I think this is the very last place I’m supposed to remember to put this link! Go me! The Boss Chapter 3.
Chapter 3 of The Boss is live!
Posted in Uncategorized
Author: JennyTrout
Note from Jenny: When my tweep @katiedidwhat tweeted about seeing Spank! The 50 Shades Parody, of course I had to ask her to do a review! So, here is her experience at what sounds like one of the most brilliant musical send ups since that Harry Potter one on YouTube. So, Happy Valentine’s Day, dear reader, because now you know this awesome thing exists:
I would’ve assumed that Spank! The Fifty Shades Parody, was a parody for the mainstream fans; not necessarily entertainment I would seek out. But when a grad school friend of my husband’s called him up and said, “Hey, I’m in town! Let’s hang out, do you want tickets to the show I’m touring with?” of course we say yes. We both work in theatre and any opportunity to see any show for free is a plus; even if it’s terrible, you’re not upset thinking you could’ve gone to see a couple Oscar nominees for the same price. Silver Linings Playbook notwithstanding, if Spank! comes to your neck of the woods, check it out. (Big shout out to Jesse and the rest of the cast and crew, if they’re reading, thanks again!) It’s an experience worth having.
We ran into an acquaintance in the lobby, a woman who bartends for our theatre, who says to my husband, “Are you planning on enjoying being one of the few men in the audience?” Once we’re seated, I notice she wasn’t just saying that. The audience is mostly groups of women in their 40s with a few representative husbands and boyfriends roped in as designated drivers. There are lots of sweater wraps, hooker boots and big hair.
We ran into an acquaintance in the lobby, a woman who bartends for our theatre, who says to my husband, “Are you planning on enjoying being one of the few men in the audience?” Once we’re seated, I notice she wasn’t just saying that. The audience is mostly groups of women in their 40s with a few representative husbands and boyfriends roped in as designated drivers. There are lots of sweater wraps, hooker boots and big hair.
By comparison, I’m, well, Tuesday I’ll be 29. In most respects, I’m a pretty vanilla sort of person. I wonder suddenly about the women around me- are they really that into this book? Does the woman in front of me playing Farmville on her phone want to be tied up and spanked by a petulant millionaire? Flipping open the playbill, I note that the lead actor (it’s a three person cast), is an accomplished burlesque performer. Oh. What are we seeing here tonight, anyway?
That’s the point at which I overhear the woman behind me say this: “I read the first one, and then I tried to read the second one, but then I thought, ‘Where’s the reality?’ And there was none. Nothing in this is real. It’s just as shocking and raunchy as they could make it. So I’m here to see them make fun of it.” At least I’m not alone in my expectations.
Spank! is a parody, so instead of Ana and Christian, we have Tasha Woode (Alice Moran), Hugh Hanson (Patrick Whalen) and, also, E.B. Janet (Anne Marie Scheffler). The three performers are among the show’s seven writers, with experience in improvisational theatre, burlesque and television, among other things. It’s a talented group (check their website http://spankshow.com/), I’m further reassured.
First, we meet our intrepid aspiring author, E.B. Janet. Her husband and kids are away for the weekend, so she has two days and a bottle of wine to write the best selling sex-fantasy novel of all time. Our heroine, Tasha Woode, is brought to life perfect and pretty and naive and isn’t that just terrible? Of course, she needs a sexy hero, someone who’s rich and dark, and owns a major corporation and has a tragic backstory based on something terrible that happened to him in his youth and, “Wait!” says Tasha, “Isn’t this Batman?” “You don’t know about Batman, you haven’t read any literature written after 1891!”
That’s the point at which I overhear the woman behind me say this: “I read the first one, and then I tried to read the second one, but then I thought, ‘Where’s the reality?’ And there was none. Nothing in this is real. It’s just as shocking and raunchy as they could make it. So I’m here to see them make fun of it.” At least I’m not alone in my expectations.
Spank! is a parody, so instead of Ana and Christian, we have Tasha Woode (Alice Moran), Hugh Hanson (Patrick Whalen) and, also, E.B. Janet (Anne Marie Scheffler). The three performers are among the show’s seven writers, with experience in improvisational theatre, burlesque and television, among other things. It’s a talented group (check their website http://spankshow.com/), I’m further reassured.
First, we meet our intrepid aspiring author, E.B. Janet. Her husband and kids are away for the weekend, so she has two days and a bottle of wine to write the best selling sex-fantasy novel of all time. Our heroine, Tasha Woode, is brought to life perfect and pretty and naive and isn’t that just terrible? Of course, she needs a sexy hero, someone who’s rich and dark, and owns a major corporation and has a tragic backstory based on something terrible that happened to him in his youth and, “Wait!” says Tasha, “Isn’t this Batman?” “You don’t know about Batman, you haven’t read any literature written after 1891!”
The show is a musical, with parody versions of at least six or seven different songs. If your musical theatre is up to snuff, Tasha sings a parody of I Know Things Now from Into the Woods that will make you weep with joy with its accuracy. Hugh introduces the Red Room of Pain with a parody of Pure Imagination, from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Yes. You read that right. He puts on the purple coat and hat and everything. The phrase “spreader bar” is used to comedic effect and in perfect rhythm and tempo.
I mentioned that one of the actor/writers was a burlesque dancer. That would be The Dark Prince himself, Patrick Whalen, who plays Hugh, and he has several opportunities to show off his skills. There’s no full nudity, but there’s a Batman dance that gets pretty close. Yes, there’s a tie dance. Due to the juxtaposition of the re-creation of “sexy” scenes in the book with the slightly comedic overtones of the show, there’s some occasional wild screaming in odd places, but most of it was in the second act, so almost certainly cocktails number 3 or 4 had been consumed by some of the audience by that point. There’s an opportunity to get a photograph with Whalen after the show that I turned down, but for the ladies who came for the eye candy, they have much to approve of and post on Facebook later.
While the show makes comedic reference to “down there,” and “crap,” it’s totally OK with using the holy trinity of f-bombs: fuck, fisting and finger banging. We had the ultimate good fortune of attending a performance with ASL interpretation. If you ever have the chance to see any kind of comedy, especially a sex-comedy, with signers, DO IT. It must’ve been a new experience for the cast, because at one point in the second act, they went totally off script to point out that now we all knew the signs for fisting and finger banging, wasn’t that just great? Our signers were blushing good sports.
The presence of E.B. Janet actually answers some of the questions I had at the beginning of the night: why are middle aged women so into Fifty Shades? When Tasha loses her virginity, and comes staggering bow-legged onto stage at the beginning of the second act after having had an amazing 5 orgasms, she asks E.B., “Do you even remember losing your virginity?” E.B. has a flashback of her with her boyfriend, high in the backseat of a car while Dark Side of the Moon plays (I think it was Floyd; them or Zepplin, sorry, I’m terrible at classic rock) and recalls being really disappointed by the whole thing. E.B. points out, “I wanted you to have a good time!” There’s another scene after meeting Hugh’s rich, distant family where Tasha says, “I wanted to find out from them why he’s rich and distant, why do they have to be rich and distant?” and E.B. recounts the story of the disastrous first time she met her future in-laws finishing with, “Which would you rather have?!” And I sort of got it. This is a fantasy you pull out for an hour after the kids go to bed, where you don’t have to be in control of anything and all your problems are someone else’s fault but you have crazy sex anyway. The trouble is with thinking that it’s a healthy 24-7 lifestyle.
Not to say that Spank! doesn’t point out the other side of the coin, too. It’s made very clear that no one should have to sign a nondisclosure in a normal relationship and that this isn’t a healthy way to be and that Tasha should stop Mary Sueing around and behave like a real woman. Sometimes parody hits a point where the audience says, “OK, too far,” but that didn’t happen here. When Hugh revealed he was a sparkly vampire and asked Tasha to hop on his back, they were there all the way, agreeing when E.B. decided that a sparkly vampire refusing to have sex with Tasha wasn’t the kind of romance she wanted, she needed to write a sex book! The fans and the snarkers were enjoying the show in the same places- having seen how dividing the territory of the book can be, this is a pretty amazing feat.
Not to say that Spank! doesn’t point out the other side of the coin, too. It’s made very clear that no one should have to sign a nondisclosure in a normal relationship and that this isn’t a healthy way to be and that Tasha should stop Mary Sueing around and behave like a real woman. Sometimes parody hits a point where the audience says, “OK, too far,” but that didn’t happen here. When Hugh revealed he was a sparkly vampire and asked Tasha to hop on his back, they were there all the way, agreeing when E.B. decided that a sparkly vampire refusing to have sex with Tasha wasn’t the kind of romance she wanted, she needed to write a sex book! The fans and the snarkers were enjoying the show in the same places- having seen how dividing the territory of the book can be, this is a pretty amazing feat.
I asked my husband on the way home if he had fun. “Yeah, I laughed.” High praise. He knows nothing about the series, next to nothing about Twilight, and he never felt that he didn’t know what was going on or why a joke was funny. I wondered if possibly the production team were fans of Jenny’s re-caps, because a lot of the jokes were familiar, though never identical, but I think it’s more likely the book is just that full of low hanging fruit, you only have to harvest for greatest joke potential.
The only thing I would say against the experience is that I should’ve gone to pee before it started. The irony of this is that the show was held in a theatre originally built by the city’s Women’s Club. There are six bathrooms in the building. When I commented that they “…might at least’ve opened the men’s rooms too!” my husband pointed out that the single men’s room had three urinals and one stall. Those ladies who had the place built back in the 20s thought this through. Seriously, that’s the worst thing I can say about the experience; nothing to do with the show, everything to do with bladder control. Check their website, find out when it’s performing near you and if you go see it, you won’t be disappointed. Even if you don’t get to learn the sign for fisting.
Starting over with a new blog is kind of like moving to a new town full of scary vampires. Sure, you get to bring all your stuff, but you leave other stuff behind. You’re afraid you’ll lose touch with the friends you had at your old blog. You’re afraid you might go from being May Queen (whatever the fuck that is, it must be a California thing) to just hanging out in a library with a hot, bespectacled librarian and a bunch of Medieval weaponry.
Wait, is that really a bad change?
I forgot where I was going with this, but the point is, there’s no time like the present to start my Big Damn Buffy Rewatch. I was going to make season by season posts, taking notes as I watched each episode, and highlighting some important points I wanted to discuss, but them my list got super long, so it’s just going to work better to break it down episode by episode, like my 50 Shades recaps. However, it’s not going to suck nearly as much for me. There are going to be some themes I’m looking at in each episode:
- Sex is the real villain of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer universe.
- Giles is totally in love with Buffy.
- Joyce is a fucking terrible parent.
- Willow’s magic is utterly useless (this one won’t be an issue until season 2, when she gets a chance to become a witch)
- Xander is a textbook Nice Guy.
- The show isn’t as feminist as people claim.
- All the monsters look like wieners.
- If ambivalence to possible danger were an Olympic sport, Team Sunnydale would take the gold.
And because there are other things I’ll want to discuss, I’ll maybe throw in a random 9-10. Because I like round numbers.
So, let’s start with episode 1 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, “Welcome to The Hellmouth.”
The episode opens with some pictures of a graveyard and ominous narration about how in every generation, a slayer is born. She is the chosen one, she’ll stand alone against the vampires, blah blah, stuff Donald Sutherland covered in the movie. Then we cut to a guy and a girl breaking into Sunnydale high. The guy says he’s a former student (even though he looks younger than most of the extras cast as students in season one), and he wants to romance his gal on the roof of the gym. But she’s afraid, in an suspenseful, I-heard-a-noise-and-I’m-pretty-sure-we’re-not-main-characters kind of way. Ex-student guy teases her and makes a show of checking to see if anyone is there, and when the coast is proved clear, BAM! The girl he was wanting to bone turns into a vampire and devours him. Not only is it a pretty cool twist on the helpless female horror movie victim trope, it is also, in the very first scene of the series, setting up one of the most problematic and common themes in this show: my number 1, “sex is the real villain.” This guy was just trying to get laid, and the punishment for acting on his libidinous intent is death.
Isn’t this a little harsh? Couldn’t he just get gonorrhea instead?
Our introduction to our titular (heh heh) heroine comes as she’s having some really fucking grim dreams, featuring shots from episodes to come. This prophetic dream device will be used multiple times in the series, but it kind of peters out around the fourth season. The first time I saw this episode the scene didn’t strike me as odd, but now it seems kind of awkwardly long. Buffy’s mom wakes her with the warning that she’ll be late for her first day of school, and we see that Buffy’s room is full of packing crates, indicating that they’ve recently moved.
Cut to Sunnydale High. Buffy’s mom drops her off in front of the school with a cheerful pep talk that includes a reminder to not get kicked out. While in terms of storytelling this is just a way to clue in the audience that Buffy has been kicked out of school before (presumably because of what she did back when she was Kristy Swanson), that’s not really the bar for behavior you should be setting with your teen, Joyce (3).
“As long as you’re out of the house between eight AM and three PM, I’m happy. I need that time to set my hot rollers.”
A teenage boy on a skateboard careens down the sidewalk, carelessly mowing down bystanders, until he sees Buffy and, blinded by sexual longing, crashes into a railing. This will be my favorite thing he does in the entire series, because upon rewatch, I fucking hate him.
Eat railing, d-bag. This is a downpayment for all the ways you’re going to annoy me this season.
A wild ginger appears! She seems to be wearing a school uniform when no one else is, and she stops to talk to Gravity McGee about math, giving us our introduction to Xander and Willow, the characters who will eventually become Buffy’s best friends. Upon entering the school, they are joined by Jessie, the third member of their group, and Xander and Jessie immediately start talking about Buffy as though she is an object to jerk off to/onto. Ah, high school.
In the principal’s office, Principal Flutie rips up Buffy’s transcript and pronounces her slate clean. Until he notices the part where she burned down the gym at her old school. Buffy tries to explain, as Flutie attempts to tape her records back together, that the gym she burned down was full of vampires. But of course, she can’t say vampires, because being the slayer is a secret and no one would believe her, anyway. So she settles on the gym being full of asbestos.
Wait, so how did it burn down if it was full of asbestos? You’re bad at lying, Buffy.
After meeting with the principal, Buffy fails to yield to oncoming foot traffic and her bag is spilled by one of the forty-year-old background students. Seeing his opening, Xander rushes to her rescue. Not because she needs help, but because this is a good opportunity to approach her and flirt with her. His opening line to her is, “Can I have you?” a Freudian slip when he meant to say, “Can I help you?” This, and his previous objectification of her, establishes that throughout the series, Xander will be textbook Nice Guy (5), but we’re expected to sympathize with his plight, because he’s goofy and also Joss Whedon’s avatar. Buffy drops her wooden stake, giving Xander the first clue that there’s something not quite right about her.
In her first class of the day, Buffy (blonde, dressed in light colors) meets Cordelia (brunette, dressed in dark colors), a girl who appears friendly and welcoming when she shares her textbook. Cordelia suggests Buffy get a textbook from the library, and shows her the way. As they walk, Cordelia expresses a fondness for shoes and the importance of knowing which nail polish, actor, and Starbucks drinks are the coolest. She then mocks poor Willow’s clothing and lectures Buffy on weeding out losers. So, she’s our mean girl, a walking stereotype of teenage girldom obsessed with everything that is superficial and shallow. While this character does eventually arc and become pretty damn interesting, it’s disappointing that it was set up so obviously, with the girl-on-girl hate and the dark vs. light/good-girl vs. bad-girl vibe. I’m slotting this scene under my number 6.
Subtle!
In the library, Buffy meets Mr. Giles, the librarian, whose enthusiasm about vampires and whose habit of leaving suspicious newspaper articles laying around scares her right off.
In fairness to Giles, this is actually just one of the Sunnydale High textbooks.
Then we cut to the locker room, and one of the best jokes of the entire series: a girl mocking Buffy’s “weird” name walks past another girl, who says, “Hey, Aphrodisia.” So, the girl making fun of Buffy’s name has a “weird” name herself.
You know how a joke isn’t funny if it has to be explained? Yeah, well, fuck off, because that one is brilliant and it took me about a hundred times watching this episode to catch it.
The two obnoxious valley girls give us some exposition about Buffy’s past before they find the corpse of the guy who died before the credits. He was stuffed into a locker. This will be only one of many corpses found stuffed in places over the course of the series. It seems almost quaint now.
Screaming? What, are you new here?
Buffy approaches Willow in the courtyard, and after an awkward discussion of social rules at Sunnydale, Buffy asks Willow if she can help her with schoolwork. Willow suggests they hang out in the library, because she’s obviously got a crush on the “cool” new librarian. Or maybe she has a crush on all the old books he brought with him. It’s hard to tell with season one Willow. She fills Buffy in on the Giles situation. He’s a former curator for “a British museum,” possibly the British museum. Why is no one but Buffy questioning his sudden career change from museum curator to high school librarian? Given the fact that she knows he has a passion for vampires, and he just suddenly started working there, Buffy is suspicious.
Jessie and Xander show up to make Buffy feel uncomfortable as the object of their attraction (5) despite her clear verbal and nonverbal signals of disinterest.
Memo to Nice Guys: This is not the expression we use when we’re interested in you sexually.
Cordelia also drops by the bench to inform Buffy (around constant, unwanted, sexually-tilted remarks from Jessie) that a dead body was found in the locker room, so gym is cancelled. Hopefully the sexual harassment seminar is still on, because if ever a school needed one…
Buffy asks if there were any marks on the corpse, then takes off to play CSI: Hellmouth in the locker room. The scene neatly sets up Buffy’s super strength (she breaks a locked door to get inside), but one has to wonder why an apparent murder victim would be left unattended in a high school. Sure, the door was locked, but where are the police? The crime scene tape? Someone just threw a blanket over the body and took a lunch break, I guess, because Buffy is able to get in and get a good look at the clear vampire teeth impression in the dead dude’s neck.
I guess we can rule out suicide?
Back at the library, Buffy angrily confronts Giles to tell him that while he clearly expected vampires, she didn’t, and she doesn’t want anything to do with them. Buffy knows that this guy is obviously the new Donald Sutherland sent to watch over her. Their argument sets up some basic rules for the series: to become a vampire, you have to exchange blood with a vampire. Into every generation, a slayer is born. Buffy can’t get out of her duties, going so far as to suggest Giles take over her slaying, since she wants to retire. But Giles argues that a watcher doesn’t fight vampires with the slayer, he just “prepares her.” To which Buffy responds:
“Prepares me for what? For getting kicked out of school? For losing all of my friends? For having to spend all of my time fighting for my life and never getting to tell anyone because I might endanger them? Go ahead. Prepare me.”
And then Giles looks like this:
The exact moment Rupert Giles realizes he should have just stayed in England with the lady from the coffee commercials.
So, basically, Buffy’s new watcher has come into this whole thing expecting that his slayer is going to be totally psyched and committed to the job, and whoops, she’s all, “Go fuck yourself.”
Oh ho! But who doth lurk behind the bookshelves like some kind of creepy eavesdropper?
I’m going to give Xander this one, though. Because if I had just accidentally overheard an intense argument about vampires and secrets that endanger people, I wouldn’t be psyched to broadcast my newfound knowledge of said dangerous secrets, either.
Giles follows Buffy into the crowded school hallway, where he tells her that stuff in Sunnydale is getting worse, and something horrible is going to happen. Buffy should really get used to this kind of thing from him, because as I’m rewatching this series, I’m noticing that Giles never has good news. But this isn’t what concerns me most right now. What concerns me is this:
Hey, other Sunnydale students in the hall? Other Sunnydale teachers? Here’s a male faculty member standing way too close to a female student, using creepily intense body language and having an urgent and hushed conversation. Does, uh… does anybody want to check that out? Remember, no one in the school (except Xander, now) knows that Buffy is the slayer and Giles is her watcher. So imagine this scene from an outsider perspective. Shouldn’t this raise a few red flags? No, because this is Sunnydale, a town that is super good at ignoring the fact that it’s populated mostly by things that like to eat people. See my #8, because this town ignores regular danger as well as supernatural danger.
The whole “evil is going to rise” story doesn’t wash with Buffy, because this is her first time on a Hellmouth. She asks:
“Oh come on. This is Sunnydale. How bad an evil can there be here?”
Answer:
Oh my god, is that Mick Fleetwood? THE HORROR!
So, here we have the Hellmouth. I know it looks like an R.E.M. video set, but this is really the best it’s going to be for the entire series. Just wait until season seven, when the Uruk-Hai move in. Anyway, there’s a lot of activity with torches and stuff, and a big pool of blood with a vampire in front of it. He’s praying, saying “The sleeper will wake,” and “the world will bleed,” and he caps it off with an enthusiastic “Amen!” while Mick Fleetwood mills around in the background.
We cut to Buffy standing in front of her mirror, trying to decide between a black dress and something floral that I’m pretty sure my mom bought me to wear for Easter one year. Spoiler alert, she got it at Sears. Anyway, Buffy talks to herself while holding up the two dresses, saying:
“Hi! I’m an enormous slut. Hello. Would you like a copy of The Watchtower?”
Because those are the only options. She can either be a total slut, or an uptight religious person. So not down with the slut reference, Buff. You’re better than that. (6)
Joyce comes in and asks Buffy if she’s going out, and advises her to be careful. Then she starts in with some nervous mom blather about the parenting books she’s read, how her positive energy is flowing and she’s going to get the gallery started, and how they’re going to make living in this new town work. And then she subtly blames Buffy for the upheaval in their lives by saying:
“You’re a good girl, Buffy. You just fell in with the wrong crowd. But that is all behind us now.”
So, you know. You’re the reason I’m a divorcee living in Sunnydale, but I trust that you’re not going to screw things up again. That’s a positive message, Joyce. (3)
Buffy heads out into a strange town full of dark alleys (parenting books not cover that, Joyce?) where she meets a twelve-year-old who sounds oddly like David Boreanaz:
That awkward moment when your vampire male lead looks younger than he will in any of the flashbacks to two hundred years ago that he’ll ever have in the series.
Buffy and Angel’s meet-cute is that she takes him down while he’s following her through a shady part of town. He’s been looking for the slayer, and tells her he wants the same thing she wants, to kill all the vampires in the world. When she argues that she doesn’t want any part of being a slayer, he tells her she’s “standing at the mouth of hell” and warns that she can’t ignore what’s coming. Specifically, he mentions “The Harvest,” which is the title of episode two, so Angel has Netflix, too. I feel a kinship with him.
Angel gives Buffy a silver cross necklace (she dreamt about that at the very beginning of the episode) and tells her that he’s “a friend.” But not necessarily her friend. His characterization in this scene is weirdly reminiscent of his characterization as Angelus in season two.
But I’m getting ahead of myself, because it’s time to go to The Bronze!
Throughout the series, this shady-looking warehouse nightclub is host to all the kids in Sunnydale. I’m curious as to how this place legally exists. They clearly serve alcohol, but kids under the age of eighteen are all over the place in there. I realize this is a very real-world concern about a fictional place in a town that has vampires and demons and stuff, but getting mundane details correct is super important to suspension of disbelief and audience investment.
A long-haired band on stage reminds us all why music will never be as good as it was in the 90’s, and Buffy finds Willow, who is waiting alone at the bar in the hopes that Xander will show up. She explains that they’re not together, though it’s clear that she would like to be, as she counts their brief boyfriend/girlfriend relationship in kindergarten as dating. Buffy encourages Willow to be less shy around guys, and Willow thinks this is some great advice.
Willow trusts Buffy’s relationship advice, because Willow hasn’t seen season 6 yet.
Can I just say that if anyone on this show should have been playing a vampire, it should have been Alyson Hannigan? In fact, I’m not sure that she isn’t a vampire in real life. She has looked exactly the same since My Stepmother Is An Alien.
Buffy notices Giles wandering aimlessly up on the catwalk-style second floor and excuses herself from her conversation with Willow. Which is really probably the best thing that could happen to Willow, because, as we will see, Buffy really has no idea what she’s doing when it comes to dating, either. But Willow doesn’t know this, so she repeats Buffy’s advice to “seize the moment.”
Upstairs, Buffy and Giles have a slayer/watcher tiff, the first of many, in which Buffy feels Giles is cramping her style by being too uptight about this whole vampire slaying deal, and Giles finds everything about people under the age of thirty confusing and obnoxious. Buffy tells him about the tall, dark and annoying guy she met, who warned her about the Harvest. She also says she “really didn’t like him,” which pretty much cements him as the romantic lead, in case you were wondering.
The thing that pisses me off the most about this scene is that Buffy is portrayed as shallowly fixating on the messenger, rather than the message. She doesn’t care about any ominous supernatural goings on, she’s most concerned with the guy who told her about them. And this episode is absolutely filled with men telling Buffy ominous things she reacts to flippantly. I understand that it’s part of her denying her destiny, but since she ultimately accepts her role as slayer, albeit reluctantly, it’s almost like the message here is, “Do as you’re told, little girl. The menfolk know best.”
Oh, hi there, inappropriate teacher/student proximity, it’s been a few scenes since we saw you last:
Hey you two, leave some room for the Holy Spirit.
Giles mentions Buffy’s prophetic nightmares – which she hasn’t told him about – and we cut to Cordelia, bitching about how her mom’s Epstein-Barr diagnosis isn’t cool enough. I love this moment with Cordelia, because it sets up immediately what she’s all about. Say what you must about Cordelia Chase, but she is one open book, friends.
Jessie shows up, and Cordelia refers to him as her “stalker.” Since Jessie is supposed to be a sympathetic character, when he gets way too close to Cordelia and asks her to dance, we’re supposed to be on his side and think, “What a total bitch this girl is, she won’t even dance with him.” But he’s already come on to her once already that day and been rebuffed. Chances are, he’s been relentless in his pursuit of her, based on her “stalker” comment. So, I’m really not digging on Jessie here.
“Uh, hey, I was wondering, uh, would you, uh, like some unwanted advances for the second time today?”
Giles gives Buffy a speech about how a slayer should be tuned into the presence of vampires, no matter what is going on, and Buffy immediately points one out. The guy’s clothing is out of fashion, she reasons, so he’s stuck in a vampire time warp situation. Giles isn’t keen on this method of vamp detection, but I like it a lot better than the menstrual cramp alert Buffy had in the movie.
Unfortunately, Willow picks the vampire as the guy to try out the whole “seize the moment” thing on, and Buffy hurries to her rescue when she sees Willow leaving the club with him. In a darkened backstage area, Buffy almost accidentally stakes Cordelia.
There’s really no coming back from this.
Not actually murdering Cordelia is going to be a mistake Buffy regrets for the rest of high school, because this is the moment that cements her as a total social outcast. As Cordelia begins immediately spreading the rumor about her near impalement, Giles congratulates Buffy on making such quick work of the vampire. Except, Buffy hasn’t found the vampire yet, and Willow is still in danger. Though Giles insists he should tag along, Buffy tells him she can handle one vampire on her own. Meanwhile, Jessie, fresh off his rejection by Cordelia, is talking with an adorable blonde, and… wait… isn’t that the adorable blonde who turned out to be a vampire before the opening credits? Yup, it’s Darla, and she’s easily charming Jessie.
Every season of Buffy has one big villain. In season one, it’s this guy, who makes his entrance via badly scaled green screen:
“Hey, does this pool of blood make me look oddly tiny?”
This is The Master, easily the scariest looking, if not the scariest overall, Buffy “Big Bad.” He’s been raised from the dead by his vampire followers, who will stage “The Harvest” to give him strength and help free him from his Hellmouth prison. His vampire minion tells him that they’ve sent out for food. Since they’re vampires, it’s a safe bet they’re not getting Chinese take-out. Cut to Willow and the vampire she left with, taking a shortcut through one of Sunnydale’s many scenic cemeteries.
Buffy is still outside The Bronze looking for Willow and hoping that the only friend she’s made in her new town hasn’t just been eaten, when she finds Xander. She tells him Willow left with a guy, and Xander’s response is, “Talking about Willow, right?” Because Willow is so super undesirable. Which, you know, Xander, you’re not doing so hot with the dating, yourself. He tells Buffy that he knows that she thinks she’s a slayer – but he doesn’t really believe her until she tells him that Willow is about to be totally dead.
Back at the cemetery, Willow is starting to suspect that something is up with this dude, and they’re not really going to get ice cream, when he goads her into going into a crypt with him. When she tries to run, her way is blocked by Darla, who has a badly bleeding Jessie trailing along behind her. Willow stands up to Darla, who reveals her vampire face, but Buffy gets there before she can do any real eating. Because on this show, vampires will talk about eating more than they ever actually do it. Like they’re all heroines in a chicklit novel or something.
Buffy puts the beat down on the vampires. She stakes the male one, who bursts into a cloud of ash, which will become the series staple with a few notable exceptions. Then she takes on Darla, who can’t fathom how a human is handing her gift-wrapped ass to her. But then this guy shows up:
Buffy The Vampire Slayer recycles minor character actors like Doctor Who does. This guy shows up a couple times in season 2, and every time, I’m like, “Hey! It’s This Guy!” Anyway, This Guy is pretty rad. He’s the vampire who was praying to raise The Master, and he is not having any of the slayer’s shenanigans. He tells Darla to get lost, and starts beating the fuck out of Buffy. He’s pretty proud of himself, for a big dude beating up a little girl. Willow and Xander try to carry Jessie out of the cemetery, but they’re surrounded by vampires. Back at the library, Giles has finally figured out what The Harvest is, while This Guy neatly narrates it for us as he continues to wail on Buffy. Basically, if The Harvest happens, it will be very bad for people, and very good for vampires. So, conflict! And things look very bad for Buffy, who is now in a sepulcher with a vampire on top of her when the “To Be Continued” card pops up on the screen.
As far as story telling goes, this show didn’t really misstep here. It starts with believable personal conflict, introduces the characters competently (even if the introduction of Cordelia was trite and anti-feminist), and gives the heroine a call to action, before ending on a hook that makes the audience excited for the next installment. If you’re looking for a masterclass in first chapter construction, this is really a good example.
Sunday night wasn’t the straw that broke the camel’s back, but it’s one of the straws that will eventually crush the poor bastard if I decide to keep watching. Season 3 has been a fucking train wreck, and I was hoping that after the midseason break, things would get better. But we’re getting to the point where I can no longer suspend disbelief and continue enjoying the show when it’s obvious that literally none of these characters would be surviving the zombie apocalypse if there weren’t writers playing deus ex machina for them. Before I start outlining why I now hate the show, let me say that I don’t care what happened in the comics, because the writers of the show are clearly not concerned with that, either. And don’t begin an argument against one of these points with, “They explained it on Talking Dead,” because that doesn’t hold water with me. I shouldn’t have to watch a second show to get the plot holes of the first show explained away for me. I’m taking the show itself on its own merits, and I’m finding it lacking for the following reasons (again. There will be spoilers):
- This season’s entire plot would have been avoided if they’d had the foresight to scavenge for baby supplies in the nine months that Lori was pregnant. Think about this, guys. We’ve seen these characters go in and out of abandoned houses and stores and things. I’m sure that in their travels, they had to have come across supplies like diapers and formula and bottles. They had nine whole months to get what they needed for the impending arrival. Instead, they wait until the baby is there, send two of their people out to get supplies, and they get captured, leading to the conflict with Woodbury. Why did it happen like this? Because the writers need to be able to send characters down to the store for a gallon of milk so that they can run into the plot.
- There is a scientist in Woodbury who is fucking useless. Hello, my name is Glasses McUseless, and I work as a scientist in a big lab in Woodbury. I’m sorry, what was that? Find a cure for the zombie disease that will wipe out humanity? No, I’m really busy trying to figure out if zombies remember their grandchildren when I play this old record and ring a bell. This is a good use for our resources.
- The writers of this show think we can’t tell two black male actors apart. It’s pretty clear that T-Dog had to die because they were introducing Tyrese, and in Walking Dead-land, more than one black guy in the group is just unacceptable. Look, we started out in season one with Morgan and Duane. Rick split with them to go find his wife and son, but there were hints in the narrative that they these two would find Rick again. Once Rick met up with Camp Dinner Bell, though, we were introduced to T-Dog. At the beginning of season 2 it was again hinted that Morgan and Duane might return, but they never did, and Camp Dinner Bell didn’t meet any more black people (except for the dude who got tore up by zombies during the stand off in the bar and whose total screen time contribution was being shady and eaten). T-Dog stuck it out for the whole season, though he was never given anything important to do other than get an infection and carry stuff, and he barely had any lines. Then season 3 started, and the group found the prison, where they met two more black guys, one of whom Rick promptly locks up in a prison yard with some zombies, but the other guy joins the group, so RIP, T-Dog for no reason. But then Tyrese showed up, and I thought, “Well, this noble prison guy isn’t long for this world.” And boom, he dies in the attack on Woodbury. Now we’re back to one black male main cast member. He better hope Morgan and Duane don’t show up, or else he gets the axe next. Of all the stupid Hollywood conventions the writers of this show fall back on, this one is the most frustrating. Not just because of the obvious racism, but because they’re establishing these characters and hinting at their pasts and personalities to get us interested before killing them off with no pay off, or just abandoning their story lines for a whole season while they carry stuff in the background. While the people behind the show trust our ability as an audience to tell the difference between any number of dirt smeared white blond ladies, clearly we’ll become confused if there is more than one black male involved in the story at any time.
- The characters are surviving without making any smart choices or adapting in any way. It’s roughly one year post-zombie apocalypse, and the characters are still relying on automobiles for transport and survival. They’re still running down to the store for one or two items with the idea that they’ll go back if they need anything else (this was the most obnoxious in season 2, when Glenn and Maggie would make trips to the pharmacy so the writers could develop their relationship and put people in danger that never paid off). They find a prison where they can stay safe from walkers and outsiders, then they immediately start splitting into groups and running around outside of the prison. If it weren’t for the writers saving them, they would all be dead already, and that’s super frustrating. It’s hard to root for characters who won’t do anything to assure their own safety or survival.
- How are they keeping these cars running, anyway? In the first episode of season three, we saw our band of survivors creeping around yards, through houses, on foot. I assumed it was because they had ditched their cars. Then they find the prison and go back and get their cars. First of all, at the end of season 2, they were hard up for gas. Where and when did they find more in the eight or nine months between seasons? And where did they find brake pads for the Hyundai that was squeaking like a sugar glider on coke back in season 2, but now sounds just fine? Furthermore, if these people have cars, why did it take them so long to find the prison, which at the end of season 2 appeared to be at most a mile away?
- I thought we were rid of Lori. Ghost Lori is just unacceptable, okay? I didn’t like her alive, I want no part of her dead.
- Every character has flipped personalities, or new characters have stepped up to don abandoned personalities. Tyrese is clearly the Rick of his group, and that other guy whose name I’m not going to bother to learn because he’s going to die soon anyway is the Shane. Tyrese argues with Rick that if they leave the prison, they don’t have a chance… and Rick becomes season 2 Herschel, arguing that they can’t trust them. Meanwhile Herschel has become season 2 Maggie, arguing that they can’t just let this new group go. Carl has taken on the role of season 1 Rick, and now Rick is losing his marbles, so I guess he’s the Shane of their group now? It’s like the writers have a finite number of characterizations and no idea how to complete an arc, so they just Invasion of The Bodysnatchers everybody until there’s no more room for further lunacy, then they kill them. This is not satisfying television, guys. It’s frustrating.
- Andrea is the worst.
Are you loving or hating this season of The Walking Dead? I’m interested to see what y’all have to say about it, because I know some people are feeling this is the best season yet.
This morning, I was having my coffee, doing my normal Facebook creeping when I found a local news story about the school that my son and daughter attend. Normally, I would never disclose this information about my kids to the internet at large, but this is a special circumstance.
I do not want my children in a school where anyone is carrying a gun. Not because I’m a raving anti-gun liberal. I think I’ve made it very clear in the past that I am a fan of guns and shooting things that aren’t people. I think guns are rad as hell. But I also have a working brain and I realize that while a gun is a tool, the same as a hammer or a chainsaw, it is not the only tool for a job, or the right tool for every job.
The school board, other parents, and local police feel differently. And that’s fine. I think it would have been awesome if parents had been notified by someone other than the local news station about this impending change, but whatever. Here’s why putting guns in the school is going to make it a dangerous place, and why I’m going to be making some tough choices about the future of schooling of my children:
1. More guns won’t solve our mass shooting problem. Columbine had armed security. Didn’t help. In the Aurora shooting, the suspect was wearing body armor. A trained sniper would have had trouble taking him out, and it wouldn’t have been a shot that was possible with a handgun. Allowing teachers and other volunteer civilians to carry firearms in school will just mean more bullets flying around, killing children.
2. People in positions of authority over children already abuse that power to be predators. I’m not saying that all of the volunteers in this program are molesters. I’m not suggesting that even one of them are inclined to molest a kid. However, we’re talking about a program in which the people carrying the firearms are anonymous. How long before, “Don’t tell mom and dad, because I have a gun and can shoot you,” becomes a useable threat? Even by people who aren’t in the program, because remember, we don’t know who has that gun. Answer: At exactly the same time we have people anonymously carrying guns in the school.
3. Kids shouldn’t be afraid of getting shot at school. Not by a teacher, not by another student, not by a volunteer or an armed gunman. It shouldn’t be a possibility. Psychologically, what does it do to these kids to know there are armed people wandering around the school? “But Jenny, you can just tell your kids that the people with guns are there to protect them.” Awesome, now do they not only have to fear a school shooting in the first place, but I’ve just indoctrinated my kids into the gun culture behind the mass shootings in the first place. You know, the culture that tells us guns are always the solution? On top of that, I’m teaching my kids that stranger + gun = safety. Great plan, school system, bang up job.
4. An intelligent person would not trust someone they don’t know to have a gun around their child in their absence. That seems like it should be Parenting 101, guys. There are people in this town I wouldn’t trust around my kids, and sure as hell not with a gun. And since I don’t know who’s got a gun, I don’t know if I can say it’s okay for my kids to be around them.
5. If there are more guns in the school, there are more guns for a shooter to use. What happens when a school shooter exchanges fire with an armed civilian, then kills the civilian? All the video games and movies the shooter has ever seen have already trained him or her to pick up that gun and ammo and continue on the rampage with more fire power. Furthermore, when the kids figure out who these armed volunteers are (and they will find out. Some kid is going to tell their friends, “my dad brings a gun to school, so he can shoot you,” and the cover is blown. Kids don’t keep secrets), all it takes is for one kid to disarm that teacher or volunteer. Now, that kid is armed, whereas he might not have been before.
6. These volunteers are human, and they will make mistakes. No matter how much training someone has, they can always panic, or snap, or be irresponsible. The worst case scenario is that one of these armed volunteers will go on a spree themselves. The more likely scenario is that someone will leave their gun in a bathroom or something because people are prone to dumb mistakes, no matter how certain we are that we could never, ever do something like that.
Look, I’m sure the people who signed up for this program are really nice people. No, actually, I’m not sure, because I don’t know who the hell they are. So, you know, see #4. But let’s assume they all went into this program with the good intention of wanting to protect kids. I’m absolutely sure Chief Pierce is training the volunteers well and I have every confidence that he’s also coming at this program from a good place, but I am not willing to send my kids to school where there are people I do not know wandering around with guns.
I realize this post is scattered at best and nonsensical at worst. But I firmly believe that the best way my kids can avoid being shot at school is for there to be no guns in their school, no matter who is carrying.
We had an amazing weekend on twitter. Someone came up with the idea to make a #50ShadesIsAbuse hashtag. Actor Stephen Fry (!) tweeted the hashtag to his followers and the damn thing exploded. Once the 50 Shades fans caught wind of the criticism, they circled the wagons. Some of them promptly jumped at the chance to threaten violence against people who didn’t like the book, and to tell real domestic violence survivors that they deserved their abuse or should be the targets of further abuse. Some went a more subtle route, repeatedly reporting one #50ShadesIsAbuse poster until his account was suspended twice.
So basically, these books are attracting only the very best people.
In response to all this, a 50 Shades is Abuse blog ring was created. If you feel like despairing at humanity for exalting this book, here’s the link.
Also, someone more familiar with Twilight than I am is calling out the instances of blatant plagiarism in 50 Shades. Lest we forget that E.L. James isn’t an author. She’s a plagiarist.
And then there’s this: A fool and his money are soon parted.
When last we left Ana and Christian, they were going to make the security team wait in the other room while they had sex. Christian asks Ana if she wants “kinky fuckery.”
I nod, feeling my face flame. Why am I embarrassed by this? I have done all manner of kinky fuckery with this man. He’s my husband, damn it! Am I embarrassed because I want this and I’m ashamed to admit it? My subconscious glares at me. Stop over-thinking.
Ana, no one would ever acuse you of over thinking. But what really pisses me off about this paragraph is her assumption that because this man is her husband, she should be able to just give up her body and her desires to him without any reservation. The thing is, that kind of relationship requires trust, and there’s no trust between Ana and Christian except for the trust he’s forced her to put in him. And even then, she has doubts, so tell me again why she should be totally comfortable sharing anything personal with him at all?
Christian asks if he has “‘Carte blanche'” during this kinky fuckery:
Carte blanche? Holy fuck – what will that entail? “Yes,” I murmur nervously, as excitement blooms deep inside me.
You may remember that the last time she gave him “carte blanche,” he beat the ever living fuck out of her with a belt, and not in a sex game way. In a “I want to cause you as much pain as possible because your suffering gets me off even if your consent is dubious and uninformed,” kind of way.
They go into the “play room.” I guess that’s what we’re calling it now, instead of the Red Room of Pain, and thank god. Red Room of Pain sounds like a New Wave band or a Boston-based Irish rap group.
The playroom smells reassuringly familiar, of leather and wood and fresh polish. I blush, knowing that Mrs. Jones must have been in here cleaning while we were away on our honeymoon.
Why, was someone else using it while you were on your honeymoon? Why would it need to be cleaned?
What will he do? He locks the door and turns.
Again with the locking door. Like, dude, you live alone, with a highly trained security staff. Do you think the arsonist is going to drive his Dodge right through that door and interrupt your sex? What is the likelihood of someone busting in on them in the apartment where only they live? I know this is a small detail when compared to everything else in these books, but I’ve totally fixated on it.
Christian asks Ana what she wants, and she tells him to surprise her. With the exception of, “beat me as hard as you can with this belt so I can see if I can still love you after,” has Ana ever actually told Christian what she wanted? It seems like most of the time, she demurs and lets him take control. Which I get, she’s a submissive, but hell, he’s asking you.
So, read this excerpt, and I’ll ask you a question on the other side:
“Here,” I whisper, gazing nervously at him as I remove the hair tie from around my wrist and hold it up for him. He stills, and his eyes widen briefly but give nothing away. Finally, he takes the small band.
“Turn around,” he orders.
Relieved, I smile to myself and oblige immediately. Looks like we’ve overcome that little hurdle.
What hurdle? I re-read this part over and over, trying to figure out what all the drama was about, and the best I could come up with was that maybe he didn’t want to braid her hair like he did to his subs? Because she’s his wife now? Or something? But there’s no way to tell. All this tells me is that he’s somewhat reluctant to touch a hair tie, for no reason. Or they’ve overcome the hurdle of telepathic communication, since all she had to do was say, “Here, braid my hair.”
Now it’s time for bold that word rep! Obviously the emphasis is all mine:
“Now turn around and take your skirt off. Let it fall to the floor.” He releases me and steps back as I turn to face him. Not taking my eyes of his, I unbutton the waistband of my skirt and ease the zipper down. The full skirt fans out and falls to the floor, pooling at my feet.
“Step out from your skirt,” he orders. As I step toward him, he kneels swiftly down in front of me and grasps my right ankle.
I get that sometimes, word rep can be sneaky and hard, even for copy editors. Sometimes, there’s no way to avoid it. But this is kind of inexcusable.
Suddenly he kneels up, grabs my hips, and pulls me forward, burying his nose in the apex of my thighs. “And you smell of you and me and sex,” he says, inhaling sharply. “It’s intoxicating.” He kisses me through my lace panties, while I gasp at his words – my insides liquefying.
You just fucked in the car, your “insides” are already sloshing with liquid. Pardon me while I imagine Christian getting a huge glob of his own gelled semen up his nose.
Christian tells her to face the wall, so she won’t know what he’s doing, and she listens while he opens drawers and thinks about how much she loves anticipation and how he’s going to do all this naughty stuff to her. Which would be hot, except it’s followed by this:
The subtle hiss of the sound system coming to life tells me it’s going to be a musical interlude. A lone piano starts, muted and soft, and mournful chords fill the room. It’s not a tune I know. The piano is joined by an electric guitar. What is this? A man’s voice speaks and I can just make out the words, something about not being frightened of dying.
Quick question, does anyone else get a murdery vibe from that? By the way, the song she’s describing is “The Great Gig In The Sky,” which is not music I would choose for a BDSM scene. Pink Floyd is definitely music to have sex to when you’re stoned and laying on the floor and you’ve already gotten tired of trying to match the lyrics up with Wizard of Oz, but the borderline screaming would make it super distracting if you weren’t high as absolute balls. Also, I refuse to believe Ana got through college in the Pacific Northwest without ever once hearing Dark Side of The Moon. Why can’t she just say, “Christian puts on a Pink Floyd song?” Why is E.L. so fucking coy about the music or naming songs if she’s just going to put the list of songs up on her website, anyway?
Oh, shit! I know why she’s coy about the songs, I’ll bet. Because back in the day, Fanfiction.net cracked the fuck down on “song fics,” fanfiction where the author would write stories based on popular songs, or built around the lyrics of popular songs. For a long while, they were super strict about this; one of my Phantom of The Opera fics got removed because I included the lyrics to an aria (which was in the public domain, but whatever, in the Pit of Voles, you get what you pay for). I wonder if that’s why songs aren’t mentioned by name. This is only speculation, of course, since 50 Shades is obviously not at all fanfiction of any type, right? It says so in the disclaimer in the front.
Maybe it’s a copyright thing? Like she was afraid someone was going to come after her from a legal standpoint if she used the titles of songs in her published work? Which is kind of… not seeing the forest for the trees, isn’t it, considering that her entire work is plagiarized?
Continuing with his theme of “love means never having to use a safeword,” Chedward tells Ana:
“You must tell me to stop if it’s too much. If you say stop, I will stop immediately. Do you understand?”
Look. My opinion of safewords is, you should probably use them. However, there are situations where people decide to not use safewords, or to just make the safeword, “Ouch, that hurts in the bad way.” To engage in safeword-less BDSM, you need a few things:
- A Dom/Domme who can tell the difference between “(don’t) stop!” and “Stop!” Christian has already proven that he can’t do this, when he beat the fuck out of Ana while she screamed her head off in a clear, “I’m not into this,” way. He was confused afterward, because he felt it was her responsibility to safeword, not his responsibility to monitor the scene (which he shouldn’t have engaged in, because she didn’t want to play, she wanted to test him on an emotional level.)
- Trust. Sure, Ana trusts Christian. But that’s because Ana is stuck in a loop of learned helplessness. She has to trust him, because she has no other choice. He’s broken that trust time and again (putting hickeys and bruises on her on their honeymoon, when she couldn’t see what he was doing and couldn’t object, for one), but since she doesn’t have any agency left, she can’t not trust him. That’s not trust, that’s brainwashing.
- Clear and open communication. These two do not communicate. They talk a lot, but not about anything important, until someone has a huge breakdown. And if Ana does try to communicate with Christian, he just manipulates her out of being concerned about whatever it was that bothered her in the first place.
So, basically, no. These nitwits should not be in the playroom without a safeword.
They have some boring interplay about how she wants him to spank her, and he blindfolds her, and then he sticks his fingers in her, and then he plays with her asshole and tells her they’re going to have fun with it. And I’m like, “FINALLY. Three books in and we’re FINALLY going to see some backdoor action.” He fingers her and talks about how wet she is, and I’m like, “Duh, you came in her not five minutes ago, did you get spunknesia or something?”
I hear the quiet spurt of some liquid, presumably from a tube, then his fingers are massaging me there again. Lubricating me… there!
I’m so tired of “…there!” I’m so tired of it. I’m tired of “everything south of my waist” (which, by the by, is used in this scene as well). If you want to write a naughty book, write a naughty book. Just say that he put lube on your asshole, for fucks’ sake.
Also, Ana does a lot of hearing in this scene. She hears the drawer opening, she hears the “soft hiss” of the sound system (is he putting on a vinyl LP here? I haven’t heard a “soft hiss” since the 1980’s, and certainly not on a digital format), now she can tell that there is liquid coming out of a tube. Not a bottle, specifically a tube, and she can tell this because she’s fucking Daredevil.
“Most people don’t know I’m blind, just because I’m so great at anal!”
“This is lube.” He spreads some more on me.
Thanks for mentioning it, because otherwise she might have thought it was salad dressing.
Oh god, I just pictured Ranch dressing on somebody’s asshole. There goes lunch.
I groan. And I feel something cool, metallically cool, run down my spine.
“I have a small present for you here,” Christian whispers.
An image from our show-and-tell springs to mind. Holy crap. A butt plug.
Anastasia Steele, Psychic Buttsecks Detective.
Are you ready for the most appallingly vague description of anal play you will ever read in a modern novel? Grab your ankles and brace yourselves, because this is happening:
And gently, while his fingers and thumb work their magic, he pushes the cold plug slowly into me.
“Ah!” I groan loudly at the unfamiliar sensation, my muscles protesting at the intrusion. He circles his thumb inside me and pushes the plug harder, and it slips in easily, and I don’t know if it’s because i”m so turned on or if he’s distracted me with his expert fingers, but my body seems to accept it. It’s heavy… and strange… there!
“Oh, baby.”
And I can feel it… where his thumb swirls inside me… and the plug presses against… oh, ah… He slowly twists the plug, eliciting a long, drawn-out moan from me.
“Ah!” I groan loudly at the supposedly kinky book. It’s not graphic… and it’s disappointing… and I have… feelings! I’ll use… ellipses… to… avoid… describing… anal… because I’m lacking experience or imagination or both.
Throughout this scene, Ana mentions being nervous, having anxiety. This does not a loose asshole make. But there’s no discomfort at all? Not even like, “It’s a weird feeling like I’m accidentally shitting myself?” Just, “Oh, it’s all pleasure because I’m just soooo turned on, even though I’m nervous and I’ve never done this before and also I’m routinely terrified of the person who’s wielding the butt plut?”
I hesitated to add that part, because I know someone in the comments is going to be like, “Actually, I loved anal the first time I had it and it doesn’t hurt everyone and that’s not very sex-positive of you to say it does when it doesn’t for everyone,” and then I was like, fuck it. If you were an anal queen the first time out of the gate, good for you, but most people aren’t and this scene doesn’t add up to me, knowing everything we know about Ana and Christian. It’s just straight up unrealistic first time butt play. She’s nervous, a first-timer, and he does nothing to prepare her apart from squirting some lube on her butthole. She has never done butt stuff before. So, the first and most obvious choice would be to finger her asshole, right? Nope, straight to the butt plug. Which I find really amusing, because he’s like, soooo concerned about rushing her into butt stuff, and they have to go super slow and it’s this long, intensive process to go through before he can put his wang in her butt, but then he skips the first and most obvious step. But whatever.
Then he has P-in-V with her while pulling the plug in and out, and we get this crazy-ass description:
And he picks up the pace, his breathing more labored, matching my own as he thrashes into me.
Thrashes? What an odd word choice. All I can imagine is Christian violently swinging his cock from side to side like the pendulum in a broken grandfather clock while he tries to penetrate her.
He moves one of his hands from my hips and twists the plug again, tugging it slowly, pulling it out and pushing it back in. The feeling is indescribable, and I think I’m going to pass out on the table.
I know sometimes authors (myself included) use “indescribable” to show the reader that this character is overwhelmed by something. But given the vague descriptions in this scene, I’m going to assume it’s just literally indescribable because the author isn’t skilled enough to describe it.
And then they come and it’s the most amazing orgasm ever and all sorts of trite descriptions, blah blah. Then there is a section break and they’re still listening to the same song. I’m like, “That song is about four minutes long, way to have staying power, Chedward,” until Ana clarifies that it’s on repeat. You know, I love Pink Floyd as much as the next person, but if someone blindfolded me and locked me in a room with “The Great Gig In The Sky” repeating, I would consider that legitimate torture.
Then they have their usual post sex talk, all quiet and gentle with shy smiles and uncertainty, because nothing turns people on more than needless drama after sex. Christian starts gathering up their toys and says he’s going to go run them a bath.
“Who cleans these toys?” I ask as I follow him over to the chest.
He frowns at me as if not understanding the question. “Me. Mrs. Jones.”
WHAT? First of all, when frowned like he didn’t understand, I was like, “What, he doesn’t clean his buttplugs?” Then he said that his poor, sweet housekeeper Mrs. Jones cleans them, and I was like:
Seriously? You do the anal, you clean your own damn toys. Jesus! You’re a millionaire. Get a little dishwasher for the playroom and use it only for that. WTF is wrong with you. “Hey, will you clean someone else’s shit off this? Thanks.”
Whatever Mrs. Jones gets paid, it is NOT enough.
Prepare yourselves, dear readers.
Taking my hand, he unlocks the playroom door, then leads me out and downstairs. I follow him meekly.
The anxiety, the bad mood, the thrill, fear, and excitement of the car chase have all gone. I’m relaxed – finally sated and calm. As we enter our bathroom, I yawn and loudly stretch… at ease with myself for a change.
Okay. There are people who are so into the submissive mindset that they do have mood swings or feel generally ooky if they haven’t been dominated in a while. I believe this is more common in 24/7 D/s relationships, but I don’t know that anyone has done a study on it or anything. HOWEVER, Ana and Christian are not representative of an actual D/s couple. Ana is now psychologically addicted to Christian’s brand of dominance (abuse), and though there was nothing technically abusive about that sex scene, I have to wonder if this isn’t a way to justify how Christian treats her even when they’re not having sex.
And then I got very sad, and I ate my feelings with a side of burritos.
Christian has noticed that she’s been out of sorts:
“Yes, you’ve been in a strange mood today, Mrs. Grey.” Standing, he pulls me into his arms. “I know you’re worrying about these recent events. I’m sorry you’re caught up in them. I don’t know if it’s a vendetta, an ex-employee, or a business rival. […]”
How incredibly artless. It’s all three, guys. Just a heads up here. She couldn’t even be bothered to throw a red herring into this “mystery”.
They take a bath together and Christian tries to get Ana to give up work. Because being a housewife with a live-in housekeeper and no children is going to be real fucking personally fulfilling to a woman, right? Because all we truly desire is to sit around being available for men. Then there’s a section break, and Ana goes downstairs and hears Christian giving Sawyer a different kind of ass reaming:
“Where the fuck were you?”
Oh shit. He’s shouting at Sawyer. Cringing, I dash upstairs to the playroom. I really don’t want to hear what he has to say to him – I still find shouty Christian intimidating.
So, Ana is still afraid of Christian. That’s a healthy marriage, right? Being afraid of someone? Also, fuck you Christian. Where was Sawyer? He was in the SUV behind you because you absolutely have to drive your own car. And then you made him wait for his dressing down while you had sex and a bath. So I really hope the answer is, “I was sitting in your study waiting for you to get concerned about the plot again.”
Taylor will be back tomorrow evening, and Christian is generally calmer when he’s around. Taylor is spending some quality time today and tomorrow with his daughter. I wonder idly if I’ll ever get to meet her.
Why would you? If Taylor is smart, he’ll keep his kid well away from the fucked up people he works for.
Ana decides to pull her own weight and clean the butt plug. She’s intercepted by Mrs. Jones as she tries to make it to the bathroom. Mrs. Jones now calls Ana “Mrs. Grey,” and when Ana tells her to use her first name, Mrs. Jones says she’s not comfortable with it. Now, Ana, the correct answer here is, “I pay your salary, get comfortable with it,” but instead she thinks:
Oh! Why must everything change just because I have a ring on my finger?
Because it’s a tiny shackle.
Mrs. Jones wants to look over the menus for the week with Ana, who is shocked at the idea. Probably because she never eats and has only heard of food when other people talk about it, or when her dreamy abusive husband force feeds her. After a brief description of Sawyer crossing the great room, Ana resumes her butt plug cleaning journey.
I dump Christian’s shoes on the floor and my clothes on the bed, and take the bowl with the butt plug into the bathroom. I eye it suspiciously. It looks innocuous enough, and surprisingly clean. I don’t want to dwell on that, and I wash it quickly with soap and water. Will that be enough? I’ll have to ask Mr. Sexpert if it should be sterilized or something. I shudder at the thought.
Why would you shudder at the thought of a sterile butt plug? You should shudder at the thought of a dirty one, really. And I love that she doesn’t want to dwell on the fact there’s no poop on the butt plug. How could there be? Ana doesn’t ingest any physical nourishment. I’m sure she only takes a crap biannually. But the time you don’t want to dwell on a butt plug is when there is poop on it.
Christian has given Ana the library to work in, so she goes there.
Part of me dreads going back to work, but I can never tell Christian that. He’d seize on the opportunity to make me quit. I remember Roach’s apoplectic reaction when I told him I was getting married and to whom, and how, shortly afterward, my position was confirmed. I realize now it was because I was marrying the boss. The thought is unwelcome. I am no longer acting editor – I am Anastasia Steele, editor.
If it’s unwelcome, why don’t you get a job and prove yourself somewhere else? Oh, that’s right, you can’t, Christian will just buy that company too, and make you the CEO.
I’m sorry, but I’m not feeling Ana’s “poor me” bullshit over getting promoted to editor within a week or two of working at SIP. Christian was supposed to stop steamrolling over her career. She was outraged when he bought SIP, and she was angry when she accused him of getting her promoted to acting editor in the first place. But now, she knows for a fact that she’s gotten promoted because she married him, and she’s fine with it? Whatever, we all know she’s not going to keep working there for long.
I haven’t yet plucked up the courage to tell Christian that I am not going to change my name at work. I think my reasons are solid.
“I don’t want to change my name.” There’s your solid reason. I absolutely fucking loathe that it’s still considered a given that a woman will change her name after she gets married. If you want to change it, change it. But the idea that society totally defends the right of a man to be angry about his wife not taking his name is just mind-boggling and infuriating.
Ana decides to get the honeymoon pictures off the digital camera, and then shit goes all One Hour Photo up in this bitch:
Picture after picture of me. Asleep, so many of me asleep, my hair over my face or fanned out across the pillow, lips parted… shit – sucking my thumb. I haven’t sucked my thumb for years!
Oh wow! That’s totally not creepy or infantilizing at all! How romantic, that being with her husband makes her so vulnerable and child-like again!
Or not, because fuck this. Fuck all of this.
And there’s one of him and me on the bed in the master cabin that he took at arm’s length. I am cuddled on his chest and he gazes at the camera, young, wide-eyed… in love.
What a gentleman, he took a surreptitious selfie with the chick he just banged. Oh, shit, was that description not romantic enough? Sorry, I guess I recognize malignant narcissism when I see it.
Seeing the photos he creepily took of her while she was sleeping (look, I’ll give him one or two, but not “picture after picture”), she’s all, OMG I love him, I can’t believe someone would want to kill the most perfect and precious human being on the planet,” and she runs to his study. He’s on the phone with Barney, looking at something on his computer.
When I crawl onto his lap, his eyebrows shoot up in surprise.
Do you suck your thumb, too, Ana? Look, I’m all for some age play, but this isn’t written as age play. It’s written as totally normal behavior, for a grown ass woman to lapse back into sucking her thumb and crawling into daddy’s lap. It’s gross, like E.L. is trying to make children or being child-like (without consciously choosing to engage in age play) sexy. And I’m sorry, but this book is fucked up enough.
Christian is looking at his computer, at images of the server room before the fire.
The picture blurs, then refocuses moderately sharper on the man consciously gazing down and avoiding the camera. As I stare at him, a chill of recognition sweeps up my spine. There is something familiar in the line of his jaw. He has scruffy short black hair that looks odd and unkempt… and in the newly sharpened picture, I see an earring, a small hoop.
Holy crap! I know who it is.
It’s Mister Clean.
“Christian,” I whisper. “That’s Jack Hyde.”
Or maybe it’s a pirate. Are you saying all guys with small hoop earrings look the same to you? That’s racist against pirates.
And then the chapter is over. I’m so glad it was only fifteen pages long, because damn.
“I’m sure the grammar Nazis are going to come take me away.”
Yes. Yes, people expecting you to follow the most basic rules of your native language with some reasonable fluency is just as bad as the Holocaust. That’s such an apt comparison to make, I don’t know why we didn’t all think of it.
“Tee hee, I’m sorry, but I’m such a grammar Nazi!”
No, you’re not. And why would you ever want to compare yourself to a Nazi, and be fucking proud of it? Are you under the mistaken impression that Nazis were totally awesome? You’re trivializing a truly horrifying period in human history over how someone spelled some shit on Facebook. Knock it off.
FIN
Best. Weekend. Ever.
Posted in Uncategorized
Who has two thumbs and had the best weekend ever?
That’s right. I did. Oh, what was that? Your daughter had a baby? You found out your Leukemia is in remission? I STILL HAD AN AWESOMER WEEKEND THAN YOU.
Okay. Maybe not. I’m sorry I was aggressively competitive back there. Congrats on the baby and the cancer.
HOWEVER.
I did have a really big weekend.
First of all, can we all discuss Destiny’s Child for a second?
Are you fucking kidding me? Besides the fact that many of my tweeps were convinced only Bey’s mic was on (“Kelly, can you handle this? Michelle, can you handle this? I don’t think you can handle this. So we’re cutting your mics.”), OMFGWTFBBQ?! For real? Destiny’s Child, on stage, looking fanfuckingtastic, singing the classics, they even did the Charlie’s Angels thing at the end, like they were on purpose reminding us that their song will forever outlive and out shine the movie it was written for. Are you serious right now? How can the rest of 2013 deliver anything at this point? As far as I’m concerned, it blew its load right there, beginning of February. We’re all in a giant refractory period until 2014, at which point Beyonce will probably be the first diva in space or something.
Okay, this post isn’t chronologically correct, but if you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed that on Friday I was all, “I have big news, but I don’t know if I can tell you or not!” And I’m sure you were like, “Yeah, whatever Jen. I bet you have real big news.” Well. I. Do. So. Nyah.
Early last year I was approached by Nick Harris of The Story Foundation about developing an idea he’d had for a Shakespearean-themed YA. The way my agent pitched it to me was, “It’s sort of like… Hamlet meets Ghostbusters.” And I was like, “I’m so in.”
Over the next few months and numerous phone calls and emails, Nick and I hammered out the details of the story, in which Hamlet, a paranoid recluse/ghost whisperer, meets Romeo, a young man of Verona who has recently botched a suicide attempt. Romeo is travelling the world on the advice of a soothsayer, trying to find someone who can help him restore the life of his tragically lost love, Juliet. Together, Hamlet and Romeo buddy cop their way through the afterlife looking for Juliet, while Hamlet is, you know. Trying to revenge his father’s murther. They run afoul of giants, trolls, valkyrie, serpents and grueling psychological traps on the way.
Well, I’m so happy to announce that this project. This amazing, quirky, unique project that I am SO pleased to have been asked to be a part of, has found a home. Entangled publishing has picked up Such Sweet Sorrow for their phenomenally successful Entangled Teen line.
I am over the moon about this. While I’m sure Shakespeare purists out there are sharpening pitchforks and lighting torches, let me express to you how big a Shakespeare geek I am, and how much care and love has been poured into developing this project. It’s going to be truly epic, and I can’t wait until you all can read it!
I’m asking you, 50 Shades of Grey reader and enthusiast, to come into this post with an open mind. In the past, I’ve said some pretty strong stuff about you, that was all coming from a place of frustration. Because I am frustrated. But now I’m having a moment of clarity, and I really hope that you give me a chance to explain to you why so many people are so angry about this book.
I know you’re not stupid. I know I can write these things, and you can read them and at least entertain the other side of the issue. Because that’s what intelligent people can do. And trust me, I’ve entertained your side a lot, in order to be able to write this post.
Let’s start with the most basic reaction I’m seeing from people defending 50 Shades of Grey.
It’s just fiction/entertainment! Why are you so mad?
You’re absolutely right. 50 Shades of Grey is just fiction, and as such, it’s totally open to interpretation. Some people are interpreting it as a touching love story. Others are interpreting it as story about an abusive relationship. And now, those two interpretations are clashing.
If you believe that 50 Shades is a love story, do me a favor and imagine this right now. I want you to imagine the worst thing that has happened to you in your entire life. This could be the death of a loved one, or getting cancer, or being dumped. You might be really lucky, maybe it’s just spilling coffee on an expensive shirt. But it’s still the worst thing that has ever happened to you, right? Now, imagine that someone writes a book, and in that book you see details of the very worst experience of your life. But the story isn’t portraying those events and feelings negatively. And everyone around you is reading the book and talking about how amazing it is, and they wish the things that happened to you would happen to them. Okay, maybe it’s not a serious wish. But that almost makes it worse. The people around you are now joking and laughing about how awesome it would be if the most painful, or one of the most painful, harrowing, scary experiences of you life would happen to them.
Dude. That would suck, right? You’d feel really lonely and probably angry. You’d probably be worried that somewhere, someone might think your experience was glamorous enough to try and reenact it for themselves. You don’t want anyone to experience what you did, so you feel like should step up and say something.
That’s why people who believe 50 Shades promotes abusive relationships get so furious about the subject. Many of them are either currently involved in an abusive relationship, or have escaped from one. Or they know someone who was harmed by an abusive partner, or who are in an abusive relationship and can’t leave. And when we hear someone else say, even in a joking way, “I wish my boyfriend was like Christian Grey,” all we’re hearing is, “If I had the experience that you or your loved one had, I would be happy, so what happened to you was okay.”
Okay, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad book. That doesn’t mean it’s responsible for Domestic Violence.
No, and I don’t think any sensible person would argue that it is. However, our ideas of what is and isn’t acceptable as a society are constantly present in our art. While our ideas and opinions shape what we see in our media, the reverse is also true. For example, we live in a culture where hyper-violent videogames are a normal, celebrated form of entertainment. Some have argued that living in a culture that glorifies violence has led to more real life violence. And while most people can sit down, play a violent game, and never have the urge to gun down someone in public, there are members of our society who can’t make that distinction, which is why it’s important to keep an open dialogue on the subject.
It’s the same thing with 50 Shades of Grey. Because of the way the book has been marketed, both by the author and by the publisher, people are looking to 50 Shades of Grey to fix their sex lives or help them understand their partner. An advertisement for the book ran in Maxim, a men’s magazine that gives its readers tips about, well. How to get laid. And the tag line they used for the advertisement was:
(Sorry for the image quality, the original was lost somehow to the ravages of the internet)
“What every woman wants. Read it and share the experience.” That isn’t a message that promotes the idea that this book is fiction. The sales pitch is that this book is a manual. And the author isn’t doing anything to discourage this, saying in numerous interviews that scores of women have credited her and the book with saving their marriages and sex lives.
Some people do not see it as a fantasy. There are women out there who are absolutely looking for a literal Christian Grey. And those women aren’t going to find charming millionaires they can heal through the power of their love. They’re going to find sexual predators who will be more than willing to act like Christian Grey… with the caveat that there is no writer pulling the strings to keep these would-be Anas safe.
So, no one should ever write anything, because someone might emulate it and get hurt?
Not at all. But if someone does produce a work of fiction, be it a violent videogame, or a book with a relationship that could be construed as abusive, the creators and marketers absolutely must be clear that this is a work of fiction. They can’t flirt with the line between fiction or nonfiction, or make some outrageous claim about emulating the behaviors in the work being somehow beneficial. Can you imagine how furious people would be if that technique were to be used in marketing a book like American Psycho? Suggesting that people buy it for graduates, like it’s a real life How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying? People would utterly reject that. Serial murder is universally viewed as immoral and wrong. But since 50 Shades of Grey is being used to explore an often misrepresented sexual kink, many people don’t realize that the BDSM in these books is conducted in an unsafe way, and they don’t see anything wrong with using it as a guidebook.
It’s true, there are some people who want 50 Shades banned. I may have flippantly suggested such a thing once or twice during my other blog posts. But if someone is seriously calling for a ban on the book, I don’t support that. And I don’t think most smart people support banning books, or any form of artistic censorship. I want a person who enjoys 50 Shades of Grey to be able to continue enjoying it. I would rather that some of the themes I found present in the series not be so prevalent in our media, but I don’t think banning a single book or series is going to solve that problem as much as a healthy, unimpeded discussion would.
Well, what do you want, then?
I want, and I think most people who are frustrated with the phenomenon feel the same, just want E.L. James and Vintage Press to come out and say, “This book is not a self-help phenomenon, and we were wrong to hint that it was. Some of the behaviors exhibited by characters in the book are not behaviors we endorse, and we were wrong in the way we communicated with domestic violence survivors.” Or, you know. Something better than that.
But why? E.L. James doesn’t owe anyone anything, and it’s not her fault if someone reads her book and does something stupid. Besides, she wrote it for herself and for people who “get it.”
Part of being a creator is taking responsibility for your creation. Dr. Frankenstein didn’t do that, and look what happened to him. Whether or not E.L. James wrote 50 Shades for herself, when she posted it to FanFiction.net, she put it out into the world for consumption. Like Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, she’s responsible for what she created, no matter how out of control or huge it gets. By the way, I’m not using Frankenstein to be snarky here. It’s just a very easy analogy.
The fact that E.L. couldn’t have possibly known that selling her fanfiction to a small publisher would rocket her to superstardom actually works in her favor here. She could easily say that she was overwhelmed by the popularity of her books, and she didn’t respond to criticism well. I think most of us would forgive her, and be less hurt, if she just accepted responsibility for spreading a dangerous message by touting her books as being helpful to women.
It’s not abuse, it’s BDSM! You just don’t understand kink!
Many people in the BDSM community – people who were into kink before these books came along – have found the portrayal of Dominance and submission unrealistic at best and downright dangerous at worst. In a book being sold as a work of fiction, this wouldn’t be a major problem, it would just mean that people who were familiar with the lifestyle would probably choose to read something else. However, the popularity of 50 Shades lies in the promise that readers will want to try out these new, exciting sexual scenarios in their own homes. The advertisement above, if not explicitly saying “DO try this at home,” is at least winking and nudging at the idea that buying this book will result in great sex.
So, the only thing you’re mad about is that E.L. James won’t tell people not to try this at home?
Well, it was the only thing I was mad about. But then someone sent me an article in which E.L. had this to say about the concerns over the content of her books:
James says she “freaks out when she hears people say that her book encourages domestic violence. “Nothing freaks me out more than people who say this is about domestic abuse,” she says. “Bringing up my book in this context trivializes the issues, doing women who actually go through it a huge disservice. It also demonizes loads of women who enjoy this lifestyle, and ignores the many, many women who tell me they’ve found the books sexually empowering.”
She leaps easily to the defense of the women who have enjoyed her books and offered her praise, women who have helped her attain her meteoric rise. But she doesn’t defend the women “who actually go through it.” She asks that people not discuss the subject with her, or in the same conversation as her creation. She doesn’t want to hear about abused women, because they’re not enjoying her book. Even more disturbing, she says that calling the relationship in her book abusive “demonizes” women who enjoy BDSM. She asserts in the wording of that statement that if you suggest someone is a battered woman, you are insulting or degrading them, because being a victim of abuse is something to be ashamed of.
You’re just putting words in her mouth! You don’t know if that’s what she meant. She could have just said it wrong.
I suggest that as a professional author, she should be perfectly capable of expressing herself with the appropriate words.
It’s not like she said that to a survivor directly. She probably does worry about those women.
If she does, she has an odd way of showing it. Many abuse survivors that have contacted her on twitter have been blocked. For example, Kody, whose account you can read at this link. When she saw E.L. James advised her fans not to “feed the trolls” in regards to discussions of domestic abuse, Kody, a survivor herself, sent a single, civil tweet making reference to James’s earlier comment about trivializing domestic violence. James blocked her without a reply.
So, I want to ask you a question, 50 Shades of Grey and E.L. James defenders:
What do you get out of defending this woman and her books?
E.L. James has derailed discussions of domestic abuse, treated survivors who have approached her in good faith as trolls and nuisances, yet claims to care about the issue affecting them. When faced with either listening compassionately and accepting responsibility for the way she has behaved in the publicizing of her book, she chooses instead to throw her support behind women who, frankly, don’t need supporting. There is a far larger bias in our culture against women who “let” themselves be abused than there is against women who like to masturbate to mild erotica.
I would never, for one second, assume that if someone enjoyed 50 Shades of Grey, they supported and endorsed abuse. No more than I would suggest that my own enjoyment of horror movies meant that I support and endorse chainsaw murders. And no one wants to stop you from reading books you enjoy. But is your enjoyment really impeded by a contrary opinion? If you loved cookies, but I didn’t, would the cookies not taste as good to you? Of course not, that’s absurd. So where is the danger in me discussing my dislike of cookies?
When you say, “It’s only fiction, get over yourself,” you are endorsing abuse, because you’re trying to silence actual discussion of an important issue, and discussion is how we resolve these issues within our culture. You’re telling abuse survivors that the enjoyment you derived from the book is more important than their real life concerns over real life experiences; that you would rather they keep these experiences to themselves so you can continue to enjoy this book. Is that really how you feel? Are you defending the book, or yourself for choosing to read it?
No one wants to ban 50 Shades or tar and feather E.L. James. But it would be nice if she would accept the fact that she has written a book that has clearly hit a nerve for many women, and have the courtesy to not shut down the dialogue just because she doesn’t wish to speak about it.