I enjoy a good chick flick. The shelf underneath my TV holds a big number of rom-coms and dramas where the two main characters fall in love. A meet-cute with a plot twist ending where the two lovers run to one another, hair flowing in the wind, and fall into each others arms. Not only that, but Celine Dion makes the credits worth my time.
It's fantastic.
You can curl up on the couch with your significant other, have a movie night with your best pals or just clock-in some "me-time" with Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson. Grab a glass of California moscato and lean back. Way back. It'll be a great time.
Unless there's 50 shades of manipulation and mistreatment.
A nationwide phenomenon for hopeless romantics all around, "50 Shades of Grey" caught the attention of nearly every male and female within The United States of America from your great grandmother to your five cousins and the cashier at Target. It skyrocketed as literature and then crashed through theaters all over the country with a resounding squeal of fans lined up at box offices everywhere.
I should be right there with the other romance enthusiasts, but I decided to stay behind.
Here's why.
You would think it was the lack of imagination involved with the plot-line or at least the countless juvenile, cliché lines that litter the pages. It wasn't.
It was because the entire series revolved around an unstable, unhealthy relationship that glamorized abuse and glorified obsessive, narcissistic behavior.
Christian Grey is a handsome character, but he has Anastasia at the end of a leash. He pressures her into experimenting in ways she doesn't initially want. Not only that, he intimidates her into performing the way he pleases while treating her like a pet. He purchases Ana's devotion and attachment with comfortable accommodations and a new laptop while enforcing strict guidelines with a written contract that ensures her sexual bondage. Personal freedom and mutual respect is absent from the relationship.
A troubled, disturbing past will never make up for harmful actions in a relationship. No one should put up with the treatment Ana receives in the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.
Abuse is a worldwide issue and parading it around our homes, pouring over it in our novels, and drooling in front of it on our TVs won't end it. Pretending that it's okay to amuse ourselves with it in films and fantasize about it in our free time isn't going to justify it.
At the end of the day, love is patient and love is kind. It does not envy or boast. Love isn't a tool for getting what you want. It isn't easily angered and it isn't selfish.
Most of all, love never fails.
I want to fight for that kind of love. Let's stand up for it and have abuse crumble in it's shadow.
