Meredith's Monday Musing: Fifty Shades of Grey

Hi Everyone!

Happy Monday! Did everyone have a nice Valentine's Day? I did, I got to see Fifty Shades Darker. :-) Today's topic for Meredith's Monday Musing is: The Fifty Shades of Grey Series.

This book series sure has caused a lot of controversy, especially in our little author community. There are some who seem to think that EL James can do no wrong. On the flip side, there are some that hate this series and strongly dislike EL James for writing it. I can understand both group's reasoning.

To start with the authors who love the Fifty Shades series, I can understand the appeal. EL James wrote the classic story: billionaire meets a nobody, falls in love, they have to face a couple of struggles, and live happily ever after. No one can ever go wrong with that storyline. The fact that EL incorporates some "kinkey fuckery" to the stories, doesn't hurt either. ;-)

Besides being a decent story, Fifty Shades has opened the world to the kinky side of things. I'll admit, before I read Fifty Shades, I had no idea that spanking, bondage, submission, etc existed. I think that many people were in the same boat as me. All authors, whether they love this series or not have to agree that EL James opened the world's eyes to what we write and have helped our readership grow through the years.

Now, I can almost feel the naysayers ready to jump at my throat for writing the last two paragraphs. ;-) So, getting to why I can understand why some authors hate this series, what EL James wrote isn't a healthy BDSM relationship. In the first book, Fifty Shades of Grey, EL dabbles in a domestic discipline relationship and it didn't go over well. She clearly hadn't done her research and got the reasoning for why people live in that type of relationship wrong. After being an author for awhile and going back and reading this series, I cringe at some of the stuff I read. The main hero, Christian, comes off as a major douche bag, stalker, and very selfish person at times. Jamie Dornan, the man who plays Christian in the movies does not help the situation or his character at all with this. So, I can understand why some authors get angry. If a movie was made about something that I lived and was portrayed wrong, I'd be pissed off!!!

Instead of getting angry about EL James' lack of knowledge, I like to think it gives us the perfect opportunity to educate readers on what a healthy BDSM relationship looks like. I'm not sure if all will agree with me on that, but I'm just trying to make lemonade out of the lemons that were handed to me.

No matter if you love the series or hate it, I think we can all agree that Fifty Shades has definitely changed our little community. It has brought many new authors to us and readers, which all in all, is a pretty good thing.

That's all I have for today. Happy Monday, folks!