To the women of America: 4 reasons to hate 50 Shades of Grey

 July 25, 2014

To the women of America:

Please do not underestimate the significance of this. Here, now, you have been given the opportunity to grab ahold of our society and drag it back from the precipice. You cannot cure all of our ills, but, if you answer the call, you can at least help us take one small step toward peace and prosperity.

This is truly a seminal moment in our history. The weight of our future, our children’s future, our children’s children’s future, partially rests on the decision you are facing. Your task, ladies, is simple. All you must do is not buy tickets to 50 Shades of Grey when it’s released in theaters on Valentine’s Day.

Not one ticket.

Weekend box office total: $0.

The biggest flop of all time.

A more massive bust than Battlefield Earth and Gigli combined. A financial failure so staggering that it results in the immediate termination of every employee at the movie studio responsible for producing it. A categorical and unanimous rejection of what is  sure to be the most abominable, morally and mentally bankrupt ensemble of subpar acting and stilted dialogue ever cobbled together and presented, through any medium, to any audience, anywhere, at any point in history.

Am I overstating my case? Maybe, but stay with me.

As you may have noticed, the first 50 Shades of Grey preview debuted this week. Apparently it premiered on the Today Show at 8AM, which surely enchanted the millions of parents who might have made the mistake of turning on network television in the middle of the morning while their kids were in the room. Silly moms and dads, what makes you think you can do something like that without being greeted by a nice dose of sadomasochism and stylized sexual violence?  Besides, why do you even have problem with a trailer for a movie based on a book that romanticizes a sociopathic pervert who sexually dominates a young, impressionable woman? Puritans. Your kids are in preschool now, it’s about time they learn about this stuff.

The preview seems to have reinvigorated 50 Shades of Grey fever. My social media feeds have been clogged by, fortunately, plenty of women condemning the movie (and the book) for its idiocy/immorality, but also many women excitedly proclaiming their eagerness to see it. In a startling and unsurprising twist, I’ve noticed that some of the women who give me a hearty ‘AMEN’ every time I write a post condemning pornography, are the same ones gushing frantically about this film. They don’t want their husbands watching porn, but they’ll not only watch and read porn themselves — they’ll advertise that fact to the entire world.  As if the hypocrisy isn’t bad enough, they had to add in a touch of public emasculation.

Classy move.

But it’s not too late to fix this.

The movie won’t be released for another several months, so there’s still time to make the right choice. Either millions of women (and some henpecked, kowtowing men) will run off to watch this trite, lascivious garbage while the movie executives laugh as they swim naked in their vat of freshly printed millions, or we will all stand up in one voice and say, “Alright, Hollywood, you appeal-to-the-lowest-common-denominator trolls, we won’t play this game any longer. We all might disagree about quite a bit, but we can certainly agree that we’re too smart, too moral, and we have too much character and self-respect to spend 10 dollars watching this monstrosity. Freedom!”

And then we’ll paint our faces blue and charge into battle.

Imagine the message that would send. Imagine the Hollywood elites as they look at one another, stunned and shell shocked. “Dear Lord, the plebeians have become self-aware. They have… standards. They won’t sit obediently and devour whatever load of vapid, lifeless excrement we try to shovel into their anonymous faces. The jig is up, boys, we’re doomed.”

Imagine. Just imagine it.

Farfetched? Perhaps. Unlikely? Maybe. Probably unachievable at this point? Yes, definitely, but let me dream. And, more than dream, let me try. Let me try to bring about this Utopia. Let me try to explain why you, women of America, are too good for this movie: