A Call For Respectful Discussion of FIFTY SHADES OF GREY
I get a bit hot in the face from the abhorrent amounts of hate and judginess that is spewed at Fifty Shades of Grey AND its author AND its fans, but recently it went too far.
A commenter legit wrote that E.L. James should be shot.
When we’re talking about a book, let’s remember that a real person wrote it. There are real people who enjoyed the book you’re trashing. There are real people who identified with the characters you despise.
It’s okay (and welcome) to criticize a book.
It is not okay to be a terrible person.
We all get it. We do. Really. You don’t like the FSoG books. You want us to know that. We got it. Promise. But, it’s pretty terrible to make blanket statements about how awful a book is, and in the process, suggest that any reader of that book is also awful.
It’s also pretty terrible just how many mean-spirited and hateful comments this and any other Fifty Shades of Grey post will get. When we post about it on Book Riot, we all brace ourselves for the full force of hate. We are bracing ourselves now.
But we post about Fifty Shades of Grey, because it’s worth it.
When people shout the same insults about a thing over and over ad nauseum, it takes shaming to the highest level. It becomes normal for a person to say that an author should be shot because of a series she wrote. Someone who enjoyed FSoG will read those comments (over and over and over again) and begin to feel more like an outsider in the book community. Someone who enjoyed FSoG will begin to question whether or not they’re a “real” reader.
And, damnit, they are. Readers are allowed to like what they like. End of sentence. Period. Done.
And more than that, all of the hate is just tiring. What would happen if we judged other books the same way we judge Fifty Shades of Grey? If we bottle that collective hate, can we begin to recognize how absurd some of it is?
- “Romeo and Juliet is an inaccurate representation of how teens fall in love.”
- “I will not read On The Road because that is nothing like a road trip I’ve ever been on.”
- “I refuse to read Wuthering Heights because it’s about an obsessive and controlling relationship.”
- “I refuse to read Moby Dick because it’s about an obsessive and controlling relationship between a man and a whale.”
- “I refuse to read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress because it’s an inaccurate representation of life on the moon.”
- “Stephen King’s IT is an inaccurate representation of ancient spiders who prey on the fears of the young.”
- “I refuse to read Green Eggs and Ham, because salmonella.”
Got. It. Yet?
I’m not asking anybody to love the Fifty Shades of Grey series. At all. It’s totally cool if you don’t.
I am simply asking everyone to be kind to other people when they talk about books. Books teach us empathy. Let’s use it.
You can be kind enough to say, “I didn’t enjoy that book, but that doesn’t mean you can’t.” You don’t have to be nice and sugarcoat it or love the thing because other people do, but you can be kind for fuck’s sake. Take the judging out of your voice, accept that other people will like a thing you don’t like, and move on. Let’s all practice that, yes?
And, if you want to read a fascinating unpacking of the success of the series, I’ll send you to Sarah MacLean. Or, Amanda Nelson, who had some pretty on-point comments about the gendered hate of FSoG.
Credit for many of these go to other Rioters and my friend Melanie for sparking the idea. Oh, and many of the really terrible remarks here were paraphrased directly from Facebook comments about Fifty Shades of Grey.
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