Monday, February 23, 2015

The Fifty Shades of Grey movie was not that bad!

I read Fifty Shades a Grey a while ago now and can remember summing up my feelings as "Meh" when I finished it. I managed to finish the whole thing which doesn't make it the worst book I've ever read. I was defintely intrigued and it held my attention in a lot of bits. I would probably label it as either a C or a B minus. It started off shaky but got better but ultimately, in the end, I could tell it began its life as a piece of fan fiction. The author has talent but it is raw. I think in time she will improve. There was a lot that was good but there were a lot of bits that were poorly written.

What was interesting about the movie was that it took a medicore book and cut out the flab and made it into a somewhat halfway decent film. The best thing that film was did was take out all of Ana's stupid inner dialogue. In the book she constantly makes references to her "inner goddess" when she thinks about wanting to have sex with Christian. It was stupid, childish and horribly repetitive.

Once you take all of that out the whole thing comes across as way, way more mature. What you're left with is an intriguing film about a relationship that straddles the line between abusive and adventurous.

Why do people hate the characters on Girls?

I discovered the show Girls last year and immediately got sucked in. I loved the writing, the wonderfully flawed characters, and how realistic I felt the whole thing was. The characters on Girls are very well written. In real life people have layers: we can all be a jerk, a bitch, a narcissist, or the best friend you could ever have. The girls on Girls are normal dumb 20-somethings learning about the world one mistake at a time. What mystifies me about this show is the level of hate often directed toward it.

Yes, the characters are not always likeable. Marnie is in my opinion the least likable. She was positively gleeful once she realised she was putting a wedge between Desi and his girlfriend. The look of delight on her face at the end of season three when she saw them fighting. It was a little disturbing like she was feeding off the drama like the witches feed off souls like in Hocus Pocus.

Hannah is annoying, selfish, mentally ill, and sometimes baffling but she's not the worst person to ever walk the face of the Earth but the way some people whinge online you would think she was the most terrible human being ever. I find it weird that people watch shows like Breaking Bad and cheer on Walt as kills people and then melts their bodies but when Hannah does something flaky the pitchforks come out?

The hatred for the characters on Girls is a lot like the hatred that was directed toward Skylar White back when Breaking Bad was on. People had an irrational hatred of her as well and it made no sense. She finds out her husband is a drug lord, a criminal, a meth cook and a killer and she does not react well and she's a bitch because of that? I found it fascinating that so many people thought she was the more shittier human being for having an affair and not "supporting" him compared to him being the Darth Vader of the Meth world.

Why do so many people cheer on characters like Walter White but mock and complain about characters like Hannah from Girls goes nude or ditches her friends to go and do something selfish? How is Hannah the more terrible human being? Hannah is a typical, self-centered, slightly spoiled young girl who is used to a certain level of entitlement. She is raw and real. And that is what makes her such a well written character. I don't hate her for her flaws. I find her flaws fascinating. I went and saw Fifty Shades of Grey yesterday at the cinema and I was talking to my husband about it afterwards and how I felt that Ana was a bit of a blank slate. Anyone could be Ana. "Oh I study English Lit and work in a hardware store" it's like the author spent five minutes fleshing out her character. Now Hannah, on the other hand, is so detailed, so fleshed out, I could talk about her for days. Love her or hate her but you have got to admit she gets people talking and that is the sign of a good writer.