The
Parents Television Council and
Morality in Media are BLASTING the
first Fifty Shades of Grey trailer, which was released Thursday morning.
The “Today Show” premiered an edited version of the sexually-charged preview during its 8 a.m. hour, which the PTC argues was highly inappropriate.
“We’re talking about basically the equivalent of a dime-store trashy romance novel. Essentially, what [the 'Today Show' is] doing is they’re promoting what
people refer to as ‘mommy porn.’ That’s what it boils down to,” PTC director of grassroots education and advocacy
Melissa Henson tells
The Hollywood Reporter.
Henson continues, “That’s a pretty poor judgment on their part in terms of their attitude toward their audience.”
The advocate goes on to say that parents often have morning news shows on with their children in the room, making the decision to air the trailer “very troubling.”
Henson suggests
NBC should have “couched it with very strong disclaimer language about how this is a movie that’s romanticizing violence in relationships — sexual violence is basically what this movie is promoting.”
And while the network did cut out some of the more suggestive content and even noted that the full version could not be shown on air, Henson – who believes the yet-to-be-rated film should be
marked NC-17 – argues that, too, was problematic.
“It seems like a very ordinary… romance story, so the fact that they cut off the last few seconds, if anything, might be a little suggestive, a little misleading because you don’t truly understand what this movie is about unless you’ve read the articles or read the book,” says Henson.
Morality in Media, which advocates for education against pornography, seems to be in agreement about the material.
The organization’s executive director
Dawn Hawkins released a statement ripping the relationship between sexually-adventurous millionaire
Christian Grey and virginal
Anastasia Steele, saying the “abuse of power, female inequality, coercion, and sexual violence” all serve to “glamorize and legitimatize violence against women.”
“The popularity of
Fifty Shades of Grey among women sends a message to men that this is what women really want. Even more dangerous, it also sends the message to women that they can ‘fix’ violent, controlling men by being obedient and loving,” says Hawkins, adding, “A warning to the women lining up to see this film: There is nothing empowering about whips and chains or humiliation and torture.”
She concludes, “Is this really the kind of relationship we want our daughters, relatives and friends willingly entering into? With a stalker and a batterer? Do we really want our sons to become Christian Greys, practicing a violent masculinity that degrades men as well?”
Of course, many groups blasted the
Fifty Shades of Grey novel when it was first released for similar reasons, and that didn’t seem to have much effect on the best-selling book series’ success.
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