ANGRY BIRD

Our angry bird and mother-of-two, Michelle Harris gives Christian Grey a good spanking

Millions of women are wetting their pants this month about the release of the movie version of EL James’ Fifty Shades of Grey. Some cinemas have been considering ‘baby friendly’ screenings for mums who like to get their rocks off while baby-rocking, while others bulk-ordered on the waterproof seat-covers. For me, it’s about as sexy as a dose of the runs. Sorry to be a killjoy, ladies and gents, but I’d rather stay home and clean my oven. The books that spawned the film were drivel. Seriously. To paraphrase, I read them and I gasped. I bit my lip. I sighed a lot. Mainly because my year nines could write more interestingly, more creatively (albeit on different subject matter) and with less need for repetition. ‘Oh my’, indeed. The emails exchanged by the two main characters, clearly supposed to be witty, sexy and cool, made my eyeballs itch. I hardly think that was the desired effect when the middle aged Tween–lit fan author put pen to paper to make Twilight sexy. And that inner goddess needs a massive slap, too. Anastasia Steele is a two-dimensional, unlikeable, charisma-void. Worse than that, she is a doormat, a target, a victim, a joke. Don’t let her half-pagely orgasms and her pretty shoes fool you, the girl gets screwed in more ways that the obvious. Christian Grey is a controlling abusive arse, with the sex appeal of a day old dog-turd, and if he’d invited me into his Red Room he’d have got a swift punch to the nuts. This is what we’re supposed to think is sexy now? Rich dickhead with damaged past preys on introverted mouse with low self esteem, controls her appearance, her job, the food she eats, her friends, her birth control, and her preferred brand of nipple clamp? Really? And it’s ok, you know, if he is a bit of a dick, because he’s damaged. He’s in therapy. So it stops being awful, and it becomes kinky, see? And then the mouse marries him, gets knocked up, provides an emotional elasoplast for the tortured ‘hero’ and they all live vanilla-ly ever after. Excuse me while I swoon. Abuse and control is not sexy. And selling it as such does a disservice to the young women working out what a good boyfriend looks like, to every woman who has been treated like shit by a man, to any man who thinks if he’s damaged he can do as he pleases, and to society in general. So you can don the shitty slogan T-shirts, grab your fellow yummy mummies, stash the Lambrini in your handbags and squealingly queue up for tickets – for each paying customer the inner-goddess goes free, presumably, but I’ll pass. I like my romantic heroes heroic.