azia said what? : pop culture

Thursday, May 10, 2012

50 Shades of Fuck That Shit

It is a known fact that I love a great Young Adult novel. Why do I love the YA genre? I love the writing, I do. I really do. I love that you can read a story about witches and wizards or even vampires, and it's more about the characters and less about sex. You read something like Game of Thrones (which is amazing- I'm not dissing it! NEVER!) and there is tons of sex and vulgarity.

I don't always want tons of sex and vulgarity, oddly enough.

Just because I'm obsessed with Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, just because I love The Chronicles of Narnia and read The Twilight Saga (and used to be a moderator on Twilight's largest Facebook fan page years ago. Don't hate me)- does not mean I'm going to read 50 Shades of Grey by E.L. James. Frankly, I can't see how my appreciation for YA can even go hand in hand with this novel. It's not a YA novel!

Stupid Author of a Stupid Book

People keep asking me, "Oh my god! Have you read this book yet!?" Like it's expected of me or something. Stop asking me if I've read it! I haven't and I don't plan on it.

I have standards, thank you very much.

I try not to judge things before I try them... I even told my friend Amanda that if she took the time and energy to mail the book to me I may attempt to read it so that my hate for the novel can be solidified by the phrase, "I've read it and it fucking sucks."

But, then I see things like this and I know I'll never read it.

This. This is STUPID.

Why would I read this garbage? I love literature. I love Jane Eyre. I love Revolutionary Road and novels by real writers like Margaret Atwood and George Orwell. I do not read this kind of crap.

50 Shades of Grey was originally Twilight Fan Fiction. The two main characters were originally written as Bella and Edward. Some 40 year old hormonal woman wrote a lusty, perverse fan fiction about Bella and Edward. It's Twilight Porn. It really is.

Don't believe me? Let's recruit our ever-trusted Wikipedia:

The Fifty Shades Trilogy was developed from a Twilight fanfiction originally entitled Master of the Universe and published episodically on fanfiction websites under the penname "Snowqueen's Icedragon". The piece featured characters named after Stephenie Meyer's characters in Twilight, Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. After comments concerning the sexual nature of the material, James removed the story from the fanfiction websites and published it on her own website, FiftyShades.com. Later she decided to rewrite Master of the Universe as an original piece with the principal characters renamed Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele and shortly prior to its publication withdrew the fanfiction version from her website.

Also:

The plot traces the relationship between recent college graduate Anastasia Steele and manipulative billionaire Christian Grey. Steele is required by Grey to sign a contract allowing him complete control over her life. As she gets to know him she learns that his sexual tastes involve bondage, domination and sadism, and that childhood abuse left him a deeply damaged individual. In order to be his partner she agrees to experiment with BDSM, but struggles to reconcile who she is (a virgin who has never previously had a boyfriend) with whom Christian wants her to be: his submissive, to-do-with-as-he-pleases partner in his "Red Room of Pain."

What did I just read?

So again- I ask- why would I read this garbage? People- just because I love a *good* YA novel- does not mean I like dirty-Mommy-porn about a pathetic young woman who chooses to let a man control her life.

Not to mention, I keep reading reviews about how shitty the writing is. Here's an excerpt from a review by the Chicago Tribune:

By that measure — and frankly, pretty much any other measure I can think of, other than the cringe-inducing fiction 14-year-olds tend to submit to literary magazines — this is a pretty dreadful book. Put simply, author E L James — who is now officially invulnerable to criticism because she has more money than God — is not a very good writer.
Her dialogue is stilted, the descriptions of place overwrought, and the characters and plot so predictable that a reader could theoretically skip over several dozen pages of text and still be utterly unsurprised by new developments. (Hey, what do you know? They're having violent sex again. And both appear to feel vaguely conflicted about the violence aspect, but apparently not conflicted enough to actually stop doing it).

And, she's making millions off these stupid books and I'm pissed off about it.

And, yes it's slated to be a motion picture. Obviously.

How does something like this happen? I really just don't understand...

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

I admit it, I'm going to see it...

Friday morning at noon, I will be sitting in the movie theater with 4 of my female co-workers watching The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1. (Cheese and rice, that's quite the title.)

Saddly, I read all of the books. Thankfully, I read them before the movies and all the twi-mania erupted. Unfortunately, I used to be a moderator on the largest Facebook fan page for Twilight. Luckily, I realized after Breaking Dawn was released that the books were crap and that Stephenie Meyer cannot write.

Breaking Dawn is single handedly the worst writing I have ever encountered. It's a cluster fuck of plot lines that don't seem to intertwine, she introduces about 15 million new characters that have never been mentioned in prior stories... And she gets ya all amped up for something epic to happen, and BAM! Not a fucking thing.

Twilight was a guilty pleasure. I was a new mom when I started reading them. All my friends were all hot and sexy 21 year old... Wearin' dem high heels, gettin' all fiiiiine, going out. And, I was sitting at home in a maternity bra, covered in stretch marks and breast milk. Basically I was sexy as FUCK.

Bella Swan, the leading lady in the story is chronically PLAIN. She isn't the Belle of the Ball... She's a pale brunette, who prefers to spend her time reading Shakespeare and Bronte, she is a loner, likes to cook and doesn't spend a lot of time getting ready. (Bella don't give a flyin' fuck what she looks like.)

And then all the sudden the sexy guy that all the girls are obsessed over LOVES HER! And, to top it all off... He has a secret! And he confides it in her! Making her special too.. OMGRZ.

Yes, I totally got sucked in. It was a guilty pleasure, much like how I still watch General Hospital. (And now find myself tuning in every Wednesday night for Revenge. PS- F you CMA Awards... I was all amped up to see what happened last week, and you took over the time slot. Still haven't forgiven you.)

But, I saw flaws instantly. Bella was incredibly weak. Honestly, it gets out of control. And, Edward. Don't get me started on Edward. He would do creepy shit like take apart her engine so she wouldn't drive to see her friend Jacob (who happens to be a werewolf, no big deal) on his reservation. Their entire relationship is completely unhealthy and twisted. Not to mention, Edward is one controlling S.O.B.

I guess that's why I was always hoping she would pick Jacob.

God, I hate myself for reading these books.

But, yes... I will go see that awful book turned film on Friday. Slightly because I have a non-sexual girl crush on Kristen Stewart. And, also.. because I think this will be the first time that a movie HAS to be better than the book.. Because holy shit that book was fucking awful. Not to mention, I'm interested in Vampire Sex and the baby that's going to rip through Bella's stomach.

Now, I came across some of the most ridiculous Twilight related shit I've ever seen... Enjoy these tragic mistakes: