@@zapazap There’s NOTHING wrong with vanilla. Never was, never will be. As long as all participants consent. Please do note that most rapes count as „vanilla“. Aka male-on-female missionary position. That’s why we keep emphasizing consent. „Vanilla“ means shit. Consent means everything.
This is where Ana's defects as a character/person show: viewing his abuser as competition to be jealous of, rather than a trash woman who abused a kid.
I'm now imagining the whole story taking place in ancient thebes and the ensuing is just all the women in Christians life going mad and tearing him limb from limb because Dionysus is so offended this asshole of is the king of his mothers goddamn city, the city where he was born, and is getting away with it because he's "rich." Sorry just vjsjfn in the myths Dionysus is a huge mamas boy, hater of pretty much any king, and also liberator of those who are being misused under the Man. Idk but tbh I'd totally read that book instead of the actual 50 shades books
31:00 To really hit the nail on the head here, Grey is using the word "vanilla" to mean *consensual*. "We only do what your comfortable with" shouldn't be the concession, it's the bare minimum standard. In a BDSM relationship, there's often play in the form of pushing limits, facing fear, and giving in, but only when the participants feel ready to explore those aspects. Think of it like going in for surgery. It's okay if the patient is nervous, most are, but if they didn't want the procedure in the first place it shouldn't be happening.
YES! ugh you put it into words - like even on the extreme end, the point is controlled experiences of fear and vulnerability and pain, and they’re sexy BECAUSE you know it can stop at any time!
Also, you'd have to be a terrible therapist to tell your patient's girlfriend that she's doing a better job at "fixing" said patient than a health professional. Any competent therapist would be like "Look, that's good of you to try to help but it's not your job to make him change, don't feel responsible for him".
Lol, one of my favorite things to do with (relevant) fiction is watch the HIPAA violations stack up. I'm a pharmacy tech, so HIPAA is a huge deal for me, and watching fictional characters blatantly disregard it is always a great time. :)
I like that, not only *can you buy* a cheap plastic light-up keychain that says "Yes!" in comic sans, but that Ana chose that specific tacky-as-hell way to give an answer to a literal billionaire with an exorbitant amount of class.
I'm sorry, but this snarling, haughty man-child is the furthest thing from a classy billionaire and I am of the honest belief that the cheap plastic key chain is the perfect gift to accept a marriage proposal to anyone who acts as awful as Christian Gray.
Christian is obsessed with Ana's safety because Edward is obsessed with Bella's safety (he buys her a super safe car at some point in the Twilight series). Except Edward is obsessed with Bella's safety because he is an indestructible deathless vampire with unfathomable strength and comparatively, she is a weak fragile butterfly made of tissue paper. But with two human persons, this makes basically no sense and is just a holdover from the fanfiction birthplace.
Ah yes, the car. I love that even the choice of car brand that reflect the author more than the character was translated over; Edward's choice of Volvos reflecting the brand's popularity with Mormons, and Christian choosing to show off with an Audi, a car that's way below his pay grade but looks expensive to a middle class fanfic author.
Ironically that was literally the profile of one of the main characters in a manhwa called Killing Stalking. And yes the character is in fact a serial killer.
I understand that these films and stories are bonkers, but the way you just breezed past the phrase, "Christian's on-call gynecologist" was really something to behold.
On another note, I love this series so much! I write romance novels and love romance novels, and I feel like these videos are actually teaching me so much about the craft of writing these stories and how easy it is to go terribly, terribly wrong with them. So, thank you for helping me improve my craft!
It took me years to understand this, so I'll drop this amendment to a common phrase for you, Practice makes -perfect- _okay._ Meaning, however much you reach for perfection, always hope and dream for it, but _never_ grow to expect it, you will only find frustration. I wish you luck and skill in your writing endeavors!
@Krazy Banshee I'm assuming that they simply don't exist in the universe she created, along with pets, iPods with more than 12 songs, and guys who don't ply women with alcohol.
I feel like Christian's overprotection of Ana is a characteristic symptomatic of the fanfiction origin, but with no thought put in as to why that was a trait Edward had in the first place. Edward was protective of Bella to a fault because he is immortal, but she is a fragile mortal clumsy human and he doesn't want her to be injured or killed, as humans are prone to. Mitchell lifted the personality trait without the supernatural basis for its existence, and so in her work it has no reason to be there and feels tacked on.
Nate Young Right, that’s very true. And Edward doesn’t get pleasure-vengeance on another person through hurting her. In fact, his overprotective and stalker-y habits are exceedingly less hypocritical than Christian Grey’s because Edward doesn’t actually physically harm Bella (except when he sucks venom from her blood and later transvamps her).
Kye Dysarthria man you’re really just going around commenting on everything to disagree with everyone 😂 This is like your fourth comment I’ve seen where all you contribute to the conversation is “um actually no you’re wrong” lol you even told someone they needed to be called out like who says that?
The Zee “you must be fucked up if you fuck through a sheet solely for procreation” - your argument in reverse. Both because it’s completely removed from what is actually the topic and because it describes something that literally isn’t exactly the thing being described.
"I want a vanilla relationship" "meaning we only do what you're comfortable with?" would actually be a really brilliant exchange in a story that understood how terrifying it was.
"That's not intense kink so much as the profile of a serial killer." This line sums up the whole franchise's problems and the author's seriously flawed view of kink, BDSM, and even 'regular' sexual relationships.
It hits the nail on the head perfectly, Christian even admitted it: he's not a dom, he's a sexual sadist, he doesn't enjoy BDSM relationships, he's incapable of feeling pleasure from anything other than inflicting pain on his mother and surrogates for her.
In retrospect it makes sense that the author was such a terrible consultant during the filming of the movies, she just has a warped sense of leadership and dominance and thinks being dominant = do everything I say or you’re shit to me
@@cam4636 honestly I don't think that helps lol that means when the author who shall not be named admitted he wasn't a Dom and didn't know shit about bdsm technically she's still wrong and still really stupid
I just watched a video talking Abt Killing Stalker which is a very violent and disturbing horror thriller and that profile literally matches one of the characters, a literal serial killer, rapist, abuser, literal torturer....
It is craaaazy accurate how clearly the gaze changed from female to male with the directors. I have to laugh at the attempts of men trying to depict another man as sexy. Time and time again it's proven that most (straight) men have zero idea about what women actually want or find attractive. I really appreciate you pointing that out, that's a super nice catch of movie analysis, that just brings to surface an actual societal issue about how men view women and themselves at the same time. Great video!
Anyone else just heartbroken by his old sub? This girl clearly trusted him and was attached to him and groomed by him and then it fell apart. He's completely detached and instead of sending her for help she's kind of set loose. The whole sub-plot is so interesting and maddening, and handled so poorly. This story would be so much more interesting as a psychological horror than this actual movie is in any capacity.
@Margaret Gibbs now that is something I would read! A psychological horror story about a lying and manipulative man who fakes a safe and healthy form of relationship (Bdsm when actually happening correctly) as a way to get people he wants. And our protagonist learning about this with a mystery mixed in. And then she finally sees the whole picture. My ending would have her calling a Real therapist or even 911 to get help for this. Because she CANT change him. She's just been strung along and needs outside help.
This is actually one of the few places where the movie makes the situation actively worse. From what i remember in the novels what happens is SHE goes 'okay yeah this relationship is a whole ass mess' and then leaves. Its only because her husband dies that she destabilises and then goes to find him for some sense of comfort and after the whole thing she gets the help she needs, he pays for it as well. Last time we see her she's going to art school and is fine and has a support system.
Turns out James is a mentally ill sociopath who thinks of other women as a threat who should be gotten rid of/suffer so that she can succeed, and wrote it into her fic. Oops.
I do think it's an interesting idea, in a vacuum, to have a story about a toxic sub who wouldn't take no for an answer. That happens in real life, and it sucks and can be genuinely scary (not usually in a "breaks into your home with a gun" way, though). It's not handled well here because Grey is already a deeply toxic dom with a fragile understanding of consent. That _could_ still work--Grey being bad at consent and ending up with partners who are also bad at consent would make sense and show how he's changed. If he had changed at all.
Yeah, the movie's version of Leela's situation is incredibly aggravating. I can't imagine abandoning my sub like that, it's so cruel and irresponsible, which would have made Christian a great villain to hate. As it is we already hate him but still.
I hadn't even thought about the framing of the sex scenes in Darker and Freed being directly related to the gender of the writer and director changing, but it really does make sense. Ironically enough, something pretty similar happens in the Twilight movies. The first one had a very distinct look and feel from the lighting to the color scheme to the way that Edward looked and was framed and it was directed by a woman. In the following Twilight films that's lost, especially the way Edward physically appears- those movies were directed by men. I'm thinking this is also why Ana looks different in the movies too. Sam-Taylor Johnson knew that Ana had to be average, the every-woman. She has a slow but noticeable change in the way she physically presents herself throughout the first movie that Taylor-Johnson deliberately chose. But in the last two she's suddenly got longer, thicker, shinier hair, a good sense of style, and that weird lip color that Dakota Johnson is wearing in basically every scene. Ana goes from an average, but still pretty, young woman with decent taste in clothing to a stylized idea of what the male writing/directing team thinks "no makeup" looks like. There's a subtle difference between the first and the last two movies not only with Christian, but with Ana too and it's definitely because the writing/directing team went from two women who knew how to write FOR women to two men who knew how to keep the same tone and feel of the first movie.
I think the main takeaway here is straight men are boring as hell and, if given the chance, will always ruin what small glimmer of art exists in dumpster fire franchises like 50 Shades
Sara Moreira I disagree. Saying that the male directors/screenwriters didn’t portray Christian in a more sexual light because it’s naturally more difficult for them (since they’re straight men) both lets them off the hook and suggests, that men are inherently unable to see or show how a man should be portrayed in order to be appealing to straight women (who are the core audience for the films). In the end, that’s dismissive of straight men as creators and also suggests, that male authors don’t need to learn how to make their creations appealing to women. Which in turn makes it sound as though women as audience members don’t need their fantasies catered to. I in no way mean all of the above to be an attack on you, but rather a criticism of the pervasive, ubquitous attitudes of film makers of today. Female gaze is something that is still incredibly rare, while long, lingering shots of half-naked women, which serve no point except tittilation of the male viewer (Star Trek 2 {the movie} anyone?) still reign supreme.
What I'm getting from this series is that the Edward Cullens replacement has his core gimmick, Vampirism, replaced with BDSM and the author failed to think of the consequences that removing the vampire part causes. He is obsessed with her safety "because's he's an extremely and uncontrollably strong vampire" vs he is obsessed with her safety "because trauma(?)". Moreover He "needs bdsm" is he "needs blood" the difference being one sustains his life force the other sustains his emotional trauma(?).
I really appreciate how Dan seeks to talk about romance, erotic fiction and fanfiction in a neutral and respectful tone. It makes any analysis of a work's problems more interesting when someone actually understands the context its in, and respects it enough to see how it could be better. Also, not to be the female version of a white knight (a white dame? Lol) but the comments on Dan's facial hair are a little weird? It doesn't matter what gender a TH-camr is, commenting on their appearance like they owe you a certain look is kind of entitled. Even when it's "a joke", it's really not something they wanted your input on
The term knight is a gender neutral term, female knights were referred to with the honorific of dame in the same way that a male knight would be referred to as "sir something". So if a female knight was named "Erica", after knighting she would be "Dame Erica". Also I agree with your point, I just wanted to be pedantic... I'm sorry, I need it sometimes.
@@robinbowman1926 nah man it's totally dame or lady depending on the order. Knight is masculine. Women are not knighted they're appointed to chivalric orders. They dont hold a knighthood but a damehood (which is a silly word but what can you do). I mean it varies but if you're talking about in the majority of the world especially England where knights are a thing then a woman becomes a dame not a knight.
It reminds me of the fanfic "Trapped in a island with Josh Hutcherson", one of the lines goes something like "we stared at each other for ten minutes" (lol). It's funny to see that Erika Mitchell's writing skills are on the same level of a tween's fanfic from wattpad.
I love in-depth analysis of trash media. It can be more revealing (ahem) than analysis of art film, especially if it is formal and technical. Poetic analysis very rarely gets in the way, forcing austerity from the critic.
Is no one else shocked at the fact that the key-chain is in comic sans and he STILL wanted to have sex with her? I mean as if there weren't enough red flags about this relationship already...
Yeah but authors love the Madonna vs Mrs Roosevelt argument where we have bombshell/icy or dumb blondes who are all slutty. Or the brunette who is studious and a good person to bring home unlike the blonde.
@Soulcaster It's more than likely a detail carried over from Twilight. The books have a weird fixation on blondes, with blonde characters like Rosalie and Lauren, one of Bella's classmates, being portrayed as antagonistic towards Bella.
OtakuAudioRedux That’s a definite possibility, but while Meyer made two or so blonde female characters to be bitchy mean girls, James took that trope to a whole new level by making it clear, that any of her numerous blonde characters, whether they be secondary, but significant (Kate Kavanaugh, Ana’s “best friend”) or tertiary and completely superfluous to the plot (Gretchen, Gia, Elena Lincoln, Gray’s assistants and probably more) are scheming, predatory sluts, that should be judged and shamed for having sexual agency (which shy, insecure Ana doesn’t display and is rewarded for by the plot and Christian) and self-confidence. It really reads as an indictment of not only women with fair hair, but also women who dare not to be childlike, sexually naive, passive participants in their own (romantic) lives. Which leads to the conclusion, that E.L. James is a massive misogynist who was possibly slighted in the past by a pretty blonde girl...
@@haggisa I'm imagining a young E.L. James having a teenage crush on some dude that didn't know she existed. She stayed in his general orbit for a while, never making a move or inviting him to make a move, and suddenly dude gets a blonde girlfriend whom he loves and James takes it as a personal attack.
Matthew, in the very limited time since I've read your comment, you’ve made more progress with my perspective on patient confidentiality than any TH-cam comment has in the last two years. You have had a profound effect on me, you must see that.
Better version idea: Anna gets super into the dominance thing and flips it around on Christian, but she actually does it properly and consensually and they're both much happier. Also apparently the whole total power exchange thing is actually really exhausting and very rarely done for long stretches of time. That or surprise, Christian was forced into an abusive relationship that mimics BDSM and has continued it in the vain pursuit of fulfilment but with Anna's help realises he was actually conned and either ''vanilla'' or real BDSM relationships are what he wants. 'Oh that makes sense, I had it wrong. This is better.' Or the whole serial killer route. That sounds good too.
I really wanted the sequel to be about Ana feeling confused because she wants nothing to do with Christian (and they don’t get back together at all) but she still feels kind of interested in being spanked and whatnot. And she meets people who are actual BDSM practitioners and she learns how consent and safety are a defining part of such relationships. And that lesson leads her to lose all remaining (if any) sympathy for Christian because she has the vocabulary to recognise his abuse for what it was. For me, the first film is about (or should be about) Ana learning that she’s kind of into kink. The second film should have been about her learning that Christian definitely isn’t.
When I was fifteen and read Grey for the first time, I thought the second one will be about her getting together with Jose (because I was a horny teenager and skipped the boring stuff before sex) or some other guy and dealing with her sexual awakening (BDSM or otherwise), because hey, this trilogy is mostly about porn, isn't it? I still maintain it would a better idea, since I got the sense of Christian's horribleness when I got older. So yes, what user36able is saying? I can totally subscribe to that line of thinking.
It's so surreal because every so often I am VIOLENTLY torn into vivid flashbacks of reading basically the exact scenes playing out in the sample clips here and I'm like 'Oh gods REAL people actually acted this embarrassing nonsense.' 50 Shades is just early 2000s trashfic before we got AO3 and good gods it is weird. I read stuff like this when I was 15, minus the sex.* Is this what getting old will feel like? This is like VHS to DVD all over again. Hint for folks who really liked the smut: There is so much better for FREE on AO3. We are so lucky to have fanfic. *Because I was a blue stocking and didn't wanna get involved with that. And FF.net smut was nearly always bad.
I just wanna say that I love the glee in Dan's voice every time he gets to explain why a stupid and banal plot point is ultimately crucial to the narrative flow of the movie, be it because he loves it in a "it's so bad" way, or because he gets to share his suffering with us.
I think it’s because of how interesting it is. It’s one thing to see something that sucks, but cracking it open to see exactly how the structure works and maybe even how it can be better is so fascinating~
Can someone help me understand Why Anna would feel threatened by blondes once she realizes blondes aren't attractive to Grey? What's James' beef with blondes?
natchnieni0 a lot of women (at least in my experience) who aren’t blonde typically have a sort of blonde-envy in their teenage years. Probably because our culture is so blonde-centric when it comes to commonly accepted traits of female beauty. Most women grow out of it pretty quickly. This author...seems like she never quite got over it and it turned malignant as she got older. Girlfriends who were brunettes almost all told me they would dye their hair blonde or at least lighter when they were in high school. Even a previous red-headed girlfriend I had who was super out-of-my-mutant-creature-league beautiful told me she wished she was blonde when she was a teenager. Which is crazy because having beautiful red hair is uncommon and you’d think she would have been proud, but you know how teenagers just want to fit in, etc.
I think it’s another holdover from its time as a Twilight fanfic. Twilight had a similar problem of a Not Like Other Girls(tm) brunette protagonist and antagonistic blonde girls who were antagonistic for seemingly no reason beyond them being a), blonde, and b), girls who weren’t Bella.
My initial thought was: if christian doesnt see another woman as a potential sexy punchingbag those woman might have a better chance at forming a normal emotional relationship with him and anna might feel threatened about that. But then i realized i have probably already thought more about this than el james.
"So, we only do the stuff you're comfortable with?" That question literally implies that the relationship he would prefer would exist primarily outside her comfort zone. That's basically the description of an abusive relationship.
Yep. Either his wants are things Ana isn't personally comfortable with but another might be, or he wants things specifically because she's not comfortable (because her distress, fear and helplessness are the real goals). Either way, they don't work as a couple where in this relationship *she* will be happy, so she should've left him.
The helicopter crash also shows a distinct lack of knowledge when it comes to helicopters. A malfunctioning engine isn't the death throws of a chopper, you'd also need to sever key mechanical components of the collective in order to prevent usage of the autorotation method of descending without a functioning engine. The black smoke in the movie implies merely an engine issue, a simple flip of a switch would release the flywheel from the rotor allowing free spin of the blades, adjusting blade pitch with the collective would allow you to adjust speed of descent as air flowing up through the blades forces them to "Autorotate". A careful application of blade pitch lets you ride down this autorotation at reasonable speeds, and an eventual final flare will pitch the helicopter nose to bleed all of your speed for a... relatively soft landing. (This technique is literally one of the first things taught when getting a helicopter endorsement.) Also, love the videos.
No no see the helicopter is going fast and then the engine gets explodey so the helicopter spirals out of control because those blades are turning in circles and so they carry the helicopter with it and it hits the trees like psghhgghhhhhhhhbooooooom!!!! The audience will understand.
I love that this entire comment section is almost nothing but chicks into fan fiction, erotica, twilight, and BDSM - and then there's this one guy like "this movie's helicopters are bullshit, 0/10"
"That's not intense kink so much as its the profile of a serial killer" omg I'm soblaughing because as someone in the scene, so...so....SOOOOO many "dominants" want that exact relationship and it is exhausting. Saving that little sum-up for fellow kinksters.
I’m lucky. My dom is a great guy, he always makes sure that I know that I’m in complete control (even if we’re pretending like I’m not) and he’s always checking to make sure that I’m ok. He’s well aware that I’m a noob to the whole thing and that equal participation is key. It’s great. I so easily could have ended up in the clutches of a crazy Christian Gray type maniac. Instead I have a nice, safe, way to be inflicted will all kinds of bodily harm for fun
Yeah, the number of dudes that think their objectification fetish makes them "dominant" is just...sad. To the point that I'm actually kind of fond of the moment where Christian insists that he's *not* a dominant. There are so many people that need to have that same epiphany and I really wish they would.
How? A lot of people weird sexual fetishes. It seems like as long as both parties enjoy it then it would hypocritical for other people with eird ferishes to judge.
It frustrates me so much that Anna and her assistant have a way more coherent conversation about boundaries and power dynamics than Anna and Christian ever do. Especially since Anna and Hanna are both extremely pretty and this one interaction has convinced me that the series would be infinitely better if it was about the two of them falling into a whirlwind lesbian love story
@@sapphosscullerymaid4856 and then secretly Hanna is also a Dom. Then it becomes almost a reverse of her and Christian's relationship. An assistant doming her boss.
A headcanon: After the events of Freed, Hanna and Ana's relationship in the office and as friends develops into a slow burn friendship romance, and everything she does with Hanna, in contrast to how she and her kids are treated with Christian, shows her just how much she deserves in a relationship and how bad he really is for her and the kids. So, she runs away with Hanna and the kids, and airs out all the dirty laundry in the presses and in court. Though she'll likely not getting the true justice she deserves (since Grey is a cishet white billionaire man), his company's name will be forever tainted, and Christian will loose the one thing he needs most: control over what she does, where she goes, who she sees, and how she and her children live. She's truly free. And she lives out her freedom with her children and her new wife, the one who showed her the depth and breadth of the abuse she was going through, Hanna.
The reason the conversation between Anna and her assistant is more coherent is because it's lifted from another movie - Working Girl, which starred Dakota Johnson's mother, Melanie Griffith.
As a guy who knows nothing about this series all I have to go on is that the first movie was about a really unintentionally messed up beginnings of a BDSM relationship, while this one is about a bunch of crazy guys and girls who are wanting to kill our protagonist. So logically I assume the next one involves Anastasia fighting a shark? I dunno man this series seems to ramp up pretty severely.
+Soulcaster Except where Sharknado was SUPER self aware and kept repeating the moments people liked with more and more insane circumstances while just basically being a parody of itself from movie #2 onwards, the Fifty Shades films somehow seem to think that going full-crazy in their otherwise grounded BDSM erotic romance flick was somehow a good thing...? Long story short, Sharknado is effing awesome and the Fifty Shades films should have genuinely ended after movie 1 because it's the only competently made one in the trilogy and has an actual natural conclusion to the story.
No the first book/film was about what the writer THOUGHT BDSM relationships were like. After being corrected (not a result of mental illness, not a form of abuse, not a result of childhood trauma, etc...) she had to course correct... hence the 'sadist' angle. Ironically thought she tried to portray the BDSM as a form of abuse, it was actually EVERYTHING ELSE Christian does in this series that ACTUALLY is a form of abuse.
Is it just me or has dan gotten... happier? He seems more excited, his mannerisms are wilder and more theatrical even though his vocal inflections haven't changed at all. I like it, it's nice.
oh and there's something more playful in the structure and the editing. it's exciting in a sweet and sharp way. Its like dan is very satisfied with his (admittedly excellent) deconstruction and it shows
That bit where Ana is talking to Hannah about calling her by her first name, and not getting coffee unless she's getting some for herself, and making up the rest as they go along? Yeah, that is pulled verbatim, VERBATIM, from the end of the 1988 movie Working Girl, starring Melanie Griffiths. Melanie's character, Tess McGill, says it to her new secretary, Alice. I'm just going to be over here, with my head on my desk. On a positive note, love the fact that hbomberguy is reading Dr. Flynn's lines. Also.....Cat! :-)
K Saunders as someone who reads fanfiction this is kind of common. Tons of them do this. I think they do it for the same reason that people in fanart have characters say things from other material that suits that character well. That’s something usually done for comedic purposes.
the ideal nature of power, evidently, also seems to include an African American woman who has been on the job longer being passed over for promotion so the new white girl who's bf just bought the company can have it instead. Accidental double yikes!
The car safety thing is definitely just ripped from Twilight’s Edward character. In that universe, he essentially (as a vampire) sees human reflexes as very poor and inadequate, leading him (because he is paranoid and controlling at best) to obsess over making sure that Bella’s “fragile human self” is kept safe when driving. It has no discernible explanation in the 50 Shades universe.
There is also the addition that Bella is the one person whose thoughts he can't mind read. And while I can't bother to remember the distance that Edward's bullshit vampire power works on, Bella's immunity also means he can't follow her with his MIND POWERS and know where she is at all times. So add that to how he is an immortal vampire made of super glued diamonds and she is a flesh twig, and it vaguelly adds up. Provided the author actually thought this out and it wasn't just an accident.
@@wqtercolor That Christian actually has a personality hidden somewhere in that husk of his that liked a fascinating but not entirely sound sci-fi movie enough that he put a poster for it up on his wall as a teen. Basically, that Christian had anything resembling whimsy.
Since he's usually portrayed as some corporate husk of a person until the BDSM pops up, without the poster and the trauma you could replace him with a fucking mannequin on wheels and nothing would change, probably why they lean on his trauma so much as a defining feature of his character and personality. I love the Riddick movies and while I would probably never in a million years ever see a Fifty Shades movie, if they had worked it in to his character/childhood a bit then he would be a much better character, or at least deeper
The conversation Anna has with her new assistant? It's pretty much lifted from "Working Girl" (1988) with Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford, and Sigourney Weaver. Sure, you can call that scene a "homage", I don't mind. But at the end of the film, Griffith-having risen from secretary to a somewhat nebulously defined "Not Secretary" position at a company-says to her own assistant, "I expect you to call me Tess. I don't expect you to fetch me coffee unless you're getting some for yourself. And the rest we'll just make up as we go along." I kept waiting for the video to point that out, or to be amazed that the one scene that seemed to rise above the bullshit was not one Mitchell really wrote, but it didn't so... *shrug*
My jaw dropped at that scene when it appeared in this video. The delivery of the lines is exactly the same as it was in Working Girl. Dakota even makes her voice breathier like Melanie's.
So the one piece of dialogue I thought was somewhat inspired was lifted from somewhere else. That figures. I guess I'll watch Working Girl some day. :b
The way the mrs Jones scene is written and framed makes it feel like it was written for EL James to have a cameo and then they just didn’t have her do it??? Like the camera would show her face and it’d be like “woah it’s the author omg!”
The phenomenon of "zombie fic" is not restricted to fanfic. It can happen in any serialized fiction. I noticed it most clearly in Naruto, the manga, where the emotional arc of Naruto, the character, wanting to be accepted by the people of his village, is achieved after he defeats Pain. But the series was still selling, so it kept going. It kept going for years. A whole Ninja World War happened and it was a mess.
Yeah especially the ending with the whole aliens just to set up Boruto. Like way to end a story all about Naruto's dream of fixing the ninja world by not fixing the ninja world.
Oh man, that's also a good way to explain what (I think) is happening to Outlander (TV series). The emotional arc of the first three seasons made sense - S1: who will Claire choose? S2: can they stay together? S3: can they find their way back to each other? Since that's been resolved since season 3, it feels like there's no real emotional core to the story anymore, or it's just a rehash of the same conflict over and over.
I stopped reading Naruto after he defeated Pain, and I stopped reading Bleach after Ichigo defeated Aizen. I’m glad I did what I did on both, because both appear to have ZOMBIFIED sometime after those arcs.
@mistertadakichi Eh... Bleach had a legitimate reason to exist after Aizen's defeat. Problem is, the next arc and the final arc were originally forshadowed either like 100 chapters or 300 chapters earlier, respectively. The fact is, there was still a lot about Ichigo as a character that was left on the table to be explored after Aizen's defeat, but because Kubo had been pushed to stretch the runtime of the Arrancar arc, Aizen's defeat had the narrative marker of the end of the series. I honestly feel bad for Bleach because the Thousand Year Blood War was the best arc in the series IMO... until Kubo's health declined and the last like 20ish chapters wound up super rushed. Heck even the Fullbring arc had a point, as it forced Ichigo to accept that "Yeah, I do like being a shinigami and fighting monsters", and also demonstrated what kind of person Ichigo... *is.* What his impact on those around him has been like. It's beautiful, albeit a very low key follow up to the Aizen fight. I'd even argue Naruto had legitimate reasons to continue after Pain was defeated. The narrative arc had been changing to, and was fully changed as of the Pain arc, be about breaking the cycle of violence. Kishimoto just did a kind of impressively bad job of tackling that arc in a satisfying way.
And even then only partially. This could just be me, but if I were in the situation of being promoted to a significant responsibility in the workplace because of my billionaire sugar daddy I would feel HORRIFICALLY overwhelmed, not to mention guilty. Of course this would be notably different from the guilt I’d be feeling from being intimately familiar with a billionaire, and failing to smother them with a pillow.
@@theoneandonlymichaelmccormick I don't know. The way I view it is - if my sugar daddy/husband was a billionaire and was willing to eat the cost of the company in order for me to have a job, that probably ensures the job security of everyone else that works there at that point, even if I sucked at my job. He already bought a company for me, so paying people a good wage to keep doing their job ain't the worst, really - I'd just ask for training as I went and do my best with everything else for that reason alone.
@@theoneandonlymichaelmccormick Essentially - "This is now my publishing company, please keep paying my employees I am your wife and it would make me happy" and he would do it or whatever. He might not care about the employees, but hopefully he would care enough about me after literally buying a company to agree XD
8:21 - I will forever be *furious* that they wholesale lifted this dialogue from Melanie Griffith's crowning moment in Working Girl. I get that they're making a cutesy "aww look, she's quoting her mom's movie!" reference, but no. These two films completely oppose each other. Ana gets that job through no merit of her own after less than two weeks. Tess in Working Girl spent years hustling to finally reach that point. That moment was earned and triumphant. In this movie, it has all the emotional weight of a wet noodle.
So why does this actress do the lines worse than Melanie Griffin if she can copy them rather than interpret them and she has not interpreted them ? Sloppy lazy writing
Ha! I’m new to this review and I’ve never watched 50 Shades anything, nor read the books...and I know this comment is a year old... But when I heard that line, I immediately thought, “Wasn’t that from the end of ‘The Working Girl’ spoken by Melanie Griffith? “ Then it clicked that this actress is Melanie’s daughter.
"Christian uses his super-dom-hypno-powers" LMAO! I'm crying. You are so much funnier, more ethical, and more insightful than EL James could ever hope to be. This takedown of the film is legitimately better than the actual film.
Hah, I loved the GarBox interlude! It seemed like you were having a lot of fun making this one :) It was super-clear and well done and you had this great little smile throughout
I see James' writing and notice one prominent detail (out of many, buuuut) -- the tendency to focus on extremely minute details, spreading them out over numerous pages. Details are important, yes, but spend too long on them and they get tedious and potentially ridiculous, removing the reader from the experience and general plotline (and potentially posing red herrings) rather than immersing them in it. The reason I bring this is up is because this is how I write. I have a lot of dreams that are vivid and detailed enough to be, in my mind, decent fiction one-shots. During these dreams, my brain often picks seemingly trivial things to emphasize. While lucid and writing these dreams down, I can recognize that information as extraneous, but I keep it in my writing anyway just for the sake of accuracy to my dream, regardless of how needless (or morally dubious) it is. The difference is, I'm probably never going to publish any of it. Outside of my own shoddy writing (both in content and ability), I just don't think it's the kind of stuff people would be interested in reading. My point is that James' writing reads similarly to mine, but worse -- it comes off as juvenile and immature, and REEKS of stereotypical fanfic tropes. I was honestly reminded of My Immortal's obsessive focus on characters' outfits when James went so deep into needless detail. Except... My Immortal was likely written by a tween (or a troll). James is a middle aged woman, yet for some reason, just like a tween, she thinks what she's written is a goddamn masterpiece, having no shame and no remorse. Anything the reader finds boring or controversial is the reader's damn fault! How dare they insult her writing! Dumb haters!! James comes off as follows: "A lot of preps stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them."
I remember back in high school when I was first hearing about this book and it was starting to blow up, etc I was interested by the fact that it was adapted fanfiction. I wrote a lot of fanfic at the time, and had read tons of amazing stories on fanfic net, so I was somewhat inspired and wondering what kind of amazing fanfic story it would have to be to get that kind of attention. But, um... I read excerpts of it and... yeah, needless to say I was extremely disappointed that *that* was the fanfic that got a mainstream major adaptation seeing as there are far higher-quality stories you can find just spending a good bit of time browsing on the site, so... yeah. Oof.
Half of the reason I write stuff is as a context for researching random bullshit. Why did I create a character who lived from 1840 to 1952, barely aging at half the rate he should? Because I wanted to write about the Civil War, Indian Wars, Spanish-American War, and WW1. So I made a character who survived the Battle of Gettysburg, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the Battle of San Juan Hill, and the Battle of the Somme, and who went gold mining in Alaska during the Yukon Gold Rush just because. But then, on the other hand, I just spent an hour researching course requirements at three nearby colleges because his niece's girlfriend is a roboticist. And her interest in robotics comes from the bionic hands her mother wears as a result of a traumatic injury, so I had to familiarize myself with transradial amputations as well. But my audience is me. A few people apparently find what I write interesting, but the only reason I know that is because I love looking at analytics pages. The weird thing is, Mitchell actually does do some research. Grey's apartment could be taken from a floorplan of actual apartments at the actual building he lives in, and she even got the time that Ana would arrive in Georgia (based on her departure time, the flight length, and the time difference between Seattle and Georgia) correct. But those are all things that, in a well written story, could be ignored. In a well written story, no one would really care if Ana spent two extra hours in the air tha nshe should've. When I write, I only base my homes on actual floorplans because I find it interesting to research them and easier than making a believable home (as I have very different ideas of what makes a nice house than modern designers). What she *doesn't* research are important things like how helicopter crashes don't work that way or literally anything about BDSM.
As someone who struggles to maintain focus with novels, omg does focusing on details make me check out. It's why I hate Tale of Two Cities!! Don't remember much, and I was made to read it twice in high school!
His name is Harris? I thought it was something else. Either way, I chose to skip that video since I have zero interest in speedruns regardless of how entertaining he can be.
I was jokingly wondering, “What if he got HBomberguy to read Christian, that would be hilarious.” And then BAM I got severe whiplash when the therapist came in, christ...
What I love about relistening to this series is how Dan goes from being calm and analytical and sometimes generous in the first video to being Very Salty on behalf of the first director and writer.
Okay re: Jack on the other side of the lake burning a hole in the picture of the family photo. It's dark on that side of the lake and he's obviously burning a hole from the back. So i would like to know how many extra copies that jack had to print for all the times he accidentally burned a hole a little too far to the left and burned a hole on a tree in the background
This couldn’t even have been a remotely decent fanfic. Like, the serial fiction problems are... problems, but the consent issues are so embedded in the fabric of the whole franchise that I don’t really think any adaptation could have fixed it, without ignoring basically all of it. Actually, the Netflix show The Fall (also with Dornan) is the only sort of ‘adaptation’ that I think could possibly work. And in that, he is literally a serial killer.
It’s so hilarious to me that the final boss of this series is a fiction editor. Also, aside from the obvious “twilight fan fiction origins”, I can’t for the life of me understand why these stories are set in Seattle/Portland. It really seems like E.L. James hasn’t been to either city and the setting seems to be so inconsequential to the action. The whole thing looks like it was shot in Vancouver anyways- Portland and Seattle are beautiful, but they’re not sleek and sexy. In contrast, the sense of place was one of the strongest elements of both the Twilight books and movies. That’s a story that would loose a lot if it were relocated.
The films were shot in Vancouver. Actually a lot of movies and tv shows are shot there: X-Men, Minority Report, Twilight films, Man of Steel, Once Upon a Time, Riverdale, etc. I'm pretty sure that there are subsidies and tax incentives.
What's even funnier is that EL James is British and seemingly did no research on basic Americanisms, let alone the specific geography of Washington. She constantly uses British slang, everyone drinks tea constantly, she thinks people can drive across entire states in only an hour or less, etc.
I have to admit when you said that it was shot in Vancouver I got really confused, because I live in Vancouver, Washington. It's in close proximity to both Seattle and Portland, and I even know where WSUV is but a lot of the shots in the movie don't look familiar. It being shot in Vancouver B.C. makes more sense.
Yeah, the scenes at WSUV were shot at the University of British Columbia. I remember there was a day when all the UBC banners were replaced with WSU logos, and we were all very confused, then thoroughly entertained when we found out why
I don’t care how rich he is, if my boyfriend confessed to me that he was in a BDSM relationship with me specifically because I looked like his mother, I would move cities. Possibly states. Possibly continents.
"Three-hour drive from Portland to Seattle and back" I know Google says this takes 3 hours but as a Portlander I can guarantee you that traffic is always shit and it takes more like 4 or 5 hours just to get there.
Old comment, but I grew up in west Washington across the water from Seattle and was thinking the same thing. Three hours is a pretty conservative estimate, unless you were going over the speedlimit at 3 AM or something.
Can confirm, only ever came close to *only* 3 hours when speeding 20 over on not-worst-hours... ...hypothetically, I mean. Because I would never *actually* speed, even on accident. This is all mere conjecture and, uh -- >.> ... *sidles away like an awkward store mannikan come to life only to realize it's naked in public and standing there talking about it is just making things worse*
You have no idea how incredibly validating on a very personal level it is to watch this series picked apart by someone who knows a ton about storytelling and has the stomach to, apparently, read and watch the whole series multiple times. It's too much to explain but thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Christian is obsessed with safety even though nothing in his backstory supports that has gotta be a leftover from it being a fanfic, right? Edward being hyper protective of Bella would (I imagine, wasn’t in this fandom) be an accepted default characterization that fan audiences accept. In original fiction, it feels out of nowhere. Which is basically the root of the books’ problems. Love watching your breakdown of the series! : )
Yes, a recurring theme in Twilight is biological instinct, and this idea that men have a biological instinct to want to protect women they're into. The same idea carries in the 50 Shades world.
As someone who still genuinely enjoys Twilight for what it is occasionally Dan says things about Christian that immediately remind me its a twilight fanfic. The moody midnight piano music from the first video and the overprotectiveness in this one. (I actually would love to hear someone talk about how 50 shades was also terrible as a Twilight AU sometime but I doubt that’ll ever happen)
Well is "I'm a vampire" a better explanation for not speaking and being emo and boring than "I'm a billionaire but I sad cuz my mother was a crack whore"? XD
It occurs to me that, if I was watching a movie where one of the main characters narrated that something major like an attempted suicide had happened off screen, I'd most likely not believe them. Movie logic tells me you'd only shoot it that way if they're lying.
The safety stuff can be clearly drawn back to twilight. In Breaking Dawn, Edward gets rid of Bella’s beloved truck and buys her a BULLET PROOF, MILITARY GRADE, TANK (car) because he’s scared she’s going to do a *clumsyyyyyy* and hurt herself while driving. It’s her ‘pre-turning into a vampire’ car, and he says he’ll buy her a new one once she becomes the bullet proof tank as a vampire.
But the reviewer's right. Edward's a bad boyfriend and person, but from his perspective the thought of Bella getting hurt would be legitimately frightening. No one else he's close to has that problem, so it'd be new to him, and he knows just how squishable humans are, having squished many himself. But Christian is as human as Ana, so he's just being a controlling jerk.
@@elafimilo8199 Oh no. Christian Grey is a stupid, manipulative, abusive piece of shit. Edward was a creep but he was at least concerned about Bella's wellbeing and not just trying to flaunt his wealth and pull the rug out from under her. Edward didn't buy Bella a car in the first book, it was the fourth book (i think)
@@Izzrules I refer you to Edward's judgmental attitude and to his murders. (I'm not comparing Edward and Christian here. Christian does seem like the worse person.)
See, but that concern makes some actual sense. Edward is an immortal superhuman being, who is dating a fragile, squishy, and fairly clumsy, human who is, ya know, vulnerable to injury/death, so it actually makes some sense he'd be overly concerned about her safety. Christian doesn't really have a reason to feel that way.
Dan doesn't mention this because it's blessedly not in the movie, but I only got about five pages into Darker before I literally couldn't any more, because the beginning focuses an inordinate amount on food control. Ana eats nothing for four days, which is portrayed as romantic pining, and then Christian's first words to her are to fight about food, saying "you look like you've lost five pounds" which is a nonsense sentence, because you can't tell for amounts that small. But what it effectively does for the reader is romanticize both Ana's eating disorder and Christian's patronizing exertion of control over his partner's lives. They have to get back together, you see, because Ana is a baby bird incapable of feeding herself 😒😒😒
@@NobleAbsinthe I don't know if this is exactly an original take, but I'm convinced Christian is actually the author insert/POV for EL James rather than Ana. You can't write what she did and then be baffled when people call the scenario you wrote out for what it very blatantly is. For someone who wrote about a very specific romantic scenario ostensibly from the point of view of the woman, we very rarely actually have Ana do more than respond to Christian's whims. I understand why some aspects of this may appeal to female readers, but the fact that she's such a control freak (period), but especially in regards to keeping Christian's abusiveness, misogyny, "I'm shitty but it's okay because I'm (air quotes) damaged"-ness, and the part where (despite being a demonstrably bad person) nothing bad ever happens to him that's actually the result of his actions, makes me think she sees him as the moral and conceptual center of the story. Everyone who "harms" or in some way slights Christian is not because they think he's a bad person, they're just cartoonish obsessive stalkers. Raaah I want to kill you because you won't fuck me. Raaaah I want to kill you because you're successful and I'm not. If you wanted to have an interesting "villain", having an investigative reporter accusing him of being abusive or a r*pist would be an interesting (if possibly all-too-accurate) conflict. If you told me a man wrote this book, I would assume he was a raging misogynist. I'm not sure what exact neurosis is going on in James's brain, but she clearly isn't a good person or doesn't understand what a healthy relationship is, wrote a book where an abusive man is aspirational, and breathlessly defended it in the face of people pointing out how clearly vile it is.
@steelplatedheart -- I keep forgetting about the food-control weight-shaming issues because I've never read the books or seen more than these clips in Dan's vlog essay trilogy. But coming back to rewatch it, I find myself wondering if *both* Christian and Ana are her author avatars, but Christian's fictional body also hosts the words/actions or 'spirit' so to speak of someone from ELJ's past who said the same sort of things to the younger naiver 'Ana'-ELJ. . So ELJ takes the position of power (away from the someone in her past) by becoming the self-hate talker as Christian, but the person she's targetting is still Ana. Who continues to reside in some corner of ELJ's mind. Who still wants to recieve that approval from 'Christian' (either by finally 'getting it right' within his conflicting, shifting rules or by being told she's right enough already as herself and the rules are wrong so she can stop trying to fulfill them). . But since ELJ is effectively talking to herself from both sides of the author-avatar relationship, she can't channel anything lastingly positive through either avatar (Christian apologizing and becoming actually a better person, Ana asserting herself permanently), because both avatars are damaged halves of the same damaged whole, stuck in an unresolvable loop. . She needs an outside voice that she'll actually listen to, in order to change one or both sides of the internal narrative being lived out by her avatars. This would be a good time irl for a quality therapist to enter Stage Any-Side-At-All, Just-Get-In-There!
Not to psychoanalyze Erika Mitchell too hard, but I feel like this is an extension of the same way Christian forces his expensive gifts on Ana, and forces his kinky sex on her, so she can stay humble and proper and so on. He's forcing food onto her, aggressively telling her to eat more, so Ana can be skinny and still eat a bunch. As somebody who is _not_ skinny, I have fantasized so often about how great it must be for others to actually encourage you to eat, even encourage you to eat unhealthy desserts etc, instead of judging you for it. Getting to eat without shame, not having to feel disgusting for it. And looking at Erika Mitchell, maybe she also feels like that.
If the whole matter of Christian Grey getting in a helicopter crash because of foul play is only really important to the third movie...why wasn't that part of the film chopped off and stuck at the beginning of movie 3? I mean, other than textual fidelity, I mean. It would have made the narratives of both films more cohesive and more contained. End movie 2 with the actual emotional climax - Christian and Anna working through his damage, followed by the marriage proposal - and then make the helicopter crash the tense opening of movie 3 that gets the audience immediately engaged. Or better yet, end movie 2 with Christian's helicopter crashing, leaving Anna (and the audience who hasn't read the books) wondering at his fate. Maybe with Jack Hyde watching the crash and smiling in a sinister fashion, to establish his menace. No, this wouldn't have made the Fifty Shades movies _good_ , but it would be better from a structural standpoint.
The problem is that the helicopter crash, as far as I remember, is pretty essential to the decision Ana makes to marry Christian AND to his emotional breakdown scene in the book. Ana had the key chain before but the crash makes her realize how empty her life would feel without him and that she is 100% sure of her decision. It also gave her an argument during Christian´s breakdown, namely that he is not alone and people love him since his family spent the entire time worrying about him. Shoving all that into the third movie would make it harder to decide what of the third book should be included and what not
This makes me feel saucy. Oooh yeah, deconstruct and anylyse a misrepresented and often misunderstood (while in my opinion still awefuly writen) peice of work. Mmm just like that baby. Right there!
lmao your whole thing about masks is interesting cause even without ever consuming 50 shades content in any form, I saw the venetian mask motif and immediately understood it as a masks are sexy thing. just because I consumed a lot of trashy romance fanfic. Lots about fanfic borrows sexy ideas without understanding why they're sexy. it's memetic almost. At a point, the concept becomes a fanfic trope and is almost expected out of a piece of work. like the quintessential beach episode of an anime. So writers kowtow to the expectation, partly because readers like it, but also why not? I don't have to understand why a masquerade is sexy to put my character in a mask, and lovingly describe her opulent dress in purple prose. The mask kinda betrays the source material cause hey. you're 30 chapters deep into your fic and things are starting to get derivative. let's just have a masquerade for no good reason.
I think the sexiest thing about a masquerade would be anonymity, so you can have characters hooking up while avoiding consequences of who they involve themselves with, or you could go voyeuristic with it. Basically, it might be a trope mostly based on "ball = wealth, masquerade ball = more elaborate costumes" but I've always genuinely thought of it in terms of the specific kinks more than anything, because they're indeed there.
The saddest thing is, it's not even really a masquerade ball. It's a charity funderaiser put on by his parents where everyone wears masks. It's almost totally unerotic. A PG-13 cut of the masquerade from Eyes Wide SHut would be sexier.
I really appreciated, by the way, your analysis of the serialized nature of long fics. How wonderful to hear "narratively completed but continues on week by week powered only by the authors own creativity and ego" -- I really appreciated hearing academic words about fandom!
I have never been so interested in someones opinion on something I have no interest in.
This is me in a nutshell.
This was me yesterday with Hbomb's video on speedruns :p
Nyrom yep! Lol
Yup.
I too am unnaturally fascinated by the insane rise of this literary dumpster fire of a book series.
Long-form media analysis videos are my kink
I'm kinkshaming.
@@chibikonatsu I'm kinkshamingshaming. It's my kink too.
favorite comment ever because how much i relate, also i deeply appreciate your profile picture and username
damn staight
Jerry.
Honestly though, Jack suddenly becoming an asshole after finding out that Ana has a boyfriend is the only realistic thing that happens in these movies
real incel vibes
I'm gonna be honest, Jack's shift from charismatic to creepy over the course of the film is the only consistently good part of the film for me
"Because Christian is already the evil version of Christian." I love this mini series.
Of
The 3 hour „mini“ series. =D
(Sorry not sorry for necroposting… =3 )
Every time he says “Master of the Universe” I just think how much better this story would be if it was about Skeletor.
this is hands down the funniest comment here
"NYEEEEEEEEEH, ANNA! I'M 50 SHADES OF FABULOOOOOOOOUS!"
“NYAHH! IM A SADIST, I LIKE TO WHIP BIG BLOND MEN THAT REMIND ME OF MY NEMESIS, HE-MAN! NYAHAHA!!”
I wonder if anyone has made Skeletor erotica? Probably.
@@SorowFame taking boners to a new level
"Meaning we only do things that you’re comfortable with?”
This is not 'vanilla', this is 'basic respect for someone you claim to care about.'
And if all she does care about is vanilla?
That’s not even basic respect that’s just the concept of consent.
Grey and Rush Limbaugh would have been good friends
@@zapazap There’s NOTHING wrong with vanilla. Never was, never will be. As long as all participants consent.
Please do note that most rapes count as „vanilla“. Aka male-on-female missionary position.
That’s why we keep emphasizing consent. „Vanilla“ means shit. Consent means everything.
"consent is vanilla" says the grapeist
I like that Anna calls the middle-aged woman having sex with 14-year-old Christian "seducing" him. I fffeeeeel like there's another word for that
Wow you’ve been here the whole time, eh?
I love that she's here. Now I wish he'd mentioned Christian's model train obsession :(
say it with me kids: *grooming!*
stay safe y'all
This is where Ana's defects as a character/person show: viewing his abuser as competition to be jealous of, rather than a trash woman who abused a kid.
Statutory seduction
I normally don’t have any use for Freud’s Oedipus complex theory. That said, if Christian were any more Oedipal, he’d be ruling Thebes.
I'm now imagining the whole story taking place in ancient thebes and the ensuing is just all the women in Christians life going mad and tearing him limb from limb because Dionysus is so offended this asshole of is the king of his mothers goddamn city, the city where he was born, and is getting away with it because he's "rich."
Sorry just vjsjfn in the myths Dionysus is a huge mamas boy, hater of pretty much any king, and also liberator of those who are being misused under the Man.
Idk but tbh I'd totally read that book instead of the actual 50 shades books
Ooh, burn.
Thank you for the laugh.
@@raynethescribe2772 That sounds amazing
@@raynethescribe2772 see, this I would read.
If he weren't rolling dollars he'd be rolling tide.
31:00 To really hit the nail on the head here, Grey is using the word "vanilla" to mean *consensual*. "We only do what your comfortable with" shouldn't be the concession, it's the bare minimum standard.
In a BDSM relationship, there's often play in the form of pushing limits, facing fear, and giving in, but only when the participants feel ready to explore those aspects.
Think of it like going in for surgery. It's okay if the patient is nervous, most are, but if they didn't want the procedure in the first place it shouldn't be happening.
YES! ugh you put it into words - like even on the extreme end, the point is controlled experiences of fear and vulnerability and pain, and they’re sexy BECAUSE you know it can stop at any time!
“He wants a sex slave who doubles as a replacement mother.”
So basically, Bojack Horseman if he was written poorly.
And without a sense of irony or perspective.
SHAAAAAAAAAAAADE
This should be pinned 😂😂😂
To quote Princess Caroline, “You want a mommy you can slide your dick in and out of,”.
@@TheMedicatedArtist Whaaaaaaaaat? Get outta here!
My God, the HIPAA violations of a therapist talking to a patient's girlfriend about his diagnosis and treatment. Dr. Flynn is SO losing his license!
As someone who appreciates psychology, that scene made me shake my head so much I got dizzy.
Also, you'd have to be a terrible therapist to tell your patient's girlfriend that she's doing a better job at "fixing" said patient than a health professional. Any competent therapist would be like "Look, that's good of you to try to help but it's not your job to make him change, don't feel responsible for him".
In the book, he has Grey's permission.
I never even thought of that, but you're right.
Lol, one of my favorite things to do with (relevant) fiction is watch the HIPAA violations stack up. I'm a pharmacy tech, so HIPAA is a huge deal for me, and watching fictional characters blatantly disregard it is always a great time. :)
Best known for being married to erica mitchell. Nice shade right off the bat.
I snorted when he said that.
I guess there are 51 shades in this video.
I see what you did there....
I like that, not only *can you buy* a cheap plastic light-up keychain that says "Yes!" in comic sans, but that Ana chose that specific tacky-as-hell way to give an answer to a literal billionaire with an exorbitant amount of class.
Luke Wilson in the books she says that’s exactly why. something about “what do you get the guy who can have anything he wants”
I'm sorry, but this snarling, haughty man-child is the furthest thing from a classy billionaire and I am of the honest belief that the cheap plastic key chain is the perfect gift to accept a marriage proposal to anyone who acts as awful as Christian Gray.
@@qrowbranwen8698 Perfect response, Qrow!
Qrow Branwen Except it should say "No! Get a therapist".
power move
Christian is obsessed with Ana's safety because Edward is obsessed with Bella's safety (he buys her a super safe car at some point in the Twilight series). Except Edward is obsessed with Bella's safety because he is an indestructible deathless vampire with unfathomable strength and comparatively, she is a weak fragile butterfly made of tissue paper. But with two human persons, this makes basically no sense and is just a holdover from the fanfiction birthplace.
50 shades AU: the reason Christian is like that is because it's revealed he was sent back in time to protect Ana, terminator-style
@@Flowtail that is so powerful it's terrifying
@@CaribouGutSludge having completely forgot about my own comment until getting the notification of your reply, i can confirm
Ah yes, the car. I love that even the choice of car brand that reflect the author more than the character was translated over; Edward's choice of Volvos reflecting the brand's popularity with Mormons, and Christian choosing to show off with an Audi, a car that's way below his pay grade but looks expensive to a middle class fanfic author.
OMG, ok, that makes sense to me now. I completely forgot about the car in Twilight.
37:47 "That's not intense kink so much as it's the profile of a serial killer."
Let's put a pin in that.
STAHP! I've run out of PINS!
If we put a pin in Christian will he not hit us?
Ironically that was literally the profile of one of the main characters in a manhwa called Killing Stalking. And yes the character is in fact a serial killer.
@@atotalfiasco4213 yess killing stalking
Kinks have nothing to do with how unhinged and rapey a character is
I understand that these films and stories are bonkers, but the way you just breezed past the phrase, "Christian's on-call gynecologist" was really something to behold.
On another note, I love this series so much! I write romance novels and love romance novels, and I feel like these videos are actually teaching me so much about the craft of writing these stories and how easy it is to go terribly, terribly wrong with them. So, thank you for helping me improve my craft!
It took me years to understand this, so I'll drop this amendment to a common phrase for you,
Practice makes -perfect- _okay._
Meaning, however much you reach for perfection, always hope and dream for it, but _never_ grow to expect it, you will only find frustration.
I wish you luck and skill in your writing endeavors!
Just put a pin in it.
I think its bizarre enough just as a sidenote
Irving IV I prefer the term “practice makes better”. The word okay seems a bit loaded, but practice always makes better
love the bizarre hair-color-based phrenology this woman has invented for some reason
I wonder where red heads fall
@Krazy Banshee I'm assuming that they simply don't exist in the universe she created, along with pets, iPods with more than 12 songs, and guys who don't ply women with alcohol.
I love your definition, lol
Thats actually a carry over from Twilight. Stephanie Meyer also does this
@@caitmonroe9349 lmaoooo I'm dead
I feel like Christian's overprotection of Ana is a characteristic symptomatic of the fanfiction origin, but with no thought put in as to why that was a trait Edward had in the first place. Edward was protective of Bella to a fault because he is immortal, but she is a fragile mortal clumsy human and he doesn't want her to be injured or killed, as humans are prone to. Mitchell lifted the personality trait without the supernatural basis for its existence, and so in her work it has no reason to be there and feels tacked on.
Nate Young Right, that’s very true. And Edward doesn’t get pleasure-vengeance on another person through hurting her. In fact, his overprotective and stalker-y habits are exceedingly less hypocritical than Christian Grey’s because Edward doesn’t actually physically harm Bella (except when he sucks venom from her blood and later transvamps her).
And it’s isn’t idiotic like preventing her from listening to the radio.
What about when accidentally threw her into a table.
I’m dying!!!
Kye Dysarthria man you’re really just going around commenting on everything to disagree with everyone 😂 This is like your fourth comment I’ve seen where all you contribute to the conversation is “um actually no you’re wrong” lol you even told someone they needed to be called out like who says that?
“You want a vanilla relationship?
Meaning we only do things that you’re comfortable with?”
BDSM
DOES NOT MAKE YOU DO
THINGS YOU’RE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH
amen to that
put clapping emoji between each word, please
APPLESAUCE
@The Zee no.
The Zee “you must be fucked up if you fuck through a sheet solely for procreation” - your argument in reverse. Both because it’s completely removed from what is actually the topic and because it describes something that literally isn’t exactly the thing being described.
"I want a vanilla relationship"
"meaning we only do what you're comfortable with?"
would actually be a really brilliant exchange in a story that understood how terrifying it was.
It's such a a bad misunderstanding of the concept that it's almost a joke. It's about one step from "you mean one where we eat ice cream together?'
"That's not intense kink so much as the profile of a serial killer." This line sums up the whole franchise's problems and the author's seriously flawed view of kink, BDSM, and even 'regular' sexual relationships.
It hits the nail on the head perfectly, Christian even admitted it: he's not a dom, he's a sexual sadist, he doesn't enjoy BDSM relationships, he's incapable of feeling pleasure from anything other than inflicting pain on his mother and surrogates for her.
In retrospect it makes sense that the author was such a terrible consultant during the filming of the movies, she just has a warped sense of leadership and dominance and thinks being dominant = do everything I say or you’re shit to me
@@asteroidrules ...I don't know how to tell you that "sadism" is one of the things that the S in BDSM stands for
@@cam4636 honestly I don't think that helps lol that means when the author who shall not be named admitted he wasn't a Dom and didn't know shit about bdsm technically she's still wrong and still really stupid
I just watched a video talking Abt Killing Stalker which is a very violent and disturbing horror thriller and that profile literally matches one of the characters, a literal serial killer, rapist, abuser, literal torturer....
It is craaaazy accurate how clearly the gaze changed from female to male with the directors. I have to laugh at the attempts of men trying to depict another man as sexy. Time and time again it's proven that most (straight) men have zero idea about what women actually want or find attractive. I really appreciate you pointing that out, that's a super nice catch of movie analysis, that just brings to surface an actual societal issue about how men view women and themselves at the same time. Great video!
When Jack Hyde stalks and hacks technology it's bad...but when Christian Grey does it it's hot and sexily possessive.
Cause jack is the bad guy with bad intentions, christian is good guy with bad intentions,(lol no) is all easy when everyone is flat
It really seems like the only thing that’s keeping Jack Hyde from being a romantic interest is...he’s not as hot as Christian?
@@BeggarsNight oh gee, that's not g o o d
@@BeggarsNight And not as rich. Don't forget that.
PuT A pIn In ThAt
As a fanfic/serial writer who wants to keep bettering her craft, the web series is incredibly illuminating how to do better porn. I mean plot.
Why not both? :D
Well duh. I didn't say I was going to stop writing pornography. Just do it better till I can challenge the ghost of Marquis de Sade to smut off.
@@frenchcookie42 We all strive for anything better than this book's lackluster IKEA manual sex (insert tab A into slot B). xD
And I will read it, haha.
X'D
I... I. . I've run out of pins ...
Then put a donk on it.
Yeah, we went from conversation to cursed doll about four pins ago.
Anyone else just heartbroken by his old sub? This girl clearly trusted him and was attached to him and groomed by him and then it fell apart. He's completely detached and instead of sending her for help she's kind of set loose. The whole sub-plot is so interesting and maddening, and handled so poorly. This story would be so much more interesting as a psychological horror than this actual movie is in any capacity.
@Margaret Gibbs now that is something I would read! A psychological horror story about a lying and manipulative man who fakes a safe and healthy form of relationship (Bdsm when actually happening correctly) as a way to get people he wants. And our protagonist learning about this with a mystery mixed in. And then she finally sees the whole picture.
My ending would have her calling a Real therapist or even 911 to get help for this. Because she CANT change him. She's just been strung along and needs outside help.
This is actually one of the few places where the movie makes the situation actively worse. From what i remember in the novels what happens is SHE goes 'okay yeah this relationship is a whole ass mess' and then leaves. Its only because her husband dies that she destabilises and then goes to find him for some sense of comfort and after the whole thing she gets the help she needs, he pays for it as well. Last time we see her she's going to art school and is fine and has a support system.
Turns out James is a mentally ill sociopath who thinks of other women as a threat who should be gotten rid of/suffer so that she can succeed, and wrote it into her fic. Oops.
I do think it's an interesting idea, in a vacuum, to have a story about a toxic sub who wouldn't take no for an answer. That happens in real life, and it sucks and can be genuinely scary (not usually in a "breaks into your home with a gun" way, though). It's not handled well here because Grey is already a deeply toxic dom with a fragile understanding of consent. That _could_ still work--Grey being bad at consent and ending up with partners who are also bad at consent would make sense and show how he's changed. If he had changed at all.
Yeah, the movie's version of Leela's situation is incredibly aggravating. I can't imagine abandoning my sub like that, it's so cruel and irresponsible, which would have made Christian a great villain to hate. As it is we already hate him but still.
I hadn't even thought about the framing of the sex scenes in Darker and Freed being directly related to the gender of the writer and director changing, but it really does make sense. Ironically enough, something pretty similar happens in the Twilight movies. The first one had a very distinct look and feel from the lighting to the color scheme to the way that Edward looked and was framed and it was directed by a woman. In the following Twilight films that's lost, especially the way Edward physically appears- those movies were directed by men. I'm thinking this is also why Ana looks different in the movies too.
Sam-Taylor Johnson knew that Ana had to be average, the every-woman. She has a slow but noticeable change in the way she physically presents herself throughout the first movie that Taylor-Johnson deliberately chose. But in the last two she's suddenly got longer, thicker, shinier hair, a good sense of style, and that weird lip color that Dakota Johnson is wearing in basically every scene. Ana goes from an average, but still pretty, young woman with decent taste in clothing to a stylized idea of what the male writing/directing team thinks "no makeup" looks like. There's a subtle difference between the first and the last two movies not only with Christian, but with Ana too and it's definitely because the writing/directing team went from two women who knew how to write FOR women to two men who knew how to keep the same tone and feel of the first movie.
@
I think the main takeaway here is straight men are boring as hell and, if given the chance, will always ruin what small glimmer of art exists in dumpster fire franchises like 50 Shades
Not really, they did add changes to improve as well as still show more of Christian in a sexual light.
@@saramoreira6176 nah, straight dudes are just boring. Sorry to break it to you.
Sara Moreira I disagree. Saying that the male directors/screenwriters didn’t portray Christian in a more sexual light because it’s naturally more difficult for them (since they’re straight men) both lets them off the hook and suggests, that men are inherently unable to see or show how a man should be portrayed in order to be appealing to straight women (who are the core audience for the films). In the end, that’s dismissive of straight men as creators and also suggests, that male authors don’t need to learn how to make their creations appealing to women. Which in turn makes it sound as though women as audience members don’t need their fantasies catered to.
I in no way mean all of the above to be an attack on you, but rather a criticism of the pervasive, ubquitous attitudes of film makers of today. Female gaze is something that is still incredibly rare, while long, lingering shots of half-naked women, which serve no point except tittilation of the male viewer (Star Trek 2 {the movie} anyone?) still reign supreme.
"She's a Blonde, so obviously she's a temptress and a home wrecker." ----- Dude. E.L. James has problems that SHE isn't addressing.
What tipped you off?🤔
What I'm getting from this series is that the Edward Cullens replacement has his core gimmick, Vampirism, replaced with BDSM and the author failed to think of the consequences that removing the vampire part causes. He is obsessed with her safety "because's he's an extremely and uncontrollably strong vampire" vs he is obsessed with her safety "because trauma(?)". Moreover He "needs bdsm" is he "needs blood" the difference being one sustains his life force the other sustains his emotional trauma(?).
(To the tune of Africa by Toto) "It's gonna take more than a malfunctioning 135 to keep me away from you..."
I bless the rains in Seattle...
CardboardMoose i laughed too hard at this
There's nothing that two men or more could ever do.
Every time I hear that line I always think of Samuel L Jackson's line in Loaded Weapon - "Not a hell of a lot more."
Gonna take some time to do more domestic abuse @@oneopinion6806
I really appreciate how Dan seeks to talk about romance, erotic fiction and fanfiction in a neutral and respectful tone. It makes any analysis of a work's problems more interesting when someone actually understands the context its in, and respects it enough to see how it could be better.
Also, not to be the female version of a white knight (a white dame? Lol) but the comments on Dan's facial hair are a little weird? It doesn't matter what gender a TH-camr is, commenting on their appearance like they owe you a certain look is kind of entitled. Even when it's "a joke", it's really not something they wanted your input on
The term knight is a gender neutral term, female knights were referred to with the honorific of dame in the same way that a male knight would be referred to as "sir something". So if a female knight was named "Erica", after knighting she would be "Dame Erica".
Also I agree with your point, I just wanted to be pedantic... I'm sorry, I need it sometimes.
+
Who cares, it's not like reads the comments anyway.
How DARE people complement his facial hair!
@@robinbowman1926 nah man it's totally dame or lady depending on the order. Knight is masculine. Women are not knighted they're appointed to chivalric orders. They dont hold a knighthood but a damehood (which is a silly word but what can you do). I mean it varies but if you're talking about in the majority of the world especially England where knights are a thing then a woman becomes a dame not a knight.
"I'm a sadist" was delivered with the same energy as infamous "I'm a weirdo"
"Have you ever seen me without this stupid hat? That's sadist."
"I am so over the toxic -masculinity- relationship in this -hallway- movie."
@@nejdalejsame with, "I don't make love, I fuck. Hard."
didn't She literally write that line?
@@galaxychill9578no that was another author
"He scowls for a minute."
That would have been the most awkward minute of all time. Does Mitchell know how long a minute is as a lull in conversation?
It reminds me of the fanfic "Trapped in a island with Josh Hutcherson", one of the lines goes something like "we stared at each other for ten minutes" (lol).
It's funny to see that Erika Mitchell's writing skills are on the same level of a tween's fanfic from wattpad.
@@riley8385 "Trapped *in* an Island," not *on?*
@@lunabearsong2043 yes, *in*. Check Jenny Nicholson's video about it, it's hilarious.
The minute thing is likely not literal, people often say: "give me a minute," when they really just mean wait.
He just scowled for a short spell.
@@IrvingIV
A short spell? You mean like Reduce Person? Or do you mean short casting time like Magic Missile?
I love in-depth analysis of trash media. It can be more revealing (ahem) than analysis of art film, especially if it is formal and technical. Poetic analysis very rarely gets in the way, forcing austerity from the critic.
"in-depth analysis of trash media" oh god thank you! I've been trying to find a way to describe my love for this kind of work.
Which is why I love this series, and the series on Film Studies applied to the Transformers films by Lindsay Ellis. They tha bomb.
Trash media can actually depict and thus reveal so many high-level societal issues! It's double worth analyzing indeed
Is no one else shocked at the fact that the key-chain is in comic sans and he STILL wanted to have sex with her? I mean as if there weren't enough red flags about this relationship already...
Good thing she didn’t use Papyrus, cause this movie would’ve switched genres pretty fast.
I WAS GONNA COMMENT ON THAT BECAUSE WHAT THE FUCKKKKK
No, stop it, leave that font alone!
This is probably the wrong question to ask but, does the author recognize that there's more than two hair colors in total for women of the world?
Yeah but authors love the Madonna vs Mrs Roosevelt argument where we have bombshell/icy or dumb blondes who are all slutty.
Or the brunette who is studious and a good person to bring home unlike the blonde.
What would she do with sandy blonde? Or light brown? Would she implode from the stereotypes not being clear cut anymore?
@@ninjanippledog725 what if she saw a redhead? She'd implode.
@@nunpho Redheads are fiery. Everyone knows that.
@@timothymclean come like a firecracker
That's why the redhead would do
It's funny how the book casts all blondes as temptress even though Christian only dates brunettes
I think that's Erika Mitchell accidentally showing her own insecurities.
@Soulcaster
It's more than likely a detail carried over from Twilight. The books have a weird fixation on blondes, with blonde characters like Rosalie and Lauren, one of Bella's classmates, being portrayed as antagonistic towards Bella.
OtakuAudioRedux That’s a definite possibility, but while Meyer made two or so blonde female characters to be bitchy mean girls, James took that trope to a whole new level by making it clear, that any of her numerous blonde characters, whether they be secondary, but significant (Kate Kavanaugh, Ana’s “best friend”) or tertiary and completely superfluous to the plot (Gretchen, Gia, Elena Lincoln, Gray’s assistants and probably more) are scheming, predatory sluts, that should be judged and shamed for having sexual agency (which shy, insecure Ana doesn’t display and is rewarded for by the plot and Christian) and self-confidence.
It really reads as an indictment of not only women with fair hair, but also women who dare not to be childlike, sexually naive, passive participants in their own (romantic) lives. Which leads to the conclusion, that E.L. James is a massive misogynist who was possibly slighted in the past by a pretty blonde girl...
@@haggisa
I'm imagining a young E.L. James having a teenage crush on some dude that didn't know she existed. She stayed in his general orbit for a while, never making a move or inviting him to make a move, and suddenly dude gets a blonde girlfriend whom he loves and James takes it as a personal attack.
Vivi Vargas
Yikes, that’s a creepy theory, but sadly, a believable one.
I'm glad that Dr. Flynn believes so strongly in patient confidentiality.
Matthew, in the very limited time since I've read your comment, you’ve made more progress with my perspective on patient confidentiality than any TH-cam comment has in the last two years. You have had a profound effect on me, you must see that.
@@AstralMarmot
This is so funny istg
Better version idea: Anna gets super into the dominance thing and flips it around on Christian, but she actually does it properly and consensually and they're both much happier. Also apparently the whole total power exchange thing is actually really exhausting and very rarely done for long stretches of time.
That or surprise, Christian was forced into an abusive relationship that mimics BDSM and has continued it in the vain pursuit of fulfilment but with Anna's help realises he was actually conned and either ''vanilla'' or real BDSM relationships are what he wants. 'Oh that makes sense, I had it wrong. This is better.'
Or the whole serial killer route. That sounds good too.
I'm so into this rewrite.
I really wanted the sequel to be about Ana feeling confused because she wants nothing to do with Christian (and they don’t get back together at all) but she still feels kind of interested in being spanked and whatnot. And she meets people who are actual BDSM practitioners and she learns how consent and safety are a defining part of such relationships. And that lesson leads her to lose all remaining (if any) sympathy for Christian because she has the vocabulary to recognise his abuse for what it was. For me, the first film is about (or should be about) Ana learning that she’s kind of into kink. The second film should have been about her learning that Christian definitely isn’t.
I would read the shit out of any of these.
When I was fifteen and read Grey for the first time, I thought the second one will be about her getting together with Jose (because I was a horny teenager and skipped the boring stuff before sex) or some other guy and dealing with her sexual awakening (BDSM or otherwise), because hey, this trilogy is mostly about porn, isn't it? I still maintain it would a better idea, since I got the sense of Christian's horribleness when I got older. So yes, what user36able is saying? I can totally subscribe to that line of thinking.
It's so surreal because every so often I am VIOLENTLY torn into vivid flashbacks of reading basically the exact scenes playing out in the sample clips here and I'm like 'Oh gods REAL people actually acted this embarrassing nonsense.'
50 Shades is just early 2000s trashfic before we got AO3 and good gods it is weird. I read stuff like this when I was 15, minus the sex.* Is this what getting old will feel like? This is like VHS to DVD all over again.
Hint for folks who really liked the smut: There is so much better for FREE on AO3. We are so lucky to have fanfic.
*Because I was a blue stocking and didn't wanna get involved with that. And FF.net smut was nearly always bad.
Why does vanilla to them mean consensual? I mean it explains how James thinks this abuse is BDSM but still.
I just wanna say that I love the glee in Dan's voice every time he gets to explain why a stupid and banal plot point is ultimately crucial to the narrative flow of the movie, be it because he loves it in a "it's so bad" way, or because he gets to share his suffering with us.
I think it’s because of how interesting it is. It’s one thing to see something that sucks, but cracking it open to see exactly how the structure works and maybe even how it can be better is so fascinating~
See, he's a sadist. And we all remind him of.. oh wait, I got that mixed up.
Words cannot express how longingly I was waiting for this. My inner goddes is bungee jumping out of a moving plane right now.
Maximiliano Vazquez I really want to know if this is a real thing, and if it isn't I want it to be
Anything can be true if you believe in it hard enough. That is what we call politics nowadays.
Yessss! My thoughts and feelings exactly!
I WAS KEELING FROM LAUGHTER
Well if it wasn’t moving that’d be a pretty short jump, so good.
Can someone help me understand
Why Anna would feel threatened by blondes once she realizes blondes aren't attractive to Grey?
What's James' beef with blondes?
natchnieni0 a lot of women (at least in my experience) who aren’t blonde typically have a sort of blonde-envy in their teenage years. Probably because our culture is so blonde-centric when it comes to commonly accepted traits of female beauty.
Most women grow out of it pretty quickly. This author...seems like she never quite got over it and it turned malignant as she got older.
Girlfriends who were brunettes almost all told me they would dye their hair blonde or at least lighter when they were in high school. Even a previous red-headed girlfriend I had who was super out-of-my-mutant-creature-league beautiful told me she wished she was blonde when she was a teenager.
Which is crazy because having beautiful red hair is uncommon and you’d think she would have been proud, but you know how teenagers just want to fit in, etc.
@@BeggarsNight So basically James still has the mentality of a teenage girl who never learned to love herself. Shocking.
Maybe her husband had an affair with a blonde.
I think it’s another holdover from its time as a Twilight fanfic. Twilight had a similar problem of a Not Like Other Girls(tm) brunette protagonist and antagonistic blonde girls who were antagonistic for seemingly no reason beyond them being a), blonde, and b), girls who weren’t Bella.
My initial thought was: if christian doesnt see another woman as a potential sexy punchingbag those woman might have a better chance at forming a normal emotional relationship with him and anna might feel threatened about that. But then i realized i have probably already thought more about this than el james.
"So, we only do the stuff you're comfortable with?"
That question literally implies that the relationship he would prefer would exist primarily outside her comfort zone. That's basically the description of an abusive relationship.
Glory to me, the 69th like.
Yep. Either his wants are things Ana isn't personally comfortable with but another might be, or he wants things specifically because she's not comfortable (because her distress, fear and helplessness are the real goals). Either way, they don't work as a couple where in this relationship *she* will be happy, so she should've left him.
"literally implies"
"literally implies"
holy fuck
The helicopter crash also shows a distinct lack of knowledge when it comes to helicopters. A malfunctioning engine isn't the death throws of a chopper, you'd also need to sever key mechanical components of the collective in order to prevent usage of the autorotation method of descending without a functioning engine. The black smoke in the movie implies merely an engine issue, a simple flip of a switch would release the flywheel from the rotor allowing free spin of the blades, adjusting blade pitch with the collective would allow you to adjust speed of descent as air flowing up through the blades forces them to "Autorotate". A careful application of blade pitch lets you ride down this autorotation at reasonable speeds, and an eventual final flare will pitch the helicopter nose to bleed all of your speed for a... relatively soft landing. (This technique is literally one of the first things taught when getting a helicopter endorsement.)
Also, love the videos.
Learned something today. Ta
No no see the helicopter is going fast and then the engine gets explodey so the helicopter spirals out of control because those blades are turning in circles and so they carry the helicopter with it and it hits the trees like psghhgghhhhhhhhbooooooom!!!! The audience will understand.
Interesting, thanks for the info!
@@BeggarsNight, very entertaining comment!
I love that this entire comment section is almost nothing but chicks into fan fiction, erotica, twilight, and BDSM - and then there's this one guy like "this movie's helicopters are bullshit, 0/10"
"That's not intense kink so much as its the profile of a serial killer" omg I'm soblaughing because as someone in the scene, so...so....SOOOOO many "dominants" want that exact relationship and it is exhausting. Saving that little sum-up for fellow kinksters.
Yeah, it was depressingly accurate.
I’m lucky. My dom is a great guy, he always makes sure that I know that I’m in complete control (even if we’re pretending like I’m not) and he’s always checking to make sure that I’m ok. He’s well aware that I’m a noob to the whole thing and that equal participation is key. It’s great. I so easily could have ended up in the clutches of a crazy Christian Gray type maniac. Instead I have a nice, safe, way to be inflicted will all kinds of bodily harm for fun
Yeah, the number of dudes that think their objectification fetish makes them "dominant" is just...sad. To the point that I'm actually kind of fond of the moment where Christian insists that he's *not* a dominant. There are so many people that need to have that same epiphany and I really wish they would.
Around 37:25
How? A lot of people weird sexual fetishes. It seems like as long as both parties enjoy it then it would hypocritical for other people with eird ferishes to judge.
It frustrates me so much that Anna and her assistant have a way more coherent conversation about boundaries and power dynamics than Anna and Christian ever do.
Especially since Anna and Hanna are both extremely pretty and this one interaction has convinced me that the series would be infinitely better if it was about the two of them falling into a whirlwind lesbian love story
I'm sure our bicon Dakota would have loved that too
@@sapphosscullerymaid4856 and then secretly Hanna is also a Dom. Then it becomes almost a reverse of her and Christian's relationship. An assistant doming her boss.
Everything can be improved by making it gayer.
A headcanon:
After the events of Freed, Hanna and Ana's relationship in the office and as friends develops into a slow burn friendship romance, and everything she does with Hanna, in contrast to how she and her kids are treated with Christian, shows her just how much she deserves in a relationship and how bad he really is for her and the kids.
So, she runs away with Hanna and the kids, and airs out all the dirty laundry in the presses and in court. Though she'll likely not getting the true justice she deserves (since Grey is a cishet white billionaire man), his company's name will be forever tainted, and Christian will loose the one thing he needs most: control over what she does, where she goes, who she sees, and how she and her children live. She's truly free. And she lives out her freedom with her children and her new wife, the one who showed her the depth and breadth of the abuse she was going through, Hanna.
The reason the conversation between Anna and her assistant is more coherent is because it's lifted from another movie - Working Girl, which starred Dakota Johnson's mother, Melanie Griffith.
As a guy who knows nothing about this series all I have to go on is that the first movie was about a really unintentionally messed up beginnings of a BDSM relationship, while this one is about a bunch of crazy guys and girls who are wanting to kill our protagonist.
So logically I assume the next one involves Anastasia fighting a shark? I dunno man this series seems to ramp up pretty severely.
Like Sharknado, but the tornado in this movie is a metaphor for the toxic relationship.
"50 Shades of Great White"
+Soulcaster
Except where Sharknado was SUPER self aware and kept repeating the moments people liked with more and more insane circumstances while just basically being a parody of itself from movie #2 onwards, the Fifty Shades films somehow seem to think that going full-crazy in their otherwise grounded BDSM erotic romance flick was somehow a good thing...?
Long story short, Sharknado is effing awesome and the Fifty Shades films should have genuinely ended after movie 1 because it's the only competently made one in the trilogy and has an actual natural conclusion to the story.
that would have been a lot more interesting than what actually happens
No the first book/film was about what the writer THOUGHT BDSM relationships were like. After being corrected (not a result of mental illness, not a form of abuse, not a result of childhood trauma, etc...) she had to course correct... hence the 'sadist' angle. Ironically thought she tried to portray the BDSM as a form of abuse, it was actually EVERYTHING ELSE Christian does in this series that ACTUALLY is a form of abuse.
Is it just me or has dan gotten... happier? He seems more excited, his mannerisms are wilder and more theatrical even though his vocal inflections haven't changed at all. I like it, it's nice.
oh and there's something more playful in the structure and the editing. it's exciting in a sweet and sharp way. Its like dan is very satisfied with his (admittedly excellent) deconstruction and it shows
The beard was holding him back.
Maybe it's confidence. Over time, more experience, more success, more confidence = better/more energetic presentation.
I could pinpoint he's having a good break with mental health. That's always good.
I genuinely appreciate that you, unlike EL James, provide us with aftercare, in the form of some gentle strings and AMY who is a CAT.
That bit where Ana is talking to Hannah about calling her by her first name, and not getting coffee unless she's getting some for herself, and making up the rest as they go along? Yeah, that is pulled verbatim, VERBATIM, from the end of the 1988 movie Working Girl, starring Melanie Griffiths. Melanie's character, Tess McGill, says it to her new secretary, Alice. I'm just going to be over here, with my head on my desk. On a positive note, love the fact that hbomberguy is reading Dr. Flynn's lines. Also.....Cat! :-)
It’s not surprising at all that they did an homage to a scene in a film the lead actress’s mother starred in.
I thought that was him!
K Saunders as someone who reads fanfiction this is kind of common. Tons of them do this. I think they do it for the same reason that people in fanart have characters say things from other material that suits that character well. That’s something usually done for comedic purposes.
the ideal nature of power, evidently, also seems to include an African American woman who has been on the job longer being passed over for promotion so the new white girl who's bf just bought the company can have it instead. Accidental double yikes!
Thank you!!! I'm glad someone else seen that shit!!!
Of course that slipped through. Erica seems to lack a yikes filter, why stop at just the sexual/relationship abuse?
The car safety thing is definitely just ripped from Twilight’s Edward character. In that universe, he essentially (as a vampire) sees human reflexes as very poor and inadequate, leading him (because he is paranoid and controlling at best) to obsess over making sure that Bella’s “fragile human self” is kept safe when driving. It has no discernible explanation in the 50 Shades universe.
At least there is a coherent reasoning there cause yeah, an immortal vampire would see humans as pretty fragile.
There is also the addition that Bella is the one person whose thoughts he can't mind read. And while I can't bother to remember the distance that Edward's bullshit vampire power works on, Bella's immunity also means he can't follow her with his MIND POWERS and know where she is at all times. So add that to how he is an immortal vampire made of super glued diamonds and she is a flesh twig, and it vaguelly adds up. Provided the author actually thought this out and it wasn't just an accident.
Seriously, the Chronicles of Riddick poster practically rewrites the entire Fifty Shades canon in a matter of seconds.
orijimi Could someone explain what it would mean? I'm not familiar with Chronicles of Riddick
@@wqtercolor That Christian actually has a personality hidden somewhere in that husk of his that liked a fascinating but not entirely sound sci-fi movie enough that he put a poster for it up on his wall as a teen. Basically, that Christian had anything resembling whimsy.
Adds more personality to him than any of the dialogue.
Since he's usually portrayed as some corporate husk of a person until the BDSM pops up, without the poster and the trauma you could replace him with a fucking mannequin on wheels and nothing would change, probably why they lean on his trauma so much as a defining feature of his character and personality. I love the Riddick movies and while I would probably never in a million years ever see a Fifty Shades movie, if they had worked it in to his character/childhood a bit then he would be a much better character, or at least deeper
That's not really re writting the character.
The conversation Anna has with her new assistant? It's pretty much lifted from "Working Girl" (1988) with Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford, and Sigourney Weaver. Sure, you can call that scene a "homage", I don't mind. But at the end of the film, Griffith-having risen from secretary to a somewhat nebulously defined "Not Secretary" position at a company-says to her own assistant, "I expect you to call me Tess. I don't expect you to fetch me coffee unless you're getting some for yourself. And the rest we'll just make up as we go along." I kept waiting for the video to point that out, or to be amazed that the one scene that seemed to rise above the bullshit was not one Mitchell really wrote, but it didn't so... *shrug*
My jaw dropped at that scene when it appeared in this video. The delivery of the lines is exactly the same as it was in Working Girl. Dakota even makes her voice breathier like Melanie's.
It's a relatively unknown movie, so I don't dock him really on that. Thas what comments are good for
@@RE-yj5sy considering she's her mom....
YES!!
So the one piece of dialogue I thought was somewhat inspired was lifted from somewhere else. That figures.
I guess I'll watch Working Girl some day. :b
The way the mrs Jones scene is written and framed makes it feel like it was written for EL James to have a cameo and then they just didn’t have her do it??? Like the camera would show her face and it’d be like “woah it’s the author omg!”
That would weirdly make that scene make alot more sense lmao
Would she really self-insert as the housekeeper though?
@@oggyboggy8692 never. But I Love the Idea of her playing Christian (her self insert)
@@ilan5821 The entirety of 50 Shades but with her face deepfaked onto Jamie Donran
@@ashikjaman1940 and ONLY her face
I never in a million years thought I'd be so excited to see a video about Fifty Shades of Grey.
I know right!? xD
We are all exploring our kinks
@@zljmbo Ours just happens to be film analysis.
Arunima Tiwari Fifty (minutes) Dan Darker 😀
@@thomassgdf8270 ;-)
The phenomenon of "zombie fic" is not restricted to fanfic. It can happen in any serialized fiction. I noticed it most clearly in Naruto, the manga, where the emotional arc of Naruto, the character, wanting to be accepted by the people of his village, is achieved after he defeats Pain. But the series was still selling, so it kept going. It kept going for years. A whole Ninja World War happened and it was a mess.
Yeah especially the ending with the whole aliens just to set up Boruto. Like way to end a story all about Naruto's dream of fixing the ninja world by not fixing the ninja world.
@@upgradeninja7350 shhhhh we don't talk about Boruto
Oh man, that's also a good way to explain what (I think) is happening to Outlander (TV series). The emotional arc of the first three seasons made sense - S1: who will Claire choose? S2: can they stay together? S3: can they find their way back to each other? Since that's been resolved since season 3, it feels like there's no real emotional core to the story anymore, or it's just a rehash of the same conflict over and over.
I stopped reading Naruto after he defeated Pain, and I stopped reading Bleach after Ichigo defeated Aizen. I’m glad I did what I did on both, because both appear to have ZOMBIFIED sometime after those arcs.
@mistertadakichi Eh... Bleach had a legitimate reason to exist after Aizen's defeat. Problem is, the next arc and the final arc were originally forshadowed either like 100 chapters or 300 chapters earlier, respectively. The fact is, there was still a lot about Ichigo as a character that was left on the table to be explored after Aizen's defeat, but because Kubo had been pushed to stretch the runtime of the Arrancar arc, Aizen's defeat had the narrative marker of the end of the series. I honestly feel bad for Bleach because the Thousand Year Blood War was the best arc in the series IMO... until Kubo's health declined and the last like 20ish chapters wound up super rushed. Heck even the Fullbring arc had a point, as it forced Ichigo to accept that "Yeah, I do like being a shinigami and fighting monsters", and also demonstrated what kind of person Ichigo... *is.* What his impact on those around him has been like. It's beautiful, albeit a very low key follow up to the Aizen fight.
I'd even argue Naruto had legitimate reasons to continue after Pain was defeated. The narrative arc had been changing to, and was fully changed as of the Pain arc, be about breaking the cycle of violence. Kishimoto just did a kind of impressively bad job of tackling that arc in a satisfying way.
The nepotistic job security with upwards momentum is honestly the most arousing part of this story.
And even then only partially.
This could just be me, but if I were in the situation of being promoted to a significant responsibility in the workplace because of my billionaire sugar daddy I would feel HORRIFICALLY overwhelmed, not to mention guilty.
Of course this would be notably different from the guilt I’d be feeling from being intimately familiar with a billionaire, and failing to smother them with a pillow.
@@theoneandonlymichaelmccormick I don't know. The way I view it is - if my sugar daddy/husband was a billionaire and was willing to eat the cost of the company in order for me to have a job, that probably ensures the job security of everyone else that works there at that point, even if I sucked at my job. He already bought a company for me, so paying people a good wage to keep doing their job ain't the worst, really - I'd just ask for training as I went and do my best with everything else for that reason alone.
@@thestorygiver6217 They’re a billionaire. What makes you think that they care about paying people’s wages?
@@theoneandonlymichaelmccormick Essentially - "This is now my publishing company, please keep paying my employees I am your wife and it would make me happy" and he would do it or whatever. He might not care about the employees, but hopefully he would care enough about me after literally buying a company to agree XD
@@thestorygiver6217 That’s a novel concept. Make the fella simp hard enough to give his workers job security.
"He's being magnanimous by respecting her limits"
That is literally the core of BDSM, if she can't trust him, he is not her dom. It's that simple.
All relationships should include respect for boundaries.
Funny, cause of all the sex I've experienced, the stuff with straps and related toys were by far the most complicated
He's the least SSC person imaginable.
That is the core of havong a relationship as well... the fact that you can think otherwise is beyong me
@@emilyrise3145. Who said i think otherwise?
8:21 - I will forever be *furious* that they wholesale lifted this dialogue from Melanie Griffith's crowning moment in Working Girl.
I get that they're making a cutesy "aww look, she's quoting her mom's movie!" reference, but no. These two films completely oppose each other. Ana gets that job through no merit of her own after less than two weeks. Tess in Working Girl spent years hustling to finally reach that point. That moment was earned and triumphant. In this movie, it has all the emotional weight of a wet noodle.
Her Mom?
@@salmay.2186 Melanie Griffith
So why does this actress do the lines worse than Melanie Griffin if she can copy them rather than interpret them and she has not interpreted them ? Sloppy lazy writing
Little Sparrow that was infuriating
Ha! I’m new to this review and I’ve never watched 50 Shades anything, nor read the books...and I know this comment is a year old...
But when I heard that line, I immediately thought, “Wasn’t that from the end of ‘The Working Girl’ spoken by Melanie Griffith? “ Then it clicked that this actress is Melanie’s daughter.
"Christian uses his super-dom-hypno-powers" LMAO! I'm crying.
You are so much funnier, more ethical, and more insightful than EL James could ever hope to be. This takedown of the film is legitimately better than the actual film.
"handled with about as much delicacy as the death of batman's parents" is a phrase that deserves to be applied to SO many Sad Backstories in media...
Hah, I loved the GarBox interlude! It seemed like you were having a lot of fun making this one :) It was super-clear and well done and you had this great little smile throughout
I legitimately thought GarBox was an actual thing for a second.
Hi Olly!
I ship this
Oh Olly, how far we've all come.
Bradley J. Cude I mean, it wouldn’t be the weirdest internet service out there
"actually, we should sell *more* books"
you sounded like Drew Gooden there, no idea why
He transforms into Drew in the middle of the night.
i read this in drew’s voice and had an out of body experience
Yeahhh I noticed that too
it's the sarcasm
lmao
I see James' writing and notice one prominent detail (out of many, buuuut) -- the tendency to focus on extremely minute details, spreading them out over numerous pages.
Details are important, yes, but spend too long on them and they get tedious and potentially ridiculous, removing the reader from the experience and general plotline (and potentially posing red herrings) rather than immersing them in it.
The reason I bring this is up is because this is how I write. I have a lot of dreams that are vivid and detailed enough to be, in my mind, decent fiction one-shots. During these dreams, my brain often picks seemingly trivial things to emphasize. While lucid and writing these dreams down, I can recognize that information as extraneous, but I keep it in my writing anyway just for the sake of accuracy to my dream, regardless of how needless (or morally dubious) it is.
The difference is, I'm probably never going to publish any of it. Outside of my own shoddy writing (both in content and ability), I just don't think it's the kind of stuff people would be interested in reading.
My point is that James' writing reads similarly to mine, but worse -- it comes off as juvenile and immature, and REEKS of stereotypical fanfic tropes. I was honestly reminded of My Immortal's obsessive focus on characters' outfits when James went so deep into needless detail.
Except... My Immortal was likely written by a tween (or a troll). James is a middle aged woman, yet for some reason, just like a tween, she thinks what she's written is a goddamn masterpiece, having no shame and no remorse. Anything the reader finds boring or controversial is the reader's damn fault! How dare they insult her writing! Dumb haters!!
James comes off as follows: "A lot of preps stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them."
fuck I love this comparison of e.l. james to ebony
I remember back in high school when I was first hearing about this book and it was starting to blow up, etc I was interested by the fact that it was adapted fanfiction. I wrote a lot of fanfic at the time, and had read tons of amazing stories on fanfic net, so I was somewhat inspired and wondering what kind of amazing fanfic story it would have to be to get that kind of attention. But, um... I read excerpts of it and... yeah, needless to say I was extremely disappointed that *that* was the fanfic that got a mainstream major adaptation seeing as there are far higher-quality stories you can find just spending a good bit of time browsing on the site, so... yeah. Oof.
Ahh, don’t do My Immortal like that. At least Ebony was an icon
Half of the reason I write stuff is as a context for researching random bullshit. Why did I create a character who lived from 1840 to 1952, barely aging at half the rate he should? Because I wanted to write about the Civil War, Indian Wars, Spanish-American War, and WW1. So I made a character who survived the Battle of Gettysburg, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the Battle of San Juan Hill, and the Battle of the Somme, and who went gold mining in Alaska during the Yukon Gold Rush just because.
But then, on the other hand, I just spent an hour researching course requirements at three nearby colleges because his niece's girlfriend is a roboticist. And her interest in robotics comes from the bionic hands her mother wears as a result of a traumatic injury, so I had to familiarize myself with transradial amputations as well.
But my audience is me. A few people apparently find what I write interesting, but the only reason I know that is because I love looking at analytics pages.
The weird thing is, Mitchell actually does do some research. Grey's apartment could be taken from a floorplan of actual apartments at the actual building he lives in, and she even got the time that Ana would arrive in Georgia (based on her departure time, the flight length, and the time difference between Seattle and Georgia) correct. But those are all things that, in a well written story, could be ignored. In a well written story, no one would really care if Ana spent two extra hours in the air tha nshe should've. When I write, I only base my homes on actual floorplans because I find it interesting to research them and easier than making a believable home (as I have very different ideas of what makes a nice house than modern designers).
What she *doesn't* research are important things like how helicopter crashes don't work that way or literally anything about BDSM.
As someone who struggles to maintain focus with novels, omg does focusing on details make me check out.
It's why I hate Tale of Two Cities!! Don't remember much, and I was made to read it twice in high school!
Lindsay, Harris and Dan all uploading within two days is just a great way to end the month
The Holy Trinity has blessed us with a few hours of content!
Harris = HBomberguy
His name is Harris? I thought it was something else. Either way, I chose to skip that video since I have zero interest in speedruns regardless of how entertaining he can be.
The Demon Curupira hbomberguy, he does good work. He cameoed in this video as the voice of Christian's therapist.
@@Curupira106 hbomberguy
Every time I hear the words "I'm sadist" from this movie, my brain just plays the weirdo monologue from Riverdale.
"I'm weird. I'm a weirdo. I don't *fit in*."
"That's like asking han solo 'how's space?'"
@@ILikedGooglePlus 13 shades of why
I was jokingly wondering, “What if he got HBomberguy to read Christian, that would be hilarious.” And then BAM I got severe whiplash when the therapist came in, christ...
Wait, that's a real British accent?
wait this is hbomberguy?
What I love about relistening to this series is how Dan goes from being calm and analytical and sometimes generous in the first video to being Very Salty on behalf of the first director and writer.
Okay re: Jack on the other side of the lake burning a hole in the picture of the family photo. It's dark on that side of the lake and he's obviously burning a hole from the back. So i would like to know how many extra copies that jack had to print for all the times he accidentally burned a hole a little too far to the left and burned a hole on a tree in the background
“Super Dom Hypno Powers” is my ideal mutant ability.
Dinner guests rowdy?
_(Hard stare)_
I'd read that X-Men fanfic.
This couldn’t even have been a remotely decent fanfic. Like, the serial fiction problems are... problems, but the consent issues are so embedded in the fabric of the whole franchise that I don’t really think any adaptation could have fixed it, without ignoring basically all of it.
Actually, the Netflix show The Fall (also with Dornan) is the only sort of ‘adaptation’ that I think could possibly work. And in that, he is literally a serial killer.
I love the shot of Dan holding a feathered mask and a bunny head: “Which one do you want for this scene?”
It’s so hilarious to me that the final boss of this series is a fiction editor.
Also, aside from the obvious “twilight fan fiction origins”, I can’t for the life of me understand why these stories are set in Seattle/Portland. It really seems like E.L. James hasn’t been to either city and the setting seems to be so inconsequential to the action. The whole thing looks like it was shot in Vancouver anyways- Portland and Seattle are beautiful, but they’re not sleek and sexy.
In contrast, the sense of place was one of the strongest elements of both the Twilight books and movies. That’s a story that would loose a lot if it were relocated.
The films were shot in Vancouver. Actually a lot of movies and tv shows are shot there: X-Men, Minority Report, Twilight films, Man of Steel, Once Upon a Time, Riverdale, etc. I'm pretty sure that there are subsidies and tax incentives.
@@EvanSol919 Canada is known to be cheaper to film in, though I couldn't tell you why.
What's even funnier is that EL James is British and seemingly did no research on basic Americanisms, let alone the specific geography of Washington. She constantly uses British slang, everyone drinks tea constantly, she thinks people can drive across entire states in only an hour or less, etc.
I have to admit when you said that it was shot in Vancouver I got really confused, because I live in Vancouver, Washington. It's in close proximity to both Seattle and Portland, and I even know where WSUV is but a lot of the shots in the movie don't look familiar. It being shot in Vancouver B.C. makes more sense.
Yeah, the scenes at WSUV were shot at the University of British Columbia. I remember there was a day when all the UBC banners were replaced with WSU logos, and we were all very confused, then thoroughly entertained when we found out why
"...A Direct Hotline to my Inner Goddess." Quality
I don’t care how rich he is, if my boyfriend confessed to me that he was in a BDSM relationship with me specifically because I looked like his mother, I would move cities. Possibly states. Possibly continents.
… and STILL feel unsafe! And dirty by association! Ugh. >.
i would dye my hair hot pink and have him pay for all the plastic surgeries im going to get to not look like his mother. and then move continents
24:03
I physically jolted out of my chair when I heard H.bomberguy, like I was so unprepared to hear his voice
Where can I get a audio book of masters of the universe narrated by Hbomberguy?
Please?
I'll only buy that if it comes with unedited laughs.
@@riley8385 You both have made a product that I would surely invest in
I'd pay so much money for that
I almost died when I heard his line
Please, I want that so much
"Three-hour drive from Portland to Seattle and back"
I know Google says this takes 3 hours but as a Portlander I can guarantee you that traffic is always shit and it takes more like 4 or 5 hours just to get there.
Old comment, but I grew up in west Washington across the water from Seattle and was thinking the same thing. Three hours is a pretty conservative estimate, unless you were going over the speedlimit at 3 AM or something.
Can confirm, only ever came close to *only* 3 hours when speeding 20 over on not-worst-hours...
...hypothetically, I mean. Because I would never *actually* speed, even on accident. This is all mere conjecture and, uh --
>.> ... *sidles away like an awkward store mannikan come to life only to realize it's naked in public and standing there talking about it is just making things worse*
_It's gonna take more than than a malfunctioning 135 to keep me away from you_
_There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do_
How have I never thought of this in the like 6 times I've watched this video!!!!
This is highly underrated
You have no idea how incredibly validating on a very personal level it is to watch this series picked apart by someone who knows a ton about storytelling and has the stomach to, apparently, read and watch the whole series multiple times. It's too much to explain but thank you from the bottom of my heart.
The ‘little brown hair girls’ scene has just become the riverdale ‘I’m a weirdo’ moment in my head
39:17
It's fine.
It's FINE.
It's fine.
It's *fine*.
It's fine.
She's fine.
They're fine.
It's fine.
It's fine.
Everything's NOT FINE
And it's NOT OKAAAYYYY
Anna GET OUTTA THERE
The door's RIGHT THIS WAAAAY
kind of reminds me of Lindsay video on Twilight, where she talks about Fifty Shades briefly.
Lindsay Ellis reference? I see you are a person of culture as well.
"...vanilla relationship."
"As in we only do what you're comfortable with?"
*HOLY SHIT*
Which, *in this instance*, may coincide.
"it's like he has a direct hotline to my inner goddess, which, of course, he has"
brmbly wouldn’t put it past him
the grammar freak in me screamed in agony at that part
The editor hung him/herself after page 1.I’m calling it now.
He hacked her inner goddess at the same time he hacked her phone. Multi-tasker, you know?
This, like virtually every other line in the 50 shades series, only sounds natural if you envision Erica Mitchell saying it
In 2022 America, the most erotic part of this is the immediate access to free contraception and a gynecologist
I would totally hire hbomberguy as my therapist
My inner goddess is throwing this book in a garbage can, dousing it with gasoline, and setting it alight.
Linkaraaaa
Mine cut the book up into stripes, folded them into v shapes and wove a trash Basket from it.
Christian is obsessed with safety even though nothing in his backstory supports that has gotta be a leftover from it being a fanfic, right? Edward being hyper protective of Bella would (I imagine, wasn’t in this fandom) be an accepted default characterization that fan audiences accept. In original fiction, it feels out of nowhere. Which is basically the root of the books’ problems.
Love watching your breakdown of the series! : )
Yes, a recurring theme in Twilight is biological instinct, and this idea that men have a biological instinct to want to protect women they're into. The same idea carries in the 50 Shades world.
As someone who still genuinely enjoys Twilight for what it is occasionally Dan says things about Christian that immediately remind me its a twilight fanfic. The moody midnight piano music from the first video and the overprotectiveness in this one. (I actually would love to hear someone talk about how 50 shades was also terrible as a Twilight AU sometime but I doubt that’ll ever happen)
Well is "I'm a vampire" a better explanation for not speaking and being emo and boring than "I'm a billionaire but I sad cuz my mother was a crack whore"? XD
blueisasomedancer **grabs popcorn** well, no time like the present: what're your thoughts on the matter?
Please don´t post so close to Lindsay... you guys are the best thing on TH-cam and now there will be nothing here for a while again!
Hbomb just put out a really cool video too!
gotta get em all out before that patreon deadline
Aw heck you're right, now I have to watch all of The Whole Plate again.
I ship it.
The long, boring middle of the month is always the saddest time on youtube.
It occurs to me that, if I was watching a movie where one of the main characters narrated that something major like an attempted suicide had happened off screen, I'd most likely not believe them. Movie logic tells me you'd only shoot it that way if they're lying.
oh, thats a very good point. Along with Grey's constant manipulation, thatd be a really nice story beat. shame
“That is Telltale of a zombie fic” I don’t know if that was intentional but I love you for that line
The safety stuff can be clearly drawn back to twilight. In Breaking Dawn, Edward gets rid of Bella’s beloved truck and buys her a BULLET PROOF, MILITARY GRADE, TANK (car) because he’s scared she’s going to do a *clumsyyyyyy* and hurt herself while driving. It’s her ‘pre-turning into a vampire’ car, and he says he’ll buy her a new one once she becomes the bullet proof tank as a vampire.
A glittering bullet proof tank.
But the reviewer's right. Edward's a bad boyfriend and person, but from his perspective the thought of Bella getting hurt would be legitimately frightening. No one else he's close to has that problem, so it'd be new to him, and he knows just how squishable humans are, having squished many himself. But Christian is as human as Ana, so he's just being a controlling jerk.
@@elafimilo8199 Oh no. Christian Grey is a stupid, manipulative, abusive piece of shit. Edward was a creep but he was at least concerned about Bella's wellbeing and not just trying to flaunt his wealth and pull the rug out from under her. Edward didn't buy Bella a car in the first book, it was the fourth book (i think)
@@Izzrules I refer you to Edward's judgmental attitude and to his murders. (I'm not comparing Edward and Christian here. Christian does seem like the worse person.)
See, but that concern makes some actual sense. Edward is an immortal superhuman being, who is dating a fragile, squishy, and fairly clumsy, human who is, ya know, vulnerable to injury/death, so it actually makes some sense he'd be overly concerned about her safety. Christian doesn't really have a reason to feel that way.
Dan doesn't mention this because it's blessedly not in the movie, but I only got about five pages into Darker before I literally couldn't any more, because the beginning focuses an inordinate amount on food control. Ana eats nothing for four days, which is portrayed as romantic pining, and then Christian's first words to her are to fight about food, saying "you look like you've lost five pounds" which is a nonsense sentence, because you can't tell for amounts that small. But what it effectively does for the reader is romanticize both Ana's eating disorder and Christian's patronizing exertion of control over his partner's lives. They have to get back together, you see, because Ana is a baby bird incapable of feeding herself 😒😒😒
And the author says they have a healthy relationship lol.
@@NobleAbsinthe I don't know if this is exactly an original take, but I'm convinced Christian is actually the author insert/POV for EL James rather than Ana.
You can't write what she did and then be baffled when people call the scenario you wrote out for what it very blatantly is. For someone who wrote about a very specific romantic scenario ostensibly from the point of view of the woman, we very rarely actually have Ana do more than respond to Christian's whims. I understand why some aspects of this may appeal to female readers, but the fact that she's such a control freak (period), but especially in regards to keeping Christian's abusiveness, misogyny, "I'm shitty but it's okay because I'm (air quotes) damaged"-ness, and the part where (despite being a demonstrably bad person) nothing bad ever happens to him that's actually the result of his actions, makes me think she sees him as the moral and conceptual center of the story.
Everyone who "harms" or in some way slights Christian is not because they think he's a bad person, they're just cartoonish obsessive stalkers. Raaah I want to kill you because you won't fuck me. Raaaah I want to kill you because you're successful and I'm not. If you wanted to have an interesting "villain", having an investigative reporter accusing him of being abusive or a r*pist would be an interesting (if possibly all-too-accurate) conflict.
If you told me a man wrote this book, I would assume he was a raging misogynist. I'm not sure what exact neurosis is going on in James's brain, but she clearly isn't a good person or doesn't understand what a healthy relationship is, wrote a book where an abusive man is aspirational, and breathlessly defended it in the face of people pointing out how clearly vile it is.
@steelplatedheart -- I keep forgetting about the food-control weight-shaming issues because I've never read the books or seen more than these clips in Dan's vlog essay trilogy. But coming back to rewatch it, I find myself wondering if *both* Christian and Ana are her author avatars, but Christian's fictional body also hosts the words/actions or 'spirit' so to speak of someone from ELJ's past who said the same sort of things to the younger naiver 'Ana'-ELJ.
.
So ELJ takes the position of power (away from the someone in her past) by becoming the self-hate talker as Christian, but the person she's targetting is still Ana. Who continues to reside in some corner of ELJ's mind. Who still wants to recieve that approval from 'Christian' (either by finally 'getting it right' within his conflicting, shifting rules or by being told she's right enough already as herself and the rules are wrong so she can stop trying to fulfill them).
.
But since ELJ is effectively talking to herself from both sides of the author-avatar relationship, she can't channel anything lastingly positive through either avatar (Christian apologizing and becoming actually a better person, Ana asserting herself permanently), because both avatars are damaged halves of the same damaged whole, stuck in an unresolvable loop.
.
She needs an outside voice that she'll actually listen to, in order to change one or both sides of the internal narrative being lived out by her avatars. This would be a good time irl for a quality therapist to enter Stage Any-Side-At-All, Just-Get-In-There!
Not to psychoanalyze Erika Mitchell too hard, but I feel like this is an extension of the same way Christian forces his expensive gifts on Ana, and forces his kinky sex on her, so she can stay humble and proper and so on. He's forcing food onto her, aggressively telling her to eat more, so Ana can be skinny and still eat a bunch.
As somebody who is _not_ skinny, I have fantasized so often about how great it must be for others to actually encourage you to eat, even encourage you to eat unhealthy desserts etc, instead of judging you for it. Getting to eat without shame, not having to feel disgusting for it. And looking at Erika Mitchell, maybe she also feels like that.
If the whole matter of Christian Grey getting in a helicopter crash because of foul play is only really important to the third movie...why wasn't that part of the film chopped off and stuck at the beginning of movie 3? I mean, other than textual fidelity, I mean. It would have made the narratives of both films more cohesive and more contained.
End movie 2 with the actual emotional climax - Christian and Anna working through his damage, followed by the marriage proposal - and then make the helicopter crash the tense opening of movie 3 that gets the audience immediately engaged. Or better yet, end movie 2 with Christian's helicopter crashing, leaving Anna (and the audience who hasn't read the books) wondering at his fate. Maybe with Jack Hyde watching the crash and smiling in a sinister fashion, to establish his menace.
No, this wouldn't have made the Fifty Shades movies _good_ , but it would be better from a structural standpoint.
Than that creates another set of pacing problems.
The problem is that the helicopter crash, as far as I remember, is pretty essential to the decision Ana makes to marry Christian AND to his emotional breakdown scene in the book. Ana had the key chain before but the crash makes her realize how empty her life would feel without him and that she is 100% sure of her decision. It also gave her an argument during Christian´s breakdown, namely that he is not alone and people love him since his family spent the entire time worrying about him. Shoving all that into the third movie would make it harder to decide what of the third book should be included and what not
This makes me feel saucy. Oooh yeah, deconstruct and anylyse a misrepresented and often misunderstood (while in my opinion still awefuly writen) peice of work. Mmm just like that baby. Right there!
lmao your whole thing about masks is interesting cause even without ever consuming 50 shades content in any form, I saw the venetian mask motif and immediately understood it as a masks are sexy thing. just because I consumed a lot of trashy romance fanfic.
Lots about fanfic borrows sexy ideas without understanding why they're sexy. it's memetic almost. At a point, the concept becomes a fanfic trope and is almost expected out of a piece of work. like the quintessential beach episode of an anime. So writers kowtow to the expectation, partly because readers like it, but also why not? I don't have to understand why a masquerade is sexy to put my character in a mask, and lovingly describe her opulent dress in purple prose.
The mask kinda betrays the source material cause hey. you're 30 chapters deep into your fic and things are starting to get derivative. let's just have a masquerade for no good reason.
I think the sexiest thing about a masquerade would be anonymity, so you can have characters hooking up while avoiding consequences of who they involve themselves with, or you could go voyeuristic with it. Basically, it might be a trope mostly based on "ball = wealth, masquerade ball = more elaborate costumes" but I've always genuinely thought of it in terms of the specific kinks more than anything, because they're indeed there.
The saddest thing is, it's not even really a masquerade ball. It's a charity funderaiser put on by his parents where everyone wears masks. It's almost totally unerotic. A PG-13 cut of the masquerade from Eyes Wide SHut would be sexier.
The keychain says "Yes!" in what looks like comic sans! A true hero.
I really appreciated, by the way, your analysis of the serialized nature of long fics. How wonderful to hear "narratively completed but continues on week by week powered only by the authors own creativity and ego" -- I really appreciated hearing academic words about fandom!