Happy Valentine’s Day!!! 50 Shades of Grey is out!!!
(That was said with seething sarcasm.)
Many people have been very vocal about the morality of a movie that glorifies an abusive relationship, so I’m not even going to bother rehashing that. Instead, I’m going to address the typical response to dissenters:
“IT’S OK. THEY’RE BOTH CONSENTING ADULTS.”
Seriously? Since when did consent make everything OK? If someone told you it’s OK to run them over with a car, would you do it? No. Because that would be bad. You would be a criminal. Even if they asked you in writing.
Most abuse victims consent. Sometimes they love their abuser and are desperate to make them happy. Sometimes they’re afraid to say no. Sometimes they are so used to being abused that they think abuse is normal and they honestly don’t realize anything bad is happening to them.
The Eurythmics understood this:
“Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused.”
Nevertheless, abusers are losers, whether their victims consent or not.
The other asinine argument many people like to tout is:
“YOU CAN’T KNOW IT’S BAD IF YOU’VE NEVER READ / WATCHED IT.”
Here’s a short screenplay demonstrating why this argument is logically fallacious:
Loyd: Will eating rocks make you sick?
Jane: Yes.
Loyd: Have you ever eaten rocks?
Jane: No.
Loyd: Then how do you know it will make you sick?
Jane: …
Loyd is an idiot. Don’t be Loyd.
It is entirely possible to know something without personally experiencing it. For example, you know that the moon is made out of rock, even though you’ve probably never been to the moon. Just so, a person can know that 50 Shades of Grey is morally objectionable without reading or watching it. There’s really nothing morally grey about it. In fact, this issue is really pretty black and white.
