My Thoughts on Fifty Shades of Grey

[Matthew Rogers]

Subtitle: My thoughts on Fifty Shades of Crap

Subtitle 2: What in THE HOLY F^%K is wrong with you Vintage Books!?

    I know I'm a little late to the party on this, but I rarely place any long form rant about a subject on the internet for good reason, and the biggest one is that if I decide to talk about something that everyone else has already, then it is like trying to scream something during a Justin Bieber concert: you're not going to be heard. But for the past month or two Fifty Shades of Grey has been appearing on my radar where ever I go on the internet. It has been pissing me off ever since I decided to look it up on Google, and so I decided to say something about it.

A little back-story as to how I found out about it:

    Awhile ago I was going home from work when I had to stop at the nearest Shoppers Drugmart to pick up some eggs and milk, and as I walked about I looked at the book rack filled with bad fiction (though there is the rare chance they have a good book or two there) and saw FSOG on the shelf. I picked it up, raised my eyebrow at the description on the back, then placed it back on the shelf thinking it was no big deal. I then bought what I wanted and went home.

    Now the universe seems to love to throw coincidences at me, as sometimes the moment I find something it just suddenly appears everywhere I go, as this is where Least I Could Do comes into play.

    Yes, I read the webcomic. I like it, I find it funny when the humour works. But the next day after I see the books at the store I came across this strip.

    So curious after remembering that I saw the book the night before, I decided to Google it, and I wish I didn't to this day.

    First off, I am a big reader, I love books. I have so many books in my room right now its not funny in the slightest. I have only read probably a small number of the books in the room yet I keep on buying more because I love books. I just love a wonderfully crafted story with great characters. If I had to choose a book as my number one favourite it comes between  Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird, and I cannot choose one over the other.

    So when I read that this story is made from a bad Twilight Fan-Fic with BDSM called (and I wish I didn't have to write it out) Master of the Universe...

    And it is a Trilogy...

    All published in one year...

    Plus it is getting a film made out of it...

    Well that just made me a little angry.

    Then I decided to look up the author, because, why not? I did look up Meyer before when I heard about Twilight, so I thought it wouldn't hurt to see what's up. Then I noticed she was on Time magazine 100 Most Influential People in the World list.

    I followed the links (since I was using Wikipedia as the source) and noticed that yes, she was on the list with Barack Obama, Louis C.K, and Rhianna, just to name a few.

    Now while that made my anger boil a bit, it wasn't until I read what they said about her that really pissed me off, and here it is: “Now she's E.L. James, publishing phenomenon, whose Fifty Shades of...

    After everything I read I couldn't help but think, “No, just no. Hell no,” and I proceeded to get really angry at this.

    Now I know you must be thinking, “Hey, it's Time magazine, no need to get worried about it.” or “It's just a shitty book like Twilight, it'll pass.” I agree with those statements, but since this is a badly written BDSM book that rips off Twilight, that was published in one year, is getting a movie deal, plus being read by many mothers (and it's being called mommy porn, which makes me smack my head) and teenagers, especially the ones who grew up with Twilight as their main reading material, then I am worried about a lot of things.

    One of them is that, while I don't have a publishing degree, I believe that if you publish a trilogy within a year then it's safe to say that it is a big piece of crap. Why? Well usually there is a reason why a trilogy should take six years to publish (meaning two years in between the books), and it is because of editing. It takes a good while for the writer and the editor to go over the book and fix any mistakes, repetitions, or make the story stronger. To see that this entire series is published within a year just screams at me that it is badly written, and if you listen to any of the people reading the damn thing on the internet, you will catch them stopping because of either a word may be written wrong or they may not pronounce it right because they don't know what it is; one of the rules of writing is to not throw in words that will cause someone to stop and have to use a damn dictionary to find out what it means! The publishers just saw how popular it was becoming on the internet and wanted to rush it out as fast as they could, which is a mistake. I'm worried that instead of taking the time to invest in a writer and help them create a better piece of work, this shows that anyone would just take what they can get and throw it out into the world to make money.

    Also, I take the whole “Reading may never be the same,” a bit seriously due to a number of reasons. I am an English major who has graduated and I mostly took the courses to place myself deep within books that I've never read before. After I finished school I came out with my mind opened to trying new books, I decided to give anything a shot. So yes, I have read erotica, it is to me just another type of writing that can be read, and hell it is interesting to see sexual scenes writing out; you be surprised at how a writer manages to keep themselves from writing the same damn line over and over again when it comes to sex. Also I have read fan-fiction as well, as again it is a different type of writing and hey, it is free on the internet so why not? So I have read good erotica (one short story dealt with a man and a waitress at a diner, it was a quick but interesting read) and bad (in the same book, a woman gets f^%$ed by a shoe, I mean it), and the same can be said for fan-fiction (though sadly, I've read more bad than good, does My Immortal ring a bell?).

    Now why do I take “Reading may never be the same,” seriously? Well here is the deal. Erotica and fan-fiction are actually becoming accepted more and more as time goes on. Well fan-fiction has a long ways to go, but if done right then it can be done well, as it allows expansions on characters that may not have been giving a good chunk of time to be dealt with. Erotica is different as they are stories that have major sex scenes in them, and sex is the major theme of the story, but because the world has become more sex positive then these stories are becoming better and more accepted. Still, my point is that with FSOG being published, which is a bad mix of erotica and fan-fiction, there are so many things that can come out of this that will screw everything up. As its popularity soars, what do you think is going to happen?

    Well since this is based off of Twilight and all the original fans may see it, on top of the people who are getting into it for their own reasons, the popularity is going to get so big we are going to see the market flooded with bad erotica, bad fan-fiction, and probably a mix of both (now I know you can say that the Romance section of any book store is already like that, but hear me out). This scares the shit out of me due to the fact that when Twilight became popular, books that had vampires, werewolves, angles, demons, witchcraft (the list can go on), kept on coming out and populating the shelves. Hell once I saw a small side shelf titled, and I shit you not, “Phat fiction” with all the Twilight clones displayed underneath it. I remember trying to explain this once and a few people just told me, “Don't worry about it, the movie is going to suck and the whole thing will just die out,” but that should have happened with Twilight and now look at what the hell happened, supernatural fiction is ruined because of Meyer, for now anyway.

    The fact that this series has become so popular is a slap in the fact to all writers who came before E.L. James, plus those who are inspiring to become writers and are working hard to actually achieve their goal. She has done nothing to achieve her fame and is riding on the coattails of another author who I don't care for, the only difference between the two is that one decided to add sex and keep it constantly in the book. Hell the fact that it's getting a movie made out of it irks me as well. Anyone who is reading this knows for a damn fact that sex scenes in a film are just blah unless they are done right. FSOG has BDSM in it, and by the looks of things, its suppose to have moments when it gets hardcore. I know there is that film called The Secretary that shows a BDSM relationship, but do you think that this film (FSOG) will try to push it? It won't and it's going to be horrible, but people are going to watch it and we're going to see a flood of these types of films as well, it's going to go down-hill folks and I hate it.

    This series did not deserve to be published, at all. I don't care what anyone says, this book series is worse than Twilight. I couldn't help but roll my eyes and shake my head when I was at my local Chapters and while standing in line I saw a woman by all three books of FSOG. The cashier noticed and asked me if I disliked the series. I calmly explained my feelings about the series, which was a surprise to me. But if that woman had any god damn taste in literature she wouldn't have even thought about buying those books at all. The paper that those words are printed on are a waste and each book deserves to be recycled.

    When I heard about Twilight and realized what it was about and how bad it was I would say, “Well if this crap can get published, then anyone who is actually trying to write something could get published as well,” but now I'm taking Twilight and putting FSOG in it's place, as it is probably one of the worst piece of fiction to have its copyrights bought and then to be published to the masses. What the hell was Vintage Books thinking? I understand why Twilight was bought and published, which is the money, but at least Meyer had the decency to do one small thing, she at least wrote the books with some influences (seventh question) from better books. So to me if any of the readers catch any of the references and influences from those stories, or hell find out about it on Wikipedia like I did, then at least they can go search for those books and move on from Twilight for good. E. L. James probably doesn't even have any influences except Twilight and I bet she doesn't even give her readers anything except a bad romance and poorly written sex scenes.

    But there is one good thing about this in the end.

    And I bet some of you just quickly scanned what you just read and thought, “After all that you are saying there is something good?” Well just let me explain.

    Or at least leave this, this and this here and let them speak for me.

    Just trust me when I say watch them, they are all worth it. Especially the last one, I couldn't help but laugh my ass off.

    Yes, the only good thing to come out of any of this are the parodies that are circling the internet right now. Remember when I said the universe seems to love to throw coincidences at me? It was at the same time that I found out about it that the internet decided to pick up on it and start making so many parodies about the damn thing. The only problem I have is that the parodies are still showcasing the series which will cause some people, not all hopefully, to go and search out the books and buy them.

    In the end though I just got this one thing left to say and then I'm done.

    Please, for the love of good literature, for the sake of any author that you love, do not buy this series. Hell if you do have it, return it, don't burn it as you won't get your money back. If any of your friends buy it for you, smack them in the face with each book and tell them to return it. E. L. James does not deserve any of the money or fame that she is getting right now. Some of you may say this is hilarious stuff that needs to be make fun of, and I understand that, but she does not deserve the attention. Remember what happened with Twilight folks. We deserve qaulity, not quantity.

    As for anyone who wants to be a writer, for the love of those great writers who came before you, write. Write what you can write and get it published after you made sure it is in the best form that you can mold it into. If this...author (she does not deserve to be called that) can get published then so can you if you work hard.

    Also I decided to leave you all with this image to close this all off.

    Take care.

Note: Here is a link to this post on my tumblr.