Fifty shades of controversy

DINA DIAMOND

Pictured :Andrea Ash, Natalie Solomon. Dona Hatzkilson, Lauri Suntup

It was also the first book to sell a million copies on Kindle. It has since sold over 100 million copies. The movie has been no different, smashing all previous box office records all around the world, even before it opened.

Taking into account the immense, predominantly female, interest in the movie and the obvious fact that women of all ages, marital statuses and cultures would flock to the cinemas, it seemed only a natural choice that this movie would be used by a women’s charity organisation to host a premiere and raise funds for a very worthy cause. Yes? No!

The Aviv (younger) arm of WIZO – the Women’s International Zionist Organisation, hosted a premiere last week for 50 Shades of Grey in an effort to raise awareness and funds for projects that include, but are not limited, to battered women, women empowerment, day-care centres, youth villages, youth centres, foster homes – the list goes on.

These premieres were hosted across the world and all over South Africa as well. All events were an instant sell-out and in fact proved to be the fastest selling tickets to any fundraiser in its history.

Unfortunately the saying that “you can never please everyone”, certainly comes into play here. There are always those who like to raise the moral high ground flag, without necessarily knowing all the facts and sadly very few, couldn’t resist the urge to make a noise, jump up and down and protest. However, after viewing the movie, many could ask what the fuss is all about.

The storyline is almost in essence, your typical love story. It centres on a fictitious Anastasia Steele, a young college student and Christian Grey, a suave billionaire that sweeps her off her feet. He falls for her and likes to indulge in a little, not very graphic or even violent, bondage in his playroom…

All of the interaction between the two is consensual and Anastasia is continually reassured that she can leave at any time. In fact in this movie, it is the woman who is in control of herself and her relationship and has the ability to indulge and the freedom to walk away.

For any of those who chose rather to stay at home and watch the State of the Nation Address, they were surely exposed to far more S & M and violence than actually appeared in the movie!

Some moviegoers even expressed disappointment that the movie was “too soft”! A journalist in the Sunday Times echoed this sentiment by stating that there is “not a great deal of actual flesh”. She added that she had “seen more explicit scenes on Discovery Channel”.

So, perhaps, a storm in a tea cup was created by those who find it far easier to sit on the sidelines and complain. Maybe their actions would speak louder if they actually rolled up their sleeves, volunteered personal time and did some real work to help those in need, rather than bemoaning  the good work of volunteer charity organisations such as WIZO with a 100-year history of philanthropy.

Laurienne Baitz, World WIZO Aviv’s representative agrees. “In a world where viewing the real mutilated bodies of humans’ spoils of war is an all-day, every-day visual reality oozed across every news channel that our children view out of the corner of their eyes while playing games on the Internet with unrestricted access to more unspeakable real horrors, exercising the personal choice to view (or not) a strictly-rated adult movie that has passed the international censorship boards, seems more in perspective.” In South Africa the PG rating is 16, whereas in other countries such as France, it is a mere 12 years.

Baitz added: “WIZO is capitalising on the movie’s hype to raise funds. An additional motivation is to change the organisation’s reputation from ageing women who organise luncheons and bridge parties. This does not attract a younger membership without whom WIZO will have no future.”

Perhaps the real issue that all this highlights, is that people just need to talk about that still seemingly forbidden word, ‘S-E-X’ a bit more often!