of any sadomasochistic fantasy more immersive than a one night stand.
O is a photographer, which allows her flex time to work around protracted periods of captivity. Stephen is rich. Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty characters are royalty. Sade's Justine is a criminal mastermind. In the movie The Secretary employment is itself the mechanism of domination.
For the fantasy to be self-supporting, you have to explain how the characters manage to stay in role while providing for their mundane needs.
posted by localroger at 9:05 AM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]
I wasn't referring to Story of O itself but Jean Paulhan's preface Happiness in Slavery which starts off with an account of a slaves from a liberated plantation demanding to be taken back, because as slaves their needs were cared for. Economics are a natural and necessary part of any sadomasochistic fantasy more immersive than a one night stand.
O is a photographer, which allows her flex time to work around protracted periods of captivity. Stephen is rich. Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty characters are royalty. Sade's Justine is a criminal mastermind. In the movie The Secretary employment is itself the mechanism of domination.
For the fantasy to be self-supporting, you have to explain how the characters manage to stay in role while providing for their mundane needs.
posted by localroger at 9:05 AM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]
In some fantasy works, the magic item is Doombringer, the +4 vorpal sword forged by demonfire in the heart of Balrog Mountain.
Um, pardon ME, "Cool Papa Bell," but I think you're, uh, a little bit confused on your, y'know, basic lore here. You're unwittingly conflating Elric's sword with the One Ring, D&D, and Monty Python, with the unintentional side effect that every serious person has undoubtedly now left the thread, after observing the pitiful level of discourse exemplified in your utterly reckless comment. I mean, why don't you mention that Picard discovered your "Doombringer" on Tatooine, while you're at it? I mean, Jesus CHRIST! WHY IS THIS STILL HAPPENING
posted by clockzero at 9:18 AM on May 10, 2013 [14 favorites]
Um, pardon ME, "Cool Papa Bell," but I think you're, uh, a little bit confused on your, y'know, basic lore here. You're unwittingly conflating Elric's sword with the One Ring, D&D, and Monty Python, with the unintentional side effect that every serious person has undoubtedly now left the thread, after observing the pitiful level of discourse exemplified in your utterly reckless comment. I mean, why don't you mention that Picard discovered your "Doombringer" on Tatooine, while you're at it? I mean, Jesus CHRIST! WHY IS THIS STILL HAPPENING
posted by clockzero at 9:18 AM on May 10, 2013 [14 favorites]
Okay, son, put down the magic missile and step away from the gazebo.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:23 AM on May 10, 2013 [9 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:23 AM on May 10, 2013 [9 favorites]
Um, pardon ME, "Cool Papa Bell," but I think you're, uh, a little bit confused on your, y'know, basic lore here. You're unwittingly conflating Elric's sword with the One Ring, D&D, and Monty Python, with the unintentional side effect that every serious person has undoubtedly now left the thread, after observing the pitiful level of discourse exemplified in your utterly reckless comment. I mean, why don't you mention that Picard discovered your "Doombringer" on Tatooine, while you're at it? I mean, Jesus CHRIST! WHY IS THIS STILL HAPPENING
I swear I've read a book that does this exact type of thing but for the life of me I can't remember the name. I thought it was by Silverberg but it's not coming up on his bibliography.
posted by winna at 9:28 AM on May 10, 2013
I swear I've read a book that does this exact type of thing but for the life of me I can't remember the name. I thought it was by Silverberg but it's not coming up on his bibliography.
posted by winna at 9:28 AM on May 10, 2013
Religious Middle-American (or, on occasion, poor British) housewives do not great novelists make, and yet America can't seem to get enough of them. They make assumptions about life and society that they take for granted, that no educated or even mildly curious person would ever in their right mind accept as baseline truth.
J. K. Rowling. Flannery O'Connor. I hope you're joking.
Also, nice to know that "religious Middle-American" and "educated or even mildly curious" are mutually exclusive.
posted by ostro at 10:00 AM on May 10, 2013 [8 favorites]
J. K. Rowling. Flannery O'Connor. I hope you're joking.
Also, nice to know that "religious Middle-American" and "educated or even mildly curious" are mutually exclusive.
posted by ostro at 10:00 AM on May 10, 2013 [8 favorites]
J. K. Rowling. Flannery O'Connor
♬One of these thing is not like the other!♫
posted by winna at 10:05 AM on May 10, 2013 [4 favorites]
♬One of these thing is not like the other!♫
posted by winna at 10:05 AM on May 10, 2013 [4 favorites]
WidgetAlley: That's one of the things that totally turned me off to "feminist*" romance authors like Jennifer Crusie. I like fluffy smutty fun novels as much as the next person who enjoys a brain-hammock, but I was bothered by the constant pushing of the rich-male narrative.
This is definitely a criticism you can level at a lot of romances, where the idea of economic security is as much a part of the attraction as good looks, charm and twinkling blue eyes, but I'm enough of a Crusie fan that I have to point out she's probably one of the least rich-man fantasy authors around. Offhandedly, I can only think of a couple of novels where her heroes are particularly wealthy, and a lot more where they're either middle class (several private investigators, a small-town disc jockey, an ER doctor a few years out of med school) or lower class (a mechanic, a con man who comes from a family of con artists).
If you're willing to give Crusie another go, you could try Crazy for You -- Nick the mechanic and Quinn the schoolteacher. Nick is stupid hot and it's nothing to do with money. You might also like Manhunting, which has Kate the driven businesswoman and Jake, a man who just wants to take it easy, though it was Crusie's first novel and that shows a bit in places.
posted by Georgina at 10:12 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
This is definitely a criticism you can level at a lot of romances, where the idea of economic security is as much a part of the attraction as good looks, charm and twinkling blue eyes, but I'm enough of a Crusie fan that I have to point out she's probably one of the least rich-man fantasy authors around. Offhandedly, I can only think of a couple of novels where her heroes are particularly wealthy, and a lot more where they're either middle class (several private investigators, a small-town disc jockey, an ER doctor a few years out of med school) or lower class (a mechanic, a con man who comes from a family of con artists).
If you're willing to give Crusie another go, you could try Crazy for You -- Nick the mechanic and Quinn the schoolteacher. Nick is stupid hot and it's nothing to do with money. You might also like Manhunting, which has Kate the driven businesswoman and Jake, a man who just wants to take it easy, though it was Crusie's first novel and that shows a bit in places.
posted by Georgina at 10:12 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
Yeeah, I typically avoid the trendy McNovel experience for exactly these reasons. Religious Middle-American (or, on occasion, poor British) housewives do not great novelists make...did you intend to sound like a sexist asshole here, or was that just a knock-on effect of sounding merely pretentious?
havrilesky was pretty consistently one of the worst things about salon, and this piece didn't make me think any more highly of her. quoting goethe and shakespeare in the final paragraphs of a review in which you insist (yawn) that some piece of notoriously incompetent smut is (yaaawn) secretly about something other than sex? come off it.
time would be better spent talking about whether the author has ever been in a bdsm relationship, or how the story reads when you know it's actually 'twilight with explicit sex,' or what an adult woman is doing writing smut about abused teenagers, or whether/how it matters that the story has been shifted from a rural setting (Two Forks or wherever the goddamn twilight stories are set) to Glitz City...this isn't good literary analysis, it's two paragraphs of blog post padded out at freelance rate.
posted by waxbanks at 10:32 AM on May 10, 2013
This is definitely a criticism you can level at a lot of romances, where the idea of economic security is as much a part of the attraction as good looks...this, with a bullet. there's already a rich scholarly (and pop) literature about romance novels. this doesn't add to it. it's in the baffler because (1) the baffler needs things to be pissed off about and (2) actual scholarly rigor is harder work than essays like this.
posted by waxbanks at 10:35 AM on May 10, 2013
You know, the readers of The Baffler are not all English Lit MFAs. Some people have only just now discovered the basic tenets of contemporary literary criticism in this very thread!
I guess what I'm saying is that this piece may not be news to everyone, but will be news to some.
posted by Mister_A at 10:38 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
I guess what I'm saying is that this piece may not be news to everyone, but will be news to some.
posted by Mister_A at 10:38 AM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
@kyrademon sez:
shit is INTENSE i'm telling you. i don't particularly care whether it's faithful to victor hugo or not, and i don't remember anything about the story at all, only the creepiness licking at the edge of every frame of it.
it's not for adults, i guess i'm saying, but it's not really for kids either.
posted by waxbanks at 10:42 AM on May 10, 2013
P.S. Because of this I hate the Disney version with the burning fire of a thousand suns. Also, don't get me started on the Hunchback of Notre Dame.i've long thought Hunchback is one of disney's curioser films. as a kid, i was freaked out by how intense and grotesque it was. the murderous clown! ('we find you totally innocent / which is the worst crime of all' is how he sentences the heroes to death.) the minister invoking demons while praying to the virgin mary to deliver him a rape victim or risk the death of the whole city! the absolutely horrific torments quasimodo is subjected to! the death of the minister, straight out of mckellen's richard iii! kevin kline!
shit is INTENSE i'm telling you. i don't particularly care whether it's faithful to victor hugo or not, and i don't remember anything about the story at all, only the creepiness licking at the edge of every frame of it.
it's not for adults, i guess i'm saying, but it's not really for kids either.
posted by waxbanks at 10:42 AM on May 10, 2013
Oh dear, I believe I have identified the heart of the problem with the OP.
Edward Christian.
Also:
Anyone who thinks Shades even has a moral is an idiot. It's a fantasy focused entirely on pushing an erotic button which happens to be connected to the exercise of power. It's not a value judgement, it's a masturbation aid. It should not be construed as a comment either on how the world really works or on what E.L. James or any of her readers might want to physically experience in real life.
And the moral of American Psycho is exactly that for all his success, power, taste, and ability to evade the system, in his heart Bateman is still just a guy who only feels really alive when he's murdering hookers. AS isn't pornography; it's intent is to make you feel queasy about the idea of getting everything you've ever been told to want. E.L. James has Christian do all those horrible things in earnest, to mold him into a key that will unlock her (poorly self-understood) sexual fetish. Ellis has Bateman do all those things ironically to demonstrate that they can't fix him.
Really, you would be hard pressed to find another demographic as eager to beanplate their own sexual fantasies as sadomasochists. S&M leaks out into RL in all sorts of difficult ways, which is why real life "lifestyle" S&M relationships are so notoriously hard to pull off. S&M involves rules, toys, tools, positions, limits, and multiple channels of communication. Reading an economic theory into Fifty Shades makes about as much sense as applying information theory to try and calculate the bit transmission rate necessary for a safe word.
posted by localroger at 11:03 AM on May 10, 2013 [4 favorites]
Having complete and total control over every single aspect of your experience, including everyone around you, is the textbook definition of alienation—precisely how human beings are severed from each other and from their own humanity. Perversely, in Fifty Shades, this radical isolation is portrayed as a moment of transcendence rather than one of debasement.Well duh. Fifty Shades is a badly written poorly thought-out S&M fantasy, but it is at the end of the day a S&M fantasy, and S&M is a sexual fetish about power and control. The OP does not seem to realize this. James is not constructing some clever homage to the ascendancy of money and name brands; she is trying to tickle that feeling that makes her feel all melty inside when she thinks of being slapped around a bit by
Also:
Echoing the lawless privilege of girlie magazines, the so-called control freak within Christian (and subsequently, Anastasia) demonstrates not just that members of the moneyed class are above the law, but that they exist beyond ordinary ethical guidelines too. (This, by the way, is also the moral of the higher-brow forerunner of Fifty Shades: Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho—which is a much more self-aware, if also somewhat numbing, excursus into the nexus between high consumer capitalism and soulless bondage sex, with the significant and oddly more realistic difference that Ellis’s alpha-male protagonist is also a serial killer.)This is so wrong it's not even. "That members of the moneyed class are above the law" is not the moral of either story.
Anyone who thinks Shades even has a moral is an idiot. It's a fantasy focused entirely on pushing an erotic button which happens to be connected to the exercise of power. It's not a value judgement, it's a masturbation aid. It should not be construed as a comment either on how the world really works or on what E.L. James or any of her readers might want to physically experience in real life.
And the moral of American Psycho is exactly that for all his success, power, taste, and ability to evade the system, in his heart Bateman is still just a guy who only feels really alive when he's murdering hookers. AS isn't pornography; it's intent is to make you feel queasy about the idea of getting everything you've ever been told to want. E.L. James has Christian do all those horrible things in earnest, to mold him into a key that will unlock her (poorly self-understood) sexual fetish. Ellis has Bateman do all those things ironically to demonstrate that they can't fix him.
Really, you would be hard pressed to find another demographic as eager to beanplate their own sexual fantasies as sadomasochists. S&M leaks out into RL in all sorts of difficult ways, which is why real life "lifestyle" S&M relationships are so notoriously hard to pull off. S&M involves rules, toys, tools, positions, limits, and multiple channels of communication. Reading an economic theory into Fifty Shades makes about as much sense as applying information theory to try and calculate the bit transmission rate necessary for a safe word.
posted by localroger at 11:03 AM on May 10, 2013 [4 favorites]
This strongly reminds me of Angela Carter's reviews of Judith Krantz's Princess Daisy and Scruples published in the 80s. Carter also had the gift of taking trivial things (romance novels, The Preppy Handbook) and neatly dissecting them to reveal their economic, artistic, and sociological components.
(Seriously, everyone should read Carter. Start with Shaking a Leg.)
posted by emjaybee at 11:25 AM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]
(Seriously, everyone should read Carter. Start with Shaking a Leg.)
posted by emjaybee at 11:25 AM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]
Anastasia recognizes that she’s destined to abandon her ordinary, middle-class life in favor of the rarefied veal pen of the modern power elite.
OK, I admit I at first though that "rarefied veal pen" was hifalutin' slang for "penis".
posted by chavenet at 11:47 AM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]
OK, I admit I at first though that "rarefied veal pen" was hifalutin' slang for "penis".
posted by chavenet at 11:47 AM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]
I think I may have heard about this in the last 50 Shades thread on the Blue, but Jenny Trout has been writing some very funny chapter-by-chapter reviews of the 50 Shades books. They're less about the consumerist aspects of the books and more about the bad writing and the very, very inaccurate portrayal of D/s relationships in the series.
posted by pxe2000 at 11:48 AM on May 10, 2013
posted by pxe2000 at 11:48 AM on May 10, 2013
Well it's funny, because I actually thought of American Psycho as the flip side of 50 Shades myself. A huge part of the appeal is that the man in 50 Shades is fantastically wealthy. You're not just getting tied up and crotch-whipped by a guy who works at The Gap, you're getting tied up and crotch-whipped by a wealthy person, so it's OK! He's going to take care of you, and you can trust his judgment better than your own, because he is so fabulously wealthy and has exquisite and expensive taste. He knows exactly how much you can take (or how much you deserve), better than you yourself do.
And that's kind of OK, I guess, because it's a fantasy; the questionable part to me, though, is the idea that Christian derives this substantial license BECAUSE of his immense wealth. I haven't read the book, but I can't help but see it in that way. It's OK because he's loaded, and will take care of you.
In American Psycho, people trust Bateman implicitly because of his family name, connections, and status. I feel the same unearned trust is placed in the 50 Shades character because of his status; Christian in some sense lives up to that trust, and that's part of the fantasy of course; Bateman betrays that trust in the most gruesome ways, and is never called to account for these betrayals (whether real or not) because of the same unearned privilege that put him in the position to violate that trust in the first place.
On the other hand, sure, it's more interesting to read about someone who's rich and has access to nice cars, houses, travel, etc. No question; this is fantasy. I reject the notion that this book is appealing strictly because of the sex, though; the sex is only part of the fantasy of being kept, cared for, and controlled that the book presents. The problematic part for me is the idea that the substantial violations of kinky "norms" (consent, limits, rules, etc) that I've heard about in the book are "OK" because Christian is wealthy and sort of better than the rest of us. In other words, Pat Bateman is the extension of the Christian character (as I understand him) to his horrifying logical limits.
posted by Mister_A at 12:09 PM on May 10, 2013 [2 favorites]
And that's kind of OK, I guess, because it's a fantasy; the questionable part to me, though, is the idea that Christian derives this substantial license BECAUSE of his immense wealth. I haven't read the book, but I can't help but see it in that way. It's OK because he's loaded, and will take care of you.
In American Psycho, people trust Bateman implicitly because of his family name, connections, and status. I feel the same unearned trust is placed in the 50 Shades character because of his status; Christian in some sense lives up to that trust, and that's part of the fantasy of course; Bateman betrays that trust in the most gruesome ways, and is never called to account for these betrayals (whether real or not) because of the same unearned privilege that put him in the position to violate that trust in the first place.
On the other hand, sure, it's more interesting to read about someone who's rich and has access to nice cars, houses, travel, etc. No question; this is fantasy. I reject the notion that this book is appealing strictly because of the sex, though; the sex is only part of the fantasy of being kept, cared for, and controlled that the book presents. The problematic part for me is the idea that the substantial violations of kinky "norms" (consent, limits, rules, etc) that I've heard about in the book are "OK" because Christian is wealthy and sort of better than the rest of us. In other words, Pat Bateman is the extension of the Christian character (as I understand him) to his horrifying logical limits.
posted by Mister_A at 12:09 PM on May 10, 2013 [2 favorites]
The class component of love is present in Twilight as well. When you get the guy, you also get adopted into the rarefied world of his stuff.
Also, saying that 50 Shades can't tell us anything about our culture because it's dumb and obvious is kind of like saying there's no point in excavating and studying Roman artifacts because everyone knows what a bowl is for.
posted by ostro at 12:30 PM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]
Also, saying that 50 Shades can't tell us anything about our culture because it's dumb and obvious is kind of like saying there's no point in excavating and studying Roman artifacts because everyone knows what a bowl is for.
posted by ostro at 12:30 PM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]
Haruspicy, obviously.
posted by elizardbits at 12:45 PM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by elizardbits at 12:45 PM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
i've long thought Hunchback is one of disney's curioser films. as a kid, i was freaked out by how intense and grotesque it was. the murderous clown! ('we find you totally innocent / which is the worst crime of all' is how he sentences the heroes to death.) the minister invoking demons while praying to the virgin mary to deliver him a rape victim or risk the death of the whole city! the absolutely horrific torments quasimodo is subjected to! the death of the minister, straight out of mckellen's richard iii! kevin kline!
For a long time, I remembered almost nothing about Hunchback except "Hellfire," which was traumatizingly psychosexual for a kids' flick. The villain sings of his lust and shame to an imaginary woman dancing in his fireplace. Meanwhile, a massive choir of red cloaks springs up by the walls and chants "Mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa!"
Off the top of my head, the only similarly creepy number I can think of is the corrupt judge's "Johanna" in Sweeney Todd. But I wouldn't have seen Sweeney Todd when I was that young.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 1:05 PM on May 10, 2013
For a long time, I remembered almost nothing about Hunchback except "Hellfire," which was traumatizingly psychosexual for a kids' flick. The villain sings of his lust and shame to an imaginary woman dancing in his fireplace. Meanwhile, a massive choir of red cloaks springs up by the walls and chants "Mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa!"
Off the top of my head, the only similarly creepy number I can think of is the corrupt judge's "Johanna" in Sweeney Todd. But I wouldn't have seen Sweeney Todd when I was that young.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 1:05 PM on May 10, 2013
Georgina said:
This is definitely a criticism you can level at a lot of romances, where the idea of economic security is as much a part of the attraction as good looks, charm and twinkling blue eyes
I would guess that part of the appeal here is not having to choose between a man who offers economic security and men who are more personally attractive, kind, etc.
Of course, even then, the financial factor is still often salient. Since these kinds of stories are often about a male love interest who really notices and appreciates the female protagonist in a way simultaneously greater than anyone else and which establishes her superior personal virtue and desirability, they are in a sense akin to "secret royalty" or secret heritage tales, in which an apparently ordinary person is found to have some amazing intrinsic value that sets them above and beyond ordinary personhood. In 50 Shades of Grey, this is cleverly done in a bit of metonymy by naming the woman Anastasia, easily but subtly evoking the romance of dispossessed aristocracy and its thrilling reinstatement.
posted by clockzero at 1:21 PM on May 10, 2013
This is definitely a criticism you can level at a lot of romances, where the idea of economic security is as much a part of the attraction as good looks, charm and twinkling blue eyes
I would guess that part of the appeal here is not having to choose between a man who offers economic security and men who are more personally attractive, kind, etc.
Of course, even then, the financial factor is still often salient. Since these kinds of stories are often about a male love interest who really notices and appreciates the female protagonist in a way simultaneously greater than anyone else and which establishes her superior personal virtue and desirability, they are in a sense akin to "secret royalty" or secret heritage tales, in which an apparently ordinary person is found to have some amazing intrinsic value that sets them above and beyond ordinary personhood. In 50 Shades of Grey, this is cleverly done in a bit of metonymy by naming the woman Anastasia, easily but subtly evoking the romance of dispossessed aristocracy and its thrilling reinstatement.
posted by clockzero at 1:21 PM on May 10, 2013
I reject the notion that this book is appealing strictly because of the sex, though; the sex is only part of the fantasy of being kept, cared for, and controlled that the book presents. The problematic part for me is the idea that the substantial violations of kinky "norms" (consent, limits, rules, etc) that I've heard about in the book are "OK" because Christian is wealthy and sort of better than the rest of us.
I think this gives E.L. James entirely too much credit for thinking about it clearly. I don't think the kinky norm violations are there because they're OK because Christian is rich, they're there because she either hasn't thought it through or like most folks she decided to go further in fantasy land than she would want to in real life. It has nothing to do with Christian's wealth and would probably be exactly the same if she was writing Star Trek K/S slash instead of Twilight fanfic.
And Christian is rich because the person bossing her around in her fantasy life needs to have the freedom and means to do the bossing and drag her into interesting situations. His sadism isn't OK because of his wealth, his wealth is necessary as a plot device to make the sadism possible.
posted by localroger at 1:35 PM on May 10, 2013
I think this gives E.L. James entirely too much credit for thinking about it clearly. I don't think the kinky norm violations are there because they're OK because Christian is rich, they're there because she either hasn't thought it through or like most folks she decided to go further in fantasy land than she would want to in real life. It has nothing to do with Christian's wealth and would probably be exactly the same if she was writing Star Trek K/S slash instead of Twilight fanfic.
And Christian is rich because the person bossing her around in her fantasy life needs to have the freedom and means to do the bossing and drag her into interesting situations. His sadism isn't OK because of his wealth, his wealth is necessary as a plot device to make the sadism possible.
posted by localroger at 1:35 PM on May 10, 2013
I don't think EL James was thinking about any of this consciously, it's just kind of there, her unexamined assumptions spilled onto the page. Christian can do whatever he wants TO WHOMEVER HE WANTS because he's wealthy and fabulous. Immense material wealth is not a necessary plot device to enable sadism; it's the fantasy at the heart of the book.
posted by Mister_A at 1:53 PM on May 10, 2013
posted by Mister_A at 1:53 PM on May 10, 2013
E.L. James is a pedestrian writer--to be generous--and 50 Shades is hardly worthy of such highfalutin analysis full of proper grammar, $10 words, lofty cultural and literary references.
I suspect many people, like me, are interested in examining the way that particular works capture the popular imagination, and speculating on what that says about our socio-economic condition. This article does a good job of looking at an immensely popular series and asking how its treatment of wealth and privilege might relate to what Western society is currently experiencing. Literary merit or authorial intent become mostly irrelevant in this kind of discussion.
J. K. Rowling. Flannery O'Connor
♬One of these thing is not like the other!♫
Funny, I also thought of J.K. Rowling immediately when I read the (sexist and classist) comment about religious middle Americans and poor British housewives not making good novelists.
And re: Rowling and O'Connor not being alike: their writing styles are different, yes. However, I actually think Rowling has developed into a skilled writer in addition to being an entertaining one; I read The Casual Vacancy and thought it was good. It's full of well-observed social commentary and quite well written.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 1:56 PM on May 10, 2013
I suspect many people, like me, are interested in examining the way that particular works capture the popular imagination, and speculating on what that says about our socio-economic condition. This article does a good job of looking at an immensely popular series and asking how its treatment of wealth and privilege might relate to what Western society is currently experiencing. Literary merit or authorial intent become mostly irrelevant in this kind of discussion.
J. K. Rowling. Flannery O'Connor
♬One of these thing is not like the other!♫
Funny, I also thought of J.K. Rowling immediately when I read the (sexist and classist) comment about religious middle Americans and poor British housewives not making good novelists.
And re: Rowling and O'Connor not being alike: their writing styles are different, yes. However, I actually think Rowling has developed into a skilled writer in addition to being an entertaining one; I read The Casual Vacancy and thought it was good. It's full of well-observed social commentary and quite well written.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 1:56 PM on May 10, 2013
is kind of like saying there's no point in excavating and studying Roman artifacts because everyone knows what a bowl is for
People study those things because there's not much else to study. If you're transported to ancient Rome and you spend your time hanging around the kilns making a big deal out of how much you're learning about Roman society, you're probably not making best use of your time. That said, there's nothing wrong with wasting a little time.
posted by fleacircus at 3:45 PM on May 10, 2013
People study those things because there's not much else to study. If you're transported to ancient Rome and you spend your time hanging around the kilns making a big deal out of how much you're learning about Roman society, you're probably not making best use of your time. That said, there's nothing wrong with wasting a little time.
posted by fleacircus at 3:45 PM on May 10, 2013
Immense material wealth is not a necessary plot device to enable sadism; it's the fantasy at the heart of the book.
Well I believe you have this exactly backwards; the fantasy at the heart of the book is that Christian can totally control Anastasia. The reason James gives him immense material wealth is just part of the fanfic thing of dialing everything up to 11. Remember that in the first draft he wasn't even wealthy; he was a vampire. Making him wealthy is just the closest mortal equivalent to being immortal and having the power to irresistably lure mortals to your service.
Fantasies like 50 shades are developed by a processof sharpening; it's obvious that James herself isn't sure quite how deep the rabbit hole of her sexuality goes, but she is exploring. Twilight tweaked her buttons but not as hard as she wanted, so she made her own version where Edward is less deferent and more bossy and controlling. He roughs her up. Then some friends, who obviously have no literary taste or awareness of RL S&M either, talk it up and she realizes she needs to de-Twilight it for distribution. But how else to make Christian comparable to a supernatural being that can take anything it wants without recourse and will live forever? Make him one of the world's richest people, so that nobody can cross him! Nothing Twilight about that at all!
Every single popular lifestyle S&M ever written -- every single one, going back to Sade himself -- takes pains to explain how the protagonists are able to fulfill their mundane needs while indulging their sexual obsession. Even James' Twilight source material can be viewed through that lens. James didn't have to make Christian a billionaire, true, but she was coming down off an immortal vampire high and just having him be a millionaire with a nice house and a sailboat doesn't have the same ring.
posted by localroger at 4:09 PM on May 10, 2013
Well I believe you have this exactly backwards; the fantasy at the heart of the book is that Christian can totally control Anastasia. The reason James gives him immense material wealth is just part of the fanfic thing of dialing everything up to 11. Remember that in the first draft he wasn't even wealthy; he was a vampire. Making him wealthy is just the closest mortal equivalent to being immortal and having the power to irresistably lure mortals to your service.
Fantasies like 50 shades are developed by a processof sharpening; it's obvious that James herself isn't sure quite how deep the rabbit hole of her sexuality goes, but she is exploring. Twilight tweaked her buttons but not as hard as she wanted, so she made her own version where Edward is less deferent and more bossy and controlling. He roughs her up. Then some friends, who obviously have no literary taste or awareness of RL S&M either, talk it up and she realizes she needs to de-Twilight it for distribution. But how else to make Christian comparable to a supernatural being that can take anything it wants without recourse and will live forever? Make him one of the world's richest people, so that nobody can cross him! Nothing Twilight about that at all!
Every single popular lifestyle S&M ever written -- every single one, going back to Sade himself -- takes pains to explain how the protagonists are able to fulfill their mundane needs while indulging their sexual obsession. Even James' Twilight source material can be viewed through that lens. James didn't have to make Christian a billionaire, true, but she was coming down off an immortal vampire high and just having him be a millionaire with a nice house and a sailboat doesn't have the same ring.
posted by localroger at 4:09 PM on May 10, 2013
>is kind of like saying there's no point in excavating and studying Roman artifacts because everyone knows what a bowl is for
>People study those things because there's not much else to study. If you're transported to ancient Rome and you spend your time hanging around the kilns making a big deal out of how much you're learning about Roman society, you're probably not making best use of your time. That said, there's nothing wrong with wasting a little time.
I think ostro's comment meant that it isn't a waste of time studying objects that seem ordinary to us (e.g. a bowl), because they tell us a lot more about other aspects of society than we might think at first glance.
Similarly, it's not a waste of time examining mindblowingly popular cultural phenomenons like 50 Shades of Grey. They tell us something about our values and our norms--things we might not think about explicitly but are still there and worth bringing into the light.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 4:14 PM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
>People study those things because there's not much else to study. If you're transported to ancient Rome and you spend your time hanging around the kilns making a big deal out of how much you're learning about Roman society, you're probably not making best use of your time. That said, there's nothing wrong with wasting a little time.
I think ostro's comment meant that it isn't a waste of time studying objects that seem ordinary to us (e.g. a bowl), because they tell us a lot more about other aspects of society than we might think at first glance.
Similarly, it's not a waste of time examining mindblowingly popular cultural phenomenons like 50 Shades of Grey. They tell us something about our values and our norms--things we might not think about explicitly but are still there and worth bringing into the light.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 4:14 PM on May 10, 2013 [1 favorite]
It's as valid to read deep political and sociological meaning from a Disney movie as it is to read deep political and sociological meaning from vampire slashfic with all the names changed to allow real publication.
To be clear, that amount of validity is absolutely 0.
What a colossal load of horseshit. I wrote my honours thesis on Disney, mate, and let me tell you: If you think the most popular and enduring stories we choose to champion as a society have nothing to say about our society and values, then I suggest you need to spend a bit more time reading - and thinking - about them. FFS.
posted by smoke at 4:37 PM on May 10, 2013 [5 favorites]
To be clear, that amount of validity is absolutely 0.
What a colossal load of horseshit. I wrote my honours thesis on Disney, mate, and let me tell you: If you think the most popular and enduring stories we choose to champion as a society have nothing to say about our society and values, then I suggest you need to spend a bit more time reading - and thinking - about them. FFS.
posted by smoke at 4:37 PM on May 10, 2013 [5 favorites]
Oi, smoke.
I didn't say that the most popular and enduring stories we choose to champion as a society have nothing to say about our society and values.
I said that it is entirely useless to expect that the authors/creators of disney films have intentionally filled them with deep political and sociological meaning.
Shallow political and sociological meaning, perhaps. But mostly market driven - certainly by the time that The Little Mermaid was produced. It's a product, designed to further the interests of the Disney corporation. Every last scrap of it was carefully scraped by the corporate machine to ensure that nothing was significantly off message.
Are you going to now argue that Disney's Pocohontas was a thoughtful analysis of the history of the indigenous American's population's interaction with colonial Europeans?
posted by jefflowrey at 5:05 PM on May 10, 2013
I didn't say that the most popular and enduring stories we choose to champion as a society have nothing to say about our society and values.
I said that it is entirely useless to expect that the authors/creators of disney films have intentionally filled them with deep political and sociological meaning.
Shallow political and sociological meaning, perhaps. But mostly market driven - certainly by the time that The Little Mermaid was produced. It's a product, designed to further the interests of the Disney corporation. Every last scrap of it was carefully scraped by the corporate machine to ensure that nothing was significantly off message.
Are you going to now argue that Disney's Pocohontas was a thoughtful analysis of the history of the indigenous American's population's interaction with colonial Europeans?
posted by jefflowrey at 5:05 PM on May 10, 2013
I said that it is entirely useless to expect that the authors/creators of disney films have intentionally filled them with deep political and sociological meaning.
It's not that they did it on purpose. It's that since the creators are part of their cultural milieu, their products can't help but mirror the beliefs and expectations of that culture.
posted by winna at 5:38 PM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]
It's not that they did it on purpose. It's that since the creators are part of their cultural milieu, their products can't help but mirror the beliefs and expectations of that culture.
posted by winna at 5:38 PM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]
Are you going to now argue that Disney's Pocohontas was a thoughtful analysis of the history of the indigenous American's population's interaction with colonial Europeans?
WOOSH
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 6:15 PM on May 10, 2013 [2 favorites]
WOOSH
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 6:15 PM on May 10, 2013 [2 favorites]
Are you going to now argue that Disney's Pocohontas was a thoughtful analysis of the history of the indigenous American's population's interaction with colonial Europeans?
No. We're arguing that examining Disney's Pocahontas tells us a lot about the warped perceptions mainstream Western society has about the indigenous population's interaction with colonizers.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 6:21 PM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]
No. We're arguing that examining Disney's Pocahontas tells us a lot about the warped perceptions mainstream Western society has about the indigenous population's interaction with colonizers.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 6:21 PM on May 10, 2013 [3 favorites]
I said that it is entirely useless to expect that the authors/creators of disney films have intentionally filled them with deep political and sociological meaning
This is sort of what other people have been saying, but why are you only looking for intentional authorial meaning as the only part of the work worth discussing? You don't need to get all Death of the Author to want to talk about unintentionally incorporated elements from the culture and meanings that readers, consciously or unconsciously, extract from works without the author being aware of it.
People who watch Pocahontas come away with certain ideas about the place of Native culture, informed in part by their viewing of Pocahontas. That's worth discussing, even if no Disney writer meant for it to happen. For works of pop culture, the meaning that we find in them absent the author's intent are frequently the most interesting, because the author's intent is mostly to put butts in seats. Finding meaning where there it wasn't meant to be isn't useless, it's exciting because it can tell you something about people other than the author.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:12 PM on May 10, 2013
This is sort of what other people have been saying, but why are you only looking for intentional authorial meaning as the only part of the work worth discussing? You don't need to get all Death of the Author to want to talk about unintentionally incorporated elements from the culture and meanings that readers, consciously or unconsciously, extract from works without the author being aware of it.
People who watch Pocahontas come away with certain ideas about the place of Native culture, informed in part by their viewing of Pocahontas. That's worth discussing, even if no Disney writer meant for it to happen. For works of pop culture, the meaning that we find in them absent the author's intent are frequently the most interesting, because the author's intent is mostly to put butts in seats. Finding meaning where there it wasn't meant to be isn't useless, it's exciting because it can tell you something about people other than the author.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:12 PM on May 10, 2013
I suspect many people, like me, are interested in examining the way that particular works capture the popular imagination, and speculating on what that says about our socio-economic condition. This article does a good job of looking at an immensely popular series and asking how its treatment of wealth and privilege might relate to what Western society is currently experiencing.
I think the operative word is "might". There are plenty of elements in the series which also might relate to things western society is currently experiencing, including sexual predation, emotional abuse interpreted as romance, and billionaires breaking the law with impunity. However, for the most part I doubt the author was intending to send any social messages or imbue the series with any meaning other than how it can be rewarding to be the object of a rich man's obsessive desire. Especially if you're a naive virgin willing to indulge his kinky whims and sacrifice your personal agency.
Literary merit or authorial intent become mostly irrelevant in this kind of discussion.
YMMV. I still think trying to attach much significance to themes in the 50 Shades series is akin to having a professional food critic analyze the essence of a convenience store-bought hamburger; most people probably already know what to expect of lukewarm prepackaged food. Likewise, a critique of grammar-challenged repurposed fanfiction, brimming with ever so erudite references to Shakespearean dialogue, Faust, and the social strata of early 20th century Great Britain just seems silly, unnecessary, and in the particular case of the FPP online article, link-bait disguised as journalistic art. IMO, of course.
posted by fuse theorem at 12:26 AM on May 11, 2013
I think the operative word is "might". There are plenty of elements in the series which also might relate to things western society is currently experiencing, including sexual predation, emotional abuse interpreted as romance, and billionaires breaking the law with impunity. However, for the most part I doubt the author was intending to send any social messages or imbue the series with any meaning other than how it can be rewarding to be the object of a rich man's obsessive desire. Especially if you're a naive virgin willing to indulge his kinky whims and sacrifice your personal agency.
Literary merit or authorial intent become mostly irrelevant in this kind of discussion.
YMMV. I still think trying to attach much significance to themes in the 50 Shades series is akin to having a professional food critic analyze the essence of a convenience store-bought hamburger; most people probably already know what to expect of lukewarm prepackaged food. Likewise, a critique of grammar-challenged repurposed fanfiction, brimming with ever so erudite references to Shakespearean dialogue, Faust, and the social strata of early 20th century Great Britain just seems silly, unnecessary, and in the particular case of the FPP online article, link-bait disguised as journalistic art. IMO, of course.
posted by fuse theorem at 12:26 AM on May 11, 2013
I said that it is entirely useless to expect that the authors/creators of disney films have intentionally filled them with deep political and sociological meaning.
I think you should re-read your comment again; that is not what you said at all. You said, that it is invalid to read "deep political and sociological meaning" from Disney films. And I maintain that opinion is very ignorant.
Addressing your new point, I can tell you that the writers and animators of Disney films, people like Howard Ashman, are very much aware of and capable of inserting deep meanings in their texts. You can read the interviews; I have. And you can see it in the frames referencing Kay Nielsen, the deep canvas technique pioneered in Snow White, Jean Cocteau, and more.
This is not to say the texts don't contain other deep political and sociological meanings - just as the stories they are often based on also do. This is not to say that they do not - textually and visually - contain negative or bad messages. But there's a whole lot going on in most Disney films, and it's worth spending some time thinking about it, and what it says about our cultural values.
posted by smoke at 12:51 AM on May 11, 2013 [2 favorites]
I think you should re-read your comment again; that is not what you said at all. You said, that it is invalid to read "deep political and sociological meaning" from Disney films. And I maintain that opinion is very ignorant.
Addressing your new point, I can tell you that the writers and animators of Disney films, people like Howard Ashman, are very much aware of and capable of inserting deep meanings in their texts. You can read the interviews; I have. And you can see it in the frames referencing Kay Nielsen, the deep canvas technique pioneered in Snow White, Jean Cocteau, and more.
This is not to say the texts don't contain other deep political and sociological meanings - just as the stories they are often based on also do. This is not to say that they do not - textually and visually - contain negative or bad messages. But there's a whole lot going on in most Disney films, and it's worth spending some time thinking about it, and what it says about our cultural values.
posted by smoke at 12:51 AM on May 11, 2013 [2 favorites]
fuse theorem: However, for the most part I doubt the author was intending to send any social messages or imbue the series with any meaning
Not to make you feel ganged-up-upon, fuse theorem, but I think what you may be missing is that popular texts tell us things about society's mores and attitudes whether intentional or not. This is especially true when taken in the aggregate. For example, if you read a bunch of Harlequin Romance novels from the 1970's and the 2010's, you find differences that reflect the way society has changed from then to now. This includes things like gender parity in the workplace, attitudes towards female sexuality, challenges towards the idea that men who sleep around are normal but women who sleep around are loose, and, especially, concepts of consent. There's a reason a lot of those older books seem rapey to us; the idea of female consent has changed in the last forty years, and with it, the ways we consider acceptable for a romantic hero to act. There's a lot of "I know she wants it so I'll just make her take it" stuff in older books that feels repellant to the modern reader.
You see it in other areas, too. One of soap's great supercouples, Luke and Laura, started with Luke raping Laura in 1979, and over the next few years, the rape was downplayed to the point that Laura called it, "The first time Luke and I made love". In 2000, they had the characters revisit the event and acknowledge it was rape. That says something about society's attitudes towards rape in 1979, and again in 2000, even though the show's producers didn't intend to be sending messages.
posted by Georgina at 4:10 AM on May 11, 2013 [2 favorites]
Not to make you feel ganged-up-upon, fuse theorem, but I think what you may be missing is that popular texts tell us things about society's mores and attitudes whether intentional or not. This is especially true when taken in the aggregate. For example, if you read a bunch of Harlequin Romance novels from the 1970's and the 2010's, you find differences that reflect the way society has changed from then to now. This includes things like gender parity in the workplace, attitudes towards female sexuality, challenges towards the idea that men who sleep around are normal but women who sleep around are loose, and, especially, concepts of consent. There's a reason a lot of those older books seem rapey to us; the idea of female consent has changed in the last forty years, and with it, the ways we consider acceptable for a romantic hero to act. There's a lot of "I know she wants it so I'll just make her take it" stuff in older books that feels repellant to the modern reader.
You see it in other areas, too. One of soap's great supercouples, Luke and Laura, started with Luke raping Laura in 1979, and over the next few years, the rape was downplayed to the point that Laura called it, "The first time Luke and I made love". In 2000, they had the characters revisit the event and acknowledge it was rape. That says something about society's attitudes towards rape in 1979, and again in 2000, even though the show's producers didn't intend to be sending messages.
posted by Georgina at 4:10 AM on May 11, 2013 [2 favorites]
The use of brand names in 50 Shades seems exactly like the use of pop-culture references within American Psycho - i.e. incredibly disturbing.
posted by longbaugh at 5:45 AM on May 11, 2013
posted by longbaugh at 5:45 AM on May 11, 2013
fuse theorem >
There are plenty of elements in the series which also might relate to things western society is currently experiencing, including sexual predation, emotional abuse interpreted as romance, and billionaires breaking the law with impunity. However, for the most part I doubt the author was intending to send any social messages or imbue the series with any meaning...
This interpretive perspective is arbitrarily narrow: how can anyone know what the author's true intent actually was, first of all, and more importantly why should that determine the universe of potential meanings that can be legitimately drawn from a text?
Here's a concrete example of why authorial intent is a useless standard. Let's say that a high school student gets an assignment to write a short story. They, as it happens, feel inclined to slack off (as is so often the case, they probably have something more fun to do) and so they end up doing the whole thing the night before and the end result is something not so good. Now, would it be unreasonable to infer from the poor quality of the story they write that they might not have given themself enough time to do it well? Of course not. But that characteristic of the world, inferred from the text, did not exist anywhere in their intention, yet clearly it would be a sensible inference.
Let's go one step further: one might question if the poor quality of the student's work might result from problems at home. It would clearly be plausible for a bad home life to affect the student's work, but that might not be explicit (or even implicit) in the work itself. And even further: what if lots of kids produce bad work because their home lives make it hard to have time to themselves, or to get support from benevolent parents or caregivers? You've already got a significant (if tentative and hypothetical) sociological insight right there, and it requires no reference to the content of the schoolwork produced or what the students intended.
posted by clockzero at 10:36 AM on May 11, 2013
There are plenty of elements in the series which also might relate to things western society is currently experiencing, including sexual predation, emotional abuse interpreted as romance, and billionaires breaking the law with impunity. However, for the most part I doubt the author was intending to send any social messages or imbue the series with any meaning...
This interpretive perspective is arbitrarily narrow: how can anyone know what the author's true intent actually was, first of all, and more importantly why should that determine the universe of potential meanings that can be legitimately drawn from a text?
Here's a concrete example of why authorial intent is a useless standard. Let's say that a high school student gets an assignment to write a short story. They, as it happens, feel inclined to slack off (as is so often the case, they probably have something more fun to do) and so they end up doing the whole thing the night before and the end result is something not so good. Now, would it be unreasonable to infer from the poor quality of the story they write that they might not have given themself enough time to do it well? Of course not. But that characteristic of the world, inferred from the text, did not exist anywhere in their intention, yet clearly it would be a sensible inference.
Let's go one step further: one might question if the poor quality of the student's work might result from problems at home. It would clearly be plausible for a bad home life to affect the student's work, but that might not be explicit (or even implicit) in the work itself. And even further: what if lots of kids produce bad work because their home lives make it hard to have time to themselves, or to get support from benevolent parents or caregivers? You've already got a significant (if tentative and hypothetical) sociological insight right there, and it requires no reference to the content of the schoolwork produced or what the students intended.
posted by clockzero at 10:36 AM on May 11, 2013
You see it in other areas, too. One of soap's great supercouples, Luke and Laura, started with Luke raping Laura in 1979, and over the next few years, the rape was downplayed to the point that Laura called it, "The first time Luke and I made love". In 2000, they had the characters revisit the event and acknowledge it was rape. That says something about society's attitudes towards rape in 1979, and again in 2000, even though the show's producers didn't intend to be sending messages.
It was always rape, in 1979 and 2000 and all points in between. Laura referring to it as making love wasn't a reflection of society's momentarily more accepting attitude about rape, it was about the show's producers wanting to maintain Luke and Laura as a viable supercouple for as long as possible. A large enough portion of the audience liked them in spite of the rape and that translated into high ratings. As new viewers came on board the rape became less of an issue because they weren't invested in much of the show's past. It was one of the most notorious examples of retconning in soap opera history but it paid off for the producers of the show (and the actors) for a very long time. The same scenario has played out at one time or another on most daytime soaps, particularly the ones still standing.
This interpretive perspective is arbitrarily narrow: how can anyone know what the author's true intent actually was, first of all, and more importantly why should that determine the universe of potential meanings that can be legitimately drawn from a text?
Okay, the author's intent can't be known and is not the issue. The fact is, for whatever reason, she produced and sold this ridiculously low quality work and has been rewarded handsomely for it. I don't think the series' success or notoriety is due to any of the lofty notions listed in FPP article. From all indications I've seen, it happened simply because the book appealed to the guilty pleasures of certain women who probably had not read anything remotely erotic before, many of whom were also already fans of the Bella and Edward relationship dynamic. Additionally, some people like myself were simply curious to see what all the fuss was about (and lived to regret finding out).
I think the only thing about society the book legitimately reflects is the potentially lucrative power of discovering and taking advantage of an unmined niche. There are a lot of 50 Shades imitations out there now, many of which are written by people who actually appear to have a grammatical grasp of the English language as well as the ability to use a thesaurus. Some of those books are perhaps more worthy of literary critique and examination for societal implications than the garbage that is the 50 Shades series. But if the author of the FPP article managed to get paid for trying to convince The Baffler's audience that there was some higher meaning to it then bully for her.
posted by fuse theorem at 8:07 PM on May 18, 2013
It was always rape, in 1979 and 2000 and all points in between. Laura referring to it as making love wasn't a reflection of society's momentarily more accepting attitude about rape, it was about the show's producers wanting to maintain Luke and Laura as a viable supercouple for as long as possible. A large enough portion of the audience liked them in spite of the rape and that translated into high ratings. As new viewers came on board the rape became less of an issue because they weren't invested in much of the show's past. It was one of the most notorious examples of retconning in soap opera history but it paid off for the producers of the show (and the actors) for a very long time. The same scenario has played out at one time or another on most daytime soaps, particularly the ones still standing.
This interpretive perspective is arbitrarily narrow: how can anyone know what the author's true intent actually was, first of all, and more importantly why should that determine the universe of potential meanings that can be legitimately drawn from a text?
Okay, the author's intent can't be known and is not the issue. The fact is, for whatever reason, she produced and sold this ridiculously low quality work and has been rewarded handsomely for it. I don't think the series' success or notoriety is due to any of the lofty notions listed in FPP article. From all indications I've seen, it happened simply because the book appealed to the guilty pleasures of certain women who probably had not read anything remotely erotic before, many of whom were also already fans of the Bella and Edward relationship dynamic. Additionally, some people like myself were simply curious to see what all the fuss was about (and lived to regret finding out).
I think the only thing about society the book legitimately reflects is the potentially lucrative power of discovering and taking advantage of an unmined niche. There are a lot of 50 Shades imitations out there now, many of which are written by people who actually appear to have a grammatical grasp of the English language as well as the ability to use a thesaurus. Some of those books are perhaps more worthy of literary critique and examination for societal implications than the garbage that is the 50 Shades series. But if the author of the FPP article managed to get paid for trying to convince The Baffler's audience that there was some higher meaning to it then bully for her.
posted by fuse theorem at 8:07 PM on May 18, 2013
But your (accurate) observations about the relatively low quality of the writing make it even more intriguing why this particular series (50 Shades of Grey) is so popular. That is what people like this author are interested in exploring. Given that it's really not well-written, and there are other works of erotica that are superficially about the same sorts of things, but better written, why was 50 Shades so popular? It's an interesting question, and the answers (or speculation as to the answers) may reveal something about undercurrents in our culture.
From all indications I've seen, it happened simply because the book appealed to the guilty pleasures of certain women who probably had not read anything remotely erotic before, many of whom were also already fans of the Bella and Edward relationship dynamic.
And I wouldn't dispute that these are possible reasons! But I think it's interesting to try to understand why it appealed to women who weren't that conversant with erotica. And what is it about the Bella/Edward relationship dynamic that is so appealing? What was it about this series that seemed non-threatening and even exciting? I think some of the things the author mentions in the article are very plausible, though that doesn't rule out other reasons of course.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 3:51 PM on May 19, 2013
From all indications I've seen, it happened simply because the book appealed to the guilty pleasures of certain women who probably had not read anything remotely erotic before, many of whom were also already fans of the Bella and Edward relationship dynamic.
And I wouldn't dispute that these are possible reasons! But I think it's interesting to try to understand why it appealed to women who weren't that conversant with erotica. And what is it about the Bella/Edward relationship dynamic that is so appealing? What was it about this series that seemed non-threatening and even exciting? I think some of the things the author mentions in the article are very plausible, though that doesn't rule out other reasons of course.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 3:51 PM on May 19, 2013
To clarify, a million years later: I am a woman and I am married, but I am not a housewife. That's a decision many people make that's not based on sex but on socially-imposed gender roles. People who subscribe to the damaging myth can only really write about the damaging myth because, in many cases, they have remained willfully ignorant and/or dismissive of other ways of being and relating. I realize that that could be taken to be hypocritical since I seem to be dismissing the whole "housewife" lifestyle; but let's face it, the Stephenie Meyerses and the E.L. Jameses are the contemporary faces of cis-genderedness, and I want nothing to do with it.
posted by Mooseli at 2:06 PM on June 4, 2013
posted by Mooseli at 2:06 PM on June 4, 2013
« Older Watching the world go by from orbit | Mop Mop: bastard performances of modern jazz, afro... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
iPad and iPod are luxe brands?
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:22 AM on May 10, 2013