Fifty Shades of... wait, what?
Fifty Shades must be a popular topic around here, because those posts are generating more spam comments than the usual heavy hitters in this journal. Hooray, I guess. So, the latest news on that subject is this fun post linking it to pedophilia.
Guys, I hate the Fifty Shades series. I hate it with a passion. I think that anyone who relates to it needs to book themselves on a spiritual journey beginning with the shaving off of their hair as a rejection of materialism and vanity followed by a year or so of working with impoverished kids and learning that beauty and confidence are not things that someone else buys for you. Yes, the books are really that evil, but evil as they are, they aren't selling pedophilia. It's bad writing. The heroine is an adult who lives an adult life, she comes across as childish because she has the selfish perspective of a child and never develops the qualities of responsibility, selflessness, understanding and wisdom that we associate with becoming an adult.
As a teenager, one of my favorite books was The Darkangel by Meredith Ann Pierce. Why am I talking about it now? Firstly, I loved this book like woah and still do. I have a copy of it on my bookshelf (although I will admit that I only kept the first book because the rest of the series went a little "wait... what?" for me- not quite all the way to wtf but it still felt like it went off in places that didn't fit the tone of the first book.) We're going to talk about it now because it shares one of my favorite tropes with Fifty Shades.
Christian Grey and the Darkangel share quite a few traits. They're both handsome and wealthy. They both dazzle the heroine of the novel. They both have a whole bunch of former lovers who have been essentially destroyed by the relationship. They both were affected by first relationship with an older female who, while not 100% responsible for turning them to the dark side, played a major role in that shift- yes, they were both kind of pricks from the start, so we can't put the whole blame Mrs. Robinson or the evil, soul-sucking vampire queen or whatever she is. For both of the heroines, escape is not altogether possible- Christian is a major league stalker and the Darkangel will flat out chase you down. Both heroines also decide that they see some kernel of good in these jerks and are determined to save them. Other than that, these are two very different stories, mostly because one of them is, yanno, good.
So, here's the thing about The Darkangel. The main character has to earn her happy ending. At the beginning of the book, she's unattractive and clumsy, but unlike Ana, she's not bullshitting about that. People actually treat her like someone who is clumsy, lower class and unattractive. She's only a maid and her mistress is wealthy and beautiful. The Darkangel abducts the pretty one, and only later comes back for Aeriel, our heroine. Aeriel is blown away by how attractive the Darkangel is, which makes her less upset about being carried off to certain death than she should be, until she finds out that she isn't going to be a bride of the Darkangel. He wants her to be a serving maid to the bunch of wraiths that are all that's left of the hotties he kidnapped for brides. Also, all the former maids have committed suicide, so it's not exactly a good deal, even if she's got a shot at living longer than the rest.
Aeriel begins as whiny as miserable. She's in a horrible situation. The brides are miserable and unpleasant to be around. She's been told that she is not good enough to murder. Still, she has enough survival instinct to make the best of the situation. She goes from feeling sorry for herself to feeling compassion for others and trying to make the best of a bad situation. In the end, she becomes a friend and champion for the brides. Her kindness and strength even seem to make an impression on the Darkangel, and he starts hanging around more and acting like much less of an ass. Although she's still dazzled by him, she forms a plan to save the next girl he picks for a bride only to find that she has to carry it out herself when he decides that hey, she actually is pretty enough and worthy enough to... get murdered.
Needless to say, the writing in The Darkangel is far better than Fifty Shades. Pierce understands things like showing not telling and symbolism and themes and all the other things that go into making a story that is about something rather than nothing. There's food and clothes, but they have a reason to be there. Still, the thing that stands out to me the most is the way that the heroine earns her happy ending by not being an ass. When she's an angry and jealous person, she isn't pretty. When she becomes more beautiful on the inside, it shows on the outside.
The real story of Cinderella is not the tale of a girl who was prettiest of all and got a man because of it. The story is that Cinderella is lovely on the inside, but we don't see it on the outside. The magic doesn't change who she is, it only allows the world to see her for who she is. The prince recognizes her as someone who should be a princess and we get a happy ending. If Cinderella does nothing but bitch and moan about the chores she has to do while everyone tells her how great she is, then she isn't Cinderella. She's just one more stepsister, who figures that she can be as ugly as she wants on the inside just as long as she looks good enough on the outside.
The Fifty Shades series has a lot of problems, but the biggest one is the heroine. Look, the Darkangel is going around murdering people and sucking their blood. He plans to eat souls. He kills stuff for kicks because he's bored. He is a mean-spirited jerk powered by pure evil. If we can root for that guy to be saved from his jackassery, then we can definitely root for Christian Grey who hasn't actually killed anyone that we know about. We care about the Darkangel because Aeriel cares about him and we're rooting for her to succeed. If Aeriel can grow into a greater person and triumph, it gives us hope that we can do the same.
The biggest problem with Fifty Shades (and Twilight, although to a lesser extent) is that Ana isn't a Cinderella who makes the best of a bad lot and can be recognized for her real worth. Ana is just one more stepsister. She never learns or grows. Everyone tells her how wonderful she is from the start. Everyone falls in love with her immediately. She doesn't change or grow. She might be pretty on the outside, but her inside is ugly. If we dropped her into the Darkangel's story, she'd spend the whole book bitching about how crappy the brides away, obsessing about what they had that she doesn't. She would never think of anyone but herself and no one would be moved to help her. Aeriel spun thread of love and hope, but Ana would only be able to spin jealousy and despair. In the end, Ana would be dead, and not even pretty.
Guys, I hate the Fifty Shades series. I hate it with a passion. I think that anyone who relates to it needs to book themselves on a spiritual journey beginning with the shaving off of their hair as a rejection of materialism and vanity followed by a year or so of working with impoverished kids and learning that beauty and confidence are not things that someone else buys for you. Yes, the books are really that evil, but evil as they are, they aren't selling pedophilia. It's bad writing. The heroine is an adult who lives an adult life, she comes across as childish because she has the selfish perspective of a child and never develops the qualities of responsibility, selflessness, understanding and wisdom that we associate with becoming an adult.
As a teenager, one of my favorite books was The Darkangel by Meredith Ann Pierce. Why am I talking about it now? Firstly, I loved this book like woah and still do. I have a copy of it on my bookshelf (although I will admit that I only kept the first book because the rest of the series went a little "wait... what?" for me- not quite all the way to wtf but it still felt like it went off in places that didn't fit the tone of the first book.) We're going to talk about it now because it shares one of my favorite tropes with Fifty Shades.
Christian Grey and the Darkangel share quite a few traits. They're both handsome and wealthy. They both dazzle the heroine of the novel. They both have a whole bunch of former lovers who have been essentially destroyed by the relationship. They both were affected by first relationship with an older female who, while not 100% responsible for turning them to the dark side, played a major role in that shift- yes, they were both kind of pricks from the start, so we can't put the whole blame Mrs. Robinson or the evil, soul-sucking vampire queen or whatever she is. For both of the heroines, escape is not altogether possible- Christian is a major league stalker and the Darkangel will flat out chase you down. Both heroines also decide that they see some kernel of good in these jerks and are determined to save them. Other than that, these are two very different stories, mostly because one of them is, yanno, good.
So, here's the thing about The Darkangel. The main character has to earn her happy ending. At the beginning of the book, she's unattractive and clumsy, but unlike Ana, she's not bullshitting about that. People actually treat her like someone who is clumsy, lower class and unattractive. She's only a maid and her mistress is wealthy and beautiful. The Darkangel abducts the pretty one, and only later comes back for Aeriel, our heroine. Aeriel is blown away by how attractive the Darkangel is, which makes her less upset about being carried off to certain death than she should be, until she finds out that she isn't going to be a bride of the Darkangel. He wants her to be a serving maid to the bunch of wraiths that are all that's left of the hotties he kidnapped for brides. Also, all the former maids have committed suicide, so it's not exactly a good deal, even if she's got a shot at living longer than the rest.
Aeriel begins as whiny as miserable. She's in a horrible situation. The brides are miserable and unpleasant to be around. She's been told that she is not good enough to murder. Still, she has enough survival instinct to make the best of the situation. She goes from feeling sorry for herself to feeling compassion for others and trying to make the best of a bad situation. In the end, she becomes a friend and champion for the brides. Her kindness and strength even seem to make an impression on the Darkangel, and he starts hanging around more and acting like much less of an ass. Although she's still dazzled by him, she forms a plan to save the next girl he picks for a bride only to find that she has to carry it out herself when he decides that hey, she actually is pretty enough and worthy enough to... get murdered.
Needless to say, the writing in The Darkangel is far better than Fifty Shades. Pierce understands things like showing not telling and symbolism and themes and all the other things that go into making a story that is about something rather than nothing. There's food and clothes, but they have a reason to be there. Still, the thing that stands out to me the most is the way that the heroine earns her happy ending by not being an ass. When she's an angry and jealous person, she isn't pretty. When she becomes more beautiful on the inside, it shows on the outside.
The real story of Cinderella is not the tale of a girl who was prettiest of all and got a man because of it. The story is that Cinderella is lovely on the inside, but we don't see it on the outside. The magic doesn't change who she is, it only allows the world to see her for who she is. The prince recognizes her as someone who should be a princess and we get a happy ending. If Cinderella does nothing but bitch and moan about the chores she has to do while everyone tells her how great she is, then she isn't Cinderella. She's just one more stepsister, who figures that she can be as ugly as she wants on the inside just as long as she looks good enough on the outside.
The Fifty Shades series has a lot of problems, but the biggest one is the heroine. Look, the Darkangel is going around murdering people and sucking their blood. He plans to eat souls. He kills stuff for kicks because he's bored. He is a mean-spirited jerk powered by pure evil. If we can root for that guy to be saved from his jackassery, then we can definitely root for Christian Grey who hasn't actually killed anyone that we know about. We care about the Darkangel because Aeriel cares about him and we're rooting for her to succeed. If Aeriel can grow into a greater person and triumph, it gives us hope that we can do the same.
The biggest problem with Fifty Shades (and Twilight, although to a lesser extent) is that Ana isn't a Cinderella who makes the best of a bad lot and can be recognized for her real worth. Ana is just one more stepsister. She never learns or grows. Everyone tells her how wonderful she is from the start. Everyone falls in love with her immediately. She doesn't change or grow. She might be pretty on the outside, but her inside is ugly. If we dropped her into the Darkangel's story, she'd spend the whole book bitching about how crappy the brides away, obsessing about what they had that she doesn't. She would never think of anyone but herself and no one would be moved to help her. Aeriel spun thread of love and hope, but Ana would only be able to spin jealousy and despair. In the end, Ana would be dead, and not even pretty.