The Complete History of the Universe: A Personal Journey

I feel like that title is horrible. OH WELL

A few days back, I did a post arguing against an article by some Christian blogger about 4 reasons not to go see the 50 Shades of Grey movie. Based on his reasons, I said that I wanted to go see the movie.

I have seen seen someone else’s thoughts on the topic, and wanted to share it, because this woman (or man, whichever) nails exactly what should have been written by someone truly concerned about the effects of this franchise on women. She also clearly has read at least enough of the book to be able to give specific examples of what is not okay.

So, those four original reasons to not see hate 50 Shades of Grey? Let’s revisit them.

1. You’re not stupid

As the link above says very well, if you know what BDSM actually is, and you know what this book contains, you know these are not the same thing. Therefore, you shouldn’t promote a franchise that is likely to have the effect this one is already having.

2. You don’t go for cynical, boring, corporate marketing ploys

I really still think this one doesn’t apply to most of America, because McDonald’s still exists and sequels continue to make tons of money.

However, you could say instead that you don’t support marketing ploys for franchises you think could cause harm, and I think most of us do try to do that.

3. You’re a Christian

Sadly, this one still doesn’t quite apply, because Paul (allegedly) says some pretty harsh things to women in the New Testament (1 Timothy 2:11-15). You could argue that Christians should want to prevent abuse towards women, and I’d be fine with that, but the Bible is not, at least in parts.

So, it turns out, not being a Christian still makes a better argument to avoid the movie from the perspective of moral concerns about the message of subjugating women.

4. You’re a feminist

I admitted in my last post that there were arguments from a feminist perspective that were good reasons not to see this movie or support this franchise. I’ve now linked to another.

Hopefully, this is the last post I decide to do regarding this piece of bad porn. I wanted to bring up that post about BDSM because, after reading that, I have very good reason to avoid the franchise, whereas after reading Matt Walsh’s piece, I wanted to go support it out of spite. So, I guess I’m recording a change of mind, here, albeit about something that’s pretty insignificant to me personally. I’m certainly a feminist, but that is not my passion. Helping people out of religion is, though.