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A place to put my thinking outside of my pretty little head
Utilizing the heterosexual matrix (Butler, 1990) theory, the characters of Fifty Shades of Grey (E. L. James, 2011) will be discussed as a representational materialization of performative players adhering to reductive gendered binary categories within a plane of structured patriarchal society. Within these polarized identities there is always a position of power (Derrida, 1974). Fifty Shades will be critiqued as an explicit sign of this power dynamic while the erotization of male dominance therein reinforces this dichotomy. When we contextualize imagery of a contemporary female popstar that adopts bondage clothing and BDSM themes we will find that these power roles are not interchangeable, as dominant/submissive roles supposedly are in real-life BDSM practices. Due to the sexist socio-political climate it exists within, she cannot adopt the position of power without a shift of meaning . Further exploring the female fantasy of male dominance via the central characters in Twilight (Meyer, 2007), we will discuss how the superior male is presented as baring an instinctive urge to not only dominate the female subservient socially and sexually, but to inflict genuine violent acts to and even consume her. In both Twilight and Fifty Shades the tension created by this male compulsion to devour the female -literally and sexually- is romanticized: an overt glamorization of sexual violence. To highlight the blurred lines between predatory violence and sexualized male dominance in visual culture a comparison will be made between the film posters for The Stepfather (McCormick, 2009) and Fifty Shades of Grey (Taylor-Johnson, 2015) . While the mass media continues to cement restrictive gender roles through these means that strengthen the heterosexual matrix and hypersexualize the tension of power difference between male and female, we will look at statistics of gender-based violence that are largely ignored by the media as a societal issue of gender inequality.
The heterosexual matrix is a ‘grid of cultural intelligibility…that assumes that for bodies to cohere and make sense there must be a stable sex expressed through a stable gender’ (Butler, 1990, pp.151). Dependant then on biological sex, the societally-correlating gender is assigned, in which constructed cultural and social differences are (invisibly) applied. Fundamentally, the heterosexual matrix sets up a plane in which positioned performative players are ‘ oppositionally and hierarchically [emphasis added] defined through the compulsory practice of heterosexuality’ (Butler, 1990, pp.151). This sets up a homogenizing binary of male/female masculine/feminine that is defined by difference, and can be seen to be explicitly represented through the central characters of Fifty Shades.
Christian Grey, a billionaire CEO and an active ‘top’ or dominant in BDSM practices, is described as confident, handsome, poised and muscular. Fifty Shades is based on Christian’s pursuit of, and proceeding love affair and sexual endeavours with, Ana Steele. Written from Ana’s perspective, a student and a virgin (before becoming Christian’s submissive), she describes herself as awkward, plain-looking, clumsy and physically weak. Christian and Ana’s identities are based upon ‘crude and reductionist’ (Hall, 1997, pp.235) binaries and the plot is formed by the differences between them. Ana represents ‘light’ and innocence, while Christian has a ‘dark’ past and ‘dark’ psychological issues, much of the plot is about Ana bringing Christian into the ‘light’. As Hall says ‘‘Difference’ matters because it is essential to meaning; without it, meaning could not exist’ (Hall, 1997, pp.234). It is the friction between these contrasting characteristics that creates the story, indeed the meaning , of Fifty Shades. These polarities are relative, and only function when they are put against each other; Ana is poor in comparison to Christian’s wealth, Ana is nervous and clumsy because Christian is intimidatingly self-assured and in control, and so on.
According to Derrida (1974), within binary structure there is always an imbalance of power, ‘one pole of the binary is usually the dominant one, the one that includes the other within its field of operations’ (Hall, 1997, pp.235). We can plainly see this regarding Christian and Ana’s characters: wealthy /poor strong /weak sexually-experienced /virgin dominant /submissive all these terms can be placed under the categories of powerful /powerless masculine /feminine male /female (I have put the power position in bold as Hall suggests). These rigid binaries which operate within the heterosexual matrix are ‘reductionist and over-simplified – swallowing up all distinctions’ (Hall, 1997, pp.235), they do not consider intersectionality or the reality that bodies, genders and sexuality work on a sliding scale that is subject to change at any given moment. Ana and Christian are white-cisgender-heteronormative-able-bodied Westerners of a certain class, in this sense they both take an invisible position of power. The oppositions of these binaries (black, non-gender-conforming, LGBTQ, disabled, underclass) are othered (Hall, 1997), disempowered, and do not conform to the narrow societal ideal of ‘sexy’. These rigid binaries act as a division power that produces a symbolic hierarchy .
On a broad scale, hierarchal classification is how a capitalist, class-based society such as ours is contained and controlled, ‘binary oppositions are crucial for all classification, because one must establish a clear difference between things in order to classify them’ (Hall, 1997, pp.235). To a liberal mind this seems regressive, but as Hall explains, this representational ordering is not inherently bad, ‘symbolic boundaries keep the categories ‘pure’, giving cultures their meaning and identity’ (Hall, 1997, pp.235). This particularly applies to race, religion, nationality and culture. However, as Williamson argues, sexist representations of women are used freely in the way that racist triggers would not be, ‘sexism is taken for granted as part of our cultural life, in a way that racism is not. Graphic designers who would not dream of producing playful ‘gollywog’ images can win kudos for doodling up crude sexual images of women’ (Williamson, 2003, pp.53). Williamson describes the methods in which this overt sexism is rendered initially undetectable in the media. Particularly relevant to Fifty Shades is the theory that sexual explicitness paves over and silences the sexism it is based upon.
The foremost element of Fifty Shades that gained it such attention is its high content of ‘kinky’ BDSM sex-scenes, an outright commodification of sex. This is how particularly sexist cannons can avoid being flagged, ‘highly sexualized imagery now tends to be seen as cutting-edge, and therefore ‘radical’’ (Williamson, 2003, pp. 51). It is difficult challenging something perceived as radical with a viewpoint regarded as passé like sexism, especially as so-called ‘reclamation of female sexuality’ clouds what is widely perceived as sexist. Furthermore, it becomes tricky to critique a sexually explicit cultural text ‘without appearing puritanical…therefore highly sexualised imagery has become, unlike social imagery, an arena in which sexism can operate with very little criticism, or even awareness of its existence’ (Williamson, 2003, pp.51).
We see this sexual explicitness massively in contemporary music videos, most of which are aimed at a very similar, largely female, audience as Fifty Shades . Overwhelmingly female artists perform near-naked, mimicking rigorous sexual movements and often adopt skin-tight BDSM-style clothing and BDSM-themed performances. We have seen Madonna, Britney Spears and Rihanna (to name a few) strapped in black PVC, sometimes holding a crop or whip, being carried or doted upon by a flurry of crawling men. Initially we may see this as an exchange of power roles, the men now adopting prone position usually reserved for the female, and the woman now upright, stood over him and performing a position of power. However, this imagery creates a ‘cultural illusion that the one cancels the other one out’ (Williamson, 2003, pp. 52) and assumes a post-feminist landscape where misogynist objectification is no longer an issue. Even to the ignorant, a quick glance at the wage gap between the sexes (19.7% in 2013 [www.equalpayportal.co.uk/statistics]) or gender-based violence statistics confirms that sexism is still rife. Power roles therefore do not carry the same meaning when exchanged between genders. In fact, when women adopt the dominant role it is somewhat a position of ridicule, entertainment and a spectacle.
The female body is systematically marked, objectified and seen to embody a ‘to-be-looked-at-ness’ (Mulvey, 1989, pp. 19, 25, 122). When she is presented as a dominant it is seen as playing ‘dress-up’ for the audience and the male gaze (Mulvey, 1989, pp.19). The male gaze is used to theorize the objectifying masculine power position of the camera/viewer; Mulvey originally wrote it regarding cinema, however, it is now a phrase used across many contexts. In Rihanna’s music video for S&M ( Figures 1. & 2. ) we see surveillance cameras all pointing toward her, a symbolic materialisation of the scopophilic male gaze , she is on display to perform for the masculinized viewer. ‘In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female’ (Mulvey, 1989, pp. 19) or, as Berger simply puts it, ‘men act women appear’ (Berger, 1972). This is clearly apparent in Fifty Shades ; Christian’s dominance is an active role, Ana is simply the subject of his ‘doings’. If we take a look at a screenshot (Figure 3.) from the film Fifty Shades of Grey (Taylor-Johnson, 2015) we can see what is supposedly a ‘smouldering’ look, as so described in the book, I would actually describe as an intensely controlling and surveying gaze. The iris of Christian’s eyes are so dark that they appear like huge dilated pupils; much like the lens of a camera, he is taking in as much of Ana’s appearance as possible. There seems to be no back-and-forth communication within his eyes, he is implicating his power over her. She is a receptacle for the pleasure of the male, as we see in Christian’s smirk.
Christian’s sexual dominance is romanticized in Fifty Shades , and he does not resort to any such dressing up as female popstars are seen to. Furthermore, the female dominatrix is traditionally presented as a bitch or a whore and ‘a wholesale embodiment of male fears … a depiction of gender relations that fuels male sexism, while simultaneously banishing it’ (Williamson, 2003, pp. 47). The issues behind restrictive binary gender therefore cannot be resolved by simply allowing roles to be interchangeable. Moreover, role reversal further supports the objectification of women, ‘the sex war’ and power positions within the heterosexual matrix , whilst denying the sexist socio-political climate in exists within.
Figure 3. ( Fifty Shades of Grey, 2015)
The ‘reclamation of female sexuality’ that ‘sexy’ popstars harness is often a pretence that allows self-objectification to seem empowering. It is this same reclamation that has allowed for Fifty Shades’ obscene popularity and the birth of the term ‘mommy porn’. Fifty Shades became a common signifier that allowed women to express their desires, to reveal that they possess a sexuality. As ‘women’s sexual agency is often inhibited and the desire is often expressed by choosing subordination’ (Benjamin, 1988, pp.90), Fifty Shades facilitates a mainstream expression of female sexuality whilst still maintaining a societally-agreeable subordinate female position. Women are pressured to be sexy , but it is seen as distasteful for them to be sexual . Therefore, when cultural texts such as Fifty Shades provide women a gateway to express their ‘kinkiness’ they are taken with such enthusiasm as 100 million copies of the book sold worldwide (2014, www.statistica.com ) and the film generating a domestic gross of over $150 million ( http://www.boxofficemojo.com ). Appearing radically erotic, with the appealing ‘naughty’ element of recreational BDSM sex, one would be easily fooled into thinking Fifty Shades is a story conveying a modern attitude around sex and relationships. However, bar the sex out of wedlock, the dynamic between Ana and Christian follows traditional Christian marital values, ‘the deep structure of gender complementarity has persisted despite the increased flexibility of contemporary sex roles’ (Benjamin, 1988, pp.74-75).
The binary dichotomies that Ana and Christian fit neatly within not only adhere to gender stereotypes, but also to a traditional sexist pre-marital process of selection. Christian chooses Ana as his submissive, from a selection of doting women wanting to be with him, as a man of a highly position would a wife. His pursuit of her is rigorous, reaching the point of stalking, and eventually takes form in a contract of sexual limitations and discretion; an emotionless business-like transaction similar to that of betrothal. Virginal Ana, younger and poorer, can be lifted from her lower status into a life of wealth and respect as ‘Mrs Grey’, or even just as his sex slave. He woos her by gifting her expensive date experiences and a sports car. This romanticized idea of financially ‘being saved’ by a rich prince-like figure is essential to the fantasy the female audience indulges in whilst reading/watching Fifty Shades . Therefore, it is also the social dominance of Christian that is sexualized and romanticized, not just the dominance in sex practices.
In Feminine Masochism and the Politics of Personal Transformation , Sandra L. Barkty tackles the inseparable social and sexual power in men that is idolized by women, ‘while it would be absurd to claim that women accept less pay than men because it is sexually exciting to earn 59cent for every dollar a man earns, it would be equally naïve to insist there is no relationship [emphasis added] whatever between erotic domination and sexual subordination’ (Barkty, 1984, pp.326). The relationship that Barktly speaks of is a means of control that maintains the status quo of female inferiority within our patriarchal society, ‘these manifestations of male power are precisely the instruments by which men are able to accomplish the subordination of women’ (Barkty, 1988, pp. 329). Freudian writers attempt to essentialize female submissiveness, regressing to delusional biological explanations for the inequality of power within sexual relations. Quotes such as ‘since menstruation, defloration and childbirth – the principal events in the sexual lives of women – are painful, feminine masochism is functionally necessary for preservation of the species’ and ‘passive-masochistic libido can allow a woman to accept the continual laceration [emphasis added] of intercourse’ (Deutsch, 1930, pp.48-60) are so evidently women-victimizing and written in a time of extreme misogyny that they reveal the violent roots of the patriarchal landscape that female sexual submission and male sexual aggression exists within.
Ethel Spector Person claims that each person has a sex print (Barkty, 1988, pp. 331), that we each have a sexuality as individual and personal as a finger print. Whilst an attractive theory, and may be true deep within our beings, it does not consider that our tastes and values are culturally and socially inscribed. Apparent ‘choices’ of fantasy and sexual preferences can only be made with the options we are given through the means, language and resources that are available to us. Therefore, the common female fantasy of male sexual domination is a product of -and a method of upholding- patriarchy; ‘the masters of patriarchal society make sure that the models set before us incorporate their needs and preferences’ (Barkty, 1988, pp.329). It is colonialism of female sexuality, a method of control. As Fifty Shades is an extreme portrayal of gender binaries and imbalance of power, it acts as heterosexist propaganda; ‘sadomasochists reveal to the world, albeit in an exaggerated form, the inner nature of heterosexuality’ (Barkty, 1988, pp.329). Heterosexist propaganda (whilst claiming bodies and relations outside of cis-heterosexuality as impossible, or at the very least not normal ) binds the male and female to roles not dissimilar to master and slave.
It is the tension of power difference between the polarized male and female characters that generates the sexual energy in Fifty Shades, I argue that contained within this tension is a suspended potentiality of violence. Where the power dynamic between parent/child is based upon a tension of responsibility and care that between male/female in sexual relations contains a threat of danger that women have been indoctrinated to find sexually exciting.
This threat is explicitly represented in Twilight (Meyer, 2007), which Fifty Shades was originally based upon as web-based fanfiction. The central characters and gender binaries in Twilight are parallel to those in Fifty Shades but magnified; Edward is a vampire and therefore has inhumane strength, power and good-looks, and lifetimes’ worth of riches, intelligence and experience. His love interest Bella is merely a weak mortal virgin. Beyond Christian’s urge to sexually dominate, Edward’s cravings are taken to sinister extreme as he has an intense compulsion to drink Bella’s blood. The male dominate in this story is literally a predator, these are instinctive urges integral to his species, as a man and as a monster. This compulsion to devour her is interwoven with a need to love and protect her, Edward’s resistance to kill and eat Bella is romanticized . The difference in power and potentiality of violence against the female in this story is sexualized, ‘contained in the very apprehension of power is the recognition that it can overwhelm and subdue as well as protect and impress. Power can raise me from my lowly status and exalt me; it is also before which I tremble’ (Barkty, 1988, pp.329) . Barkty’s choice of words suggests sexualized fear. Furthermore, Edward’s compulsion to harm Bella is portrayed as no fault of his own, it is an innate part of his being. As the common phrase goes, boys will be boys : an excuse for dangerous and toxic masculine behaviour. Bella is portrayed as putting herself in harm’s way, resonating with victim-blaming in sexual assault cases. Twilight romanticizes male dominance, not just with social and
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