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...

"This is like, so stupid..."

So, today in Shakespeare (I'm taking a small, 2 credit course focusing on a few of his tragedies)- I had a moment that resembled this:

Source: Uploaded by user via Azia on Pinterest

We were watching a production (BBC - 1974?? I want to say) of Scene 5- the famous "death" scene in the play and a girl who sits behind me (and mind you, is constantly texting and checking her Facebook) murmurs, "This is like, so stupid.  It's like, so unrealistic."

THANK YOU FOR ENLIGHTENING ME TO THE SINGLE-HANDEDLY MOST INTELLIGENT CRITIQUE I HAVE EVER HEARD.  My view of Shakespeare is forever changed.  

Yes, I was just using the sarcasm font.

This play was published, I want to say in- 1597?  That is over 400 years ago, and we are still studying it!  This is one of the most poetic plays that I have ever read.  There are so many themes to be discovered, and so much metaphor, ahh!  It's an incredible work of literature, of art.  It is simultaneously tragic and beautiful.  And, to sit in a college level classroom, with other English majors and hear some ignorant girl mutter something so mundane and generic just got UNDER.MY.SKIN.

I turned around and asked her if she'd rather watch the love story unfold in "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days."*  She returned my question with pursed lips and her eyebrows raised.  Don't worry, I gave her the "bitch-please-you-don't-phase-me" look right back.  Because, let's be honest- no one phases me.

Why go to college and study literature if you do not appreciate it?  You don't have to like this play... As another girl, Dana, later pointed out during discussion, she doesn't believe Romeo, despite being a protagonist has any true redeeming qualities- and further, she explained WHY.  This is a true critique, this is the type of thing I expect to hear and discuss in a college level Shakespeare course.

Obviously, this play is like, not like, realistic.  It's a play, and it's a play that was written over 400 years ago!  I swear, college campuses are becoming a mecca for the unintelligent- all these kids care about is partying and looking "cool."  Rarely, in any of my classes is there debate.  Everyone just wants the answers to the test.  It's disheartening.

But, Romeo and Juliet- it is breathtaking!  A classic!  C'mon guys!  Here is Act 3- Scene 1 in the 1968 Zeffereli version:

I couldn't find the entire scene in this version that shows Romeo killing Tybalt.. But, you get the picture.

Looking at the modernized, 1996 version of the same scene... Yes, it's definitely one of the loosest interpretations of the play, but it's still amazing!  And brilliant!

Moral of the story- Romeo and Juliet is awesome and, if you are going to take college level coursework.. be serious about it or PLEASE quit wasting every one's time and stay inside watching Jersey Shore re-runs.  JEEZ.  Snookie wants squish squish.  And, Azia want's you to shut your freaking mouth!

*author's note: I thoroughly enjoy romantic comedies, and find pleasure in the above mentioned movie. please take no offense!