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January 13, 2015

MiM Demands an XXXXX Rating for ’50 Shades of Grey’ Movie

LOS ANGELES—If there’s one thing we know for sure, it’s that no one at Morality in Media has any appreciation for kinky sex, at least not publicly. That is certainly true for executive director Dawn Hawkins, who weighed in today on the “R” rating given by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to the big screen adaptation of E L James’ best-seller, 50 Shades of Grey, which has a street date of Feb. 13. Of course, it could be argued that MiM’s outrage is really about not wanting to pass up such an obvious PR opportunity, rather than any real concern about a movie they have not yet seen, but it hardly matters. When MiM gets this publicly angry, it tends to veer off the tracks of sanity into utter nonsense that only true believers will take to heart, and today was no exception. According to Global News, “The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) ruled the film is restricted to persons 17 years of age or older, unless accompanied by an adult, due to ‘strong sexual content including dialogue, some unusual behavior and graphic nudity, and for language.’” On that point alone, Hawkins took semantic exception, noting, “What the term ‘unusual’ does not account for is the coercion, sexual violence, female inequality, and BDSM themes from which the entire Fifty Shades plot is based. “Such a vague evaluation,” she added, “puts viewers at risk, sending the message that humiliation is pleasurable and that torture should be sexually gratifying.” How it does that she doesn’t explain, but what she does say is that they would like the rating to be changed to something custom-made for the occasion.   “We’d like to change the MPAA rating for Fifty Shades of Grey to read: ‘Promotes torture as sexually gratifying, graphic nudity, encourages stalking and abuse of power, promotes female inequality, glamorizes and legitimizes violence against women,’” Hawkins said. Doing so, she added, would not “mask the true themes of humiliation, manipulation, abuse, and degradation of women” that is contained in the source material for the movie. The R rating does that, she said, but it also “severely undermines the violent themes in the film and does not adequately inform parents and patrons of the film’s content.” It’s absurd, funny and scary all at the same time. MiM, rather than simply proposing an NC-17 rating, wants the MPAA to discourage all adults from seeing the movie by way of a pronouncement that warns people that the movie “promotes torture as sexually gratifying," as if that will drive them away! The real problem with their argument is they said the same things about the book, which was an international best-seller. It follows then that if the producers were to take MiM’s advice and use their suggested warning, it would drive even more people into the theaters, not fewer, in the process underscoring the happy fact that MiM remains woefully ignorant about what turns people on. Or is it? Many fetish aficionados thought 50 Shades the novel was pretty tame in terms of its depiction of authentic BDSM psychology and play, which is why it became known as “mommy porn,” a definite pejorative for the “community.” On the other hand, for the less dogmatic the book represented a safe (if lame) entry into the kink lifestyle, which is more likely the facet of 50 Shades that so terrifies the people at MiM—the slippery slope into the hellfire of purgatory. In the same way, maybe MiM’s indignation about the sex shared by the movie's protagonists is also being driven by their own curiosity, about that sick and twisted sex that just has to be bad for the soul.

 
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