[This blog was also published on Jo Bryant's blog, and on "Reader's Entertainment". To see the guest posts, click the links below:]
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I open up my e-mail inbox one
morning to find that the first message on the list bears the following title:
“THIS MONDAY—RAPE IN THE CONGO!”
Of course, after I open the
e-mail, I realize that it comes from an activist group that is inviting me to a
special event where they will screen a documentary about some humanitarian
crisis in Africa.
But the first thought that came
to my head, when I saw that email, was this:
Who can afford a plane ticket to the Congo in this economy? Much less
stomach all the raping?
I blame “Fifty Shades of Grey”
for this.
In part, I hold the “Fifty
Shades” phenomenon responsible because, in this day and age, violent sex is on
everybody’s minds. It’s all the vogue. It seems that no matter where we turn
lately, bruises are the coolest new thing to wear. Bella wakes up after her
wedding night with Edward Cullen to find her body bruised and sore, and she is
filled with love for her new husband. Anastasia meets a man who tells her he
wants to put metal projectiles inside of her, and she instantly falls for him.
“You had me at ‘projectiles’,” she says.
It used to be, the violence was
at least kept subtle and implicit in films and books. You watch one of these
old black and white movies from the 1940’s, and sure, the men do a lot of tough
talking, but they keep it classy for the most part. I recently watched “Double Indemnity”, a film noir from 1944. Sure, the main
character is always pulling women around by the upper arm to get them to go
along with him, as if they had no sense of agency of their own, or were
incapable of responding to a simple, verbal “hey, come over here please”. Sure,
the lead male has a habit of fiercely shaking his love interest by the shoulders
as a prelude to kissing her.
But at least nobody is waking up
with bruises in the morning, or having metal balls put inside their nether-regions.
In the 21st Century,
on the other hand, we have Twilight and Fifty Shades.
We have Edward Cullen, a husband
who is “special” and “magical” and sparkles in the sunlight—and, because he is special
and magical and sparkly, his wife is forced to cut off all contact with her
friends and family once she marries him. Because nothing says “loving
relationship” like a man who won’t let you call your dad on the phone.
We have Christian Grey, who makes
you sign a contract regulating when you can touch yourself, who monitors what
you eat meticulously.
All that’s missing is for
Christian Grey and Edward Cullen to sex their respective lovers to the tune of
Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique”
like Julia Roberts’ evil husband in “Sleeping
with the Enemy”.
But this isn’t the only problem I
blame on the “Fifty Shades” phenomenon.
I also hold “Fifty Shades” and
its kin responsible for my confusion. My misunderstanding of the aforementioned
email—and the vagueness of the email’s title itself—are the direct result of
these books, as they have normalized imprecise language. More than the bizarre
sexual practices, the poor syntax is, perhaps, the most disturbing thing about
the whole “Fifty Shades” series.
The Congo isn’t the only thing
being raped these days—the entire English language takes a beating when
something like “Fifty Shades” becomes popularized.
Every time Christian Grey says a
phrase like “thank fuck”—as if Fuck were some commonly accepted deity to whom
we offer thanks and praise—I feel as if King Leopold of Belgium is marching his
troops into the pristine wilderness of the English language, rampaging through the
countryside and mining the soil of our language for blood diamonds.
Every time E. L. James carpet
bombs her narrative with ubiquitous ellipses, raining down a maelstrom of fire
on the punctuation, I feel the English language shrivel up and die inside.
Every time her main character
says “oh my”; with every non sequitur in the plot development, with every
nonsensical metaphor and simile, the defenseless English language is ravaged
like a nation being colonized.
In the face of such devastation,
I did the only thing any sensible person would do—I launched a counterattack,
via parody. My novella, “Pirates of the
Danube”, is a work of comic farce which satirizes the entire lot of
barely-legible erotic and romance stories which have taken us by storm. It is
humanity’s last stand, in the face of almost certain literary demise.
And it will be free this weekend.
Now please, do yourself a favor and go check out Jo Bryant's lovely blog. She is awesome, and she is an Aussie - Kiwi, making her exponentially more awesome.
And feel free to check out Reader's Entertainment for more book-related juiciness.
And feel free to check out Reader's Entertainment for more book-related juiciness.
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