fifty shades of grey by e.l. james

in this, our longest episode ever, we call upon strength from our subconsciouses and inner goddesses to do a merengue with some salsa moves thrown in and tackle the mammoth task of discussing fifty shades of grey by e.l. james (aka. snowsqueens icedragon). we once again find ourselves discussing the twilight saga and its associated fan fiction, safe words, the ins and outs of a bdsm lifestyle, the dakota johnson and ellen degeneres "actually, no – that's not the truth, Ellen" moment in history and it's mysterious ties to fifty shades of grey, the importance of reading contracts before signing them. 

fifty shades of grey, fifty shades darker and fifty shades freed took the world by storm. so much so that now, over ten years later, the world still yearns to understand the "what", "how" and most importantly "why" behind the writing and publication of this book. this titillating tale won the listeners' vote and the overall vote for our talk lit, get hit book of the month, covering the genre of smut.

will fifty shades of grey make our inner goddesses "jump up and down with cheer-leading pom-poms" or leave us distressed, confused and fifty shades of f*cked up.

synopsis music by Oleksandr Stepanov 

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Transcript

Laura 0:00

Oh shit, I don't even know where to start. Hello and welcome to Talk Lit Get Hit, a podcast where we read viral books the internet won't shut up about and rate them lit or shit.

Bridget 0:11

We're your hosts Bridget and Laura, lovers of sad girl fiction and tragic endings, fearers of smart, urban fantasy, and the Who Did This To You trope. Join us as we pick apart all the books the internet loves and embark on a journey to figure out why.

Laura 0:25

Buckle up and get your safe words ready because this month we are diving into a book that claims to be romantic, liberating, and totally addictive. It's the book you never ever want to see your mum reading: Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James.

Bridget 0:39

Hello, Bridget. Hi, Laura. Did your mum read this?

Laura 0:44

I don't know. My mum didn't. And I will never, ever find out. We have a lot to fit into this episode, but true to form, I think we should begin our episode with our regular monthly catch-up. How's your month been?

Bridget 0:59

It's been good. I haven't really done anything. I've been on holidays. Surprisingly, so much of my time has been taken up with this one book. More time than I thought. I made two cakes. Nice. What kind? I can't remember. It's been a crazy few weeks. French yogurt cake. Oh, with pear. I remember. No, that was the second one. Oh. So the second one was better, I think. It was a pear and dark chocolate cake. I think the first one had raspberries in it. I haven't been reading too much. But I do have three like honourable mentions. First one was an ARC. A small apocalypse by Laura Chow Reeve, which was a collection of short stories. Another one was Luster by Raven Leolani, which was about a young woman who has an affair with an older man who's kind of in an open marriage. And then she ends up living with the family and like becomes intertwined with their lives, and that was good too. I think you've read that, haven't you? I have. I remembered enjoying that one as well. And the last one that I read and enjoyed was Come and Get It by Kylie Reed, like a campus novel full of women who were just doing like unethical things, not much happens. My kind of book.

Laura 2:06

Yeah, so that's like my kind of book too.

Bridget 2:08

But I am also recovering from one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. And I can't remember if I've told you about this. But I went to a party where I didn't really know many people. I knew a few people, and like some of them I'd seen before at like other parties. Anyway, there was a fire, and I sort of took it upon myself to keep building the fire. And there was also a dog. And you know what you get when you're around animals, especially cats and dogs, you adopt a voice. Anyway, and I was gonna go and get some sticks, more kindling for the fire. And I was talking to this dog, it was like really cute Labrador, and I said to the dog, Oh, please go with me to get the sticks. And there was a man next to me who thought I was talking to him. And he went, Okay, I will. And then I was like, Huh? Don't know this man, don't know his name. So then we walked in silence to the sticks. And then we walked back in silence? Yep. And I've been thinking about that daily, probably about two weeks ago now. Oh that is so funny. So embarrassing. Please come with me.

Laura 3:14

Show me to me, please.

Bridget 3:15

Same vein. How was your month?

Laura 3:18

Oh, look, I wish I had something to tell you, but I really don't. I had a pretty slack reading month, much like you were very preoccupied reading this book in a way that I did not anticipate. I listened to the audiobook of Two Paradise by Hanya Yanagahara, but it was a real slog in that it was an extremely long audiobook. But I would say overall I enjoyed it. I'm currently listening to the audiobook of Big Swiss, and I'm enjoying it a lot. I cannot wait to keep reading that one because I just think it's gonna be great. You read that and enjoyed it, didn't you? Yeah, we got it before it came out.

Bridget 3:55

I enjoyed it. But I think the audiobook would be good as well.

Laura 3:58

It's very funny and very well narrated. Apart from that, I looked through my camera roll, and actually, there's a high volume of photos of soup. I've been eating this like particular brand of soup for lunch. Dari's. Shout out. They've a particularly good pea and ham soup. Is it like a like a packet mix or what is it? Sorry. I shouldn't move on from the soup so quickly. Yeah, I'm interested. I'm so I'm just a bit shy. But just the little plastic containers of soup you get in the refrigerator section. Not a can, not a, I don't know, a sachet, not a cup of soup, whatever it may be. Just a good, honest pre-made soup. Um, just true to form. I do when I enjoy something, I think, oh, this could be me now. And so I got the soup and I thought, oh my god, this would be such a good lunch to eat every single day for the rest of your life. Yeah. Yeah. It's convenient. Just whack in a few pieces of bread, maybe chuck a few pieces of fruit in your lunchbox, smoothly bar, who knows? And you sit. And there was a small part of me that acknowledged that yes, I think I might get sick of eating soup every single day, even if they were different soups, which is how I was selling it to myself. But then I went to the store and they were on sale. And so that pretty much was me sold. And so I bought like five or six of these soups. And then after about two days, I was like, oh no, please, God, don't make me eat more soup. Well, that's sad. Yeah. Highs and lows of soup. Yeah. I mean, I've had a pretty crazy year, like first with the pencil usage, and now with the soup. It's all happening in Canada.

Bridget 5:35

Living the dream.

Laura 5:37

Apart from that, my fiance and I did a ring making course to make our wedding bands, which was really fun. No skills required, which was very relieving. Um, but they're called blonde workshops. I think they're in like Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne. And we did the gold workshop. It's pretty cool. What a lovely idea. Let's not mess around. Enough games, enough soup chat. We came here for one thing and one thing only, and that is to talk about Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James. So before we begin, could I please have your initial thoughts, expectations, hopes, and dreams heading into this book?

Bridget 6:14

I was so shocked that this book won the vote. 50 Shades never ever even crossed my mind as an option. I just didn't think people cared enough about it because it seems like it's so old. And so I was really shocked because it won our listener's choice for the third option and then it swept the final vote. 50% of the vote was for this book. I think I've read the whole trilogy before, probably more than eight years ago. I couldn't remember much of the plot or the writing. I don't really remember what I thought of it at the time. I just don't think I really cared either way. I remember like certain parts, but I couldn't remember how they fit into the story or like what happened in between.

Laura 6:57

How about you? Well, firstly, I was likewise flabbergasted that we didn't think of Fifty Shades of Grey, and then that people wanted it as much as they seemed to. So sharing your shock there. But I have read this before. I read this before it was a published book, and I remember it was like a PDF, and my friends and I were like emailing it to one another. I don't think I even knew what a PDF was. It's possible I put it on a Kindle somehow, but same as you. I do remember that I read the other two books, but I think even then I found them a little bit boring. So I was looking forward to a reread because I think I was 18 when I read it, and I am now 30. So that is actually crazy when you say that out loud. I was excited. I was anticipating good times ahead, and then the events unfolded.

Bridget 7:46

And now here we are. Never have I written this many notes. Me too. For a podcast recording. Never have I felt so excited to talk about a book. Before we watched like little bits on YouTube when we were having lunch, I was like tearing up in anticipation. Like I was like, it was bursting out of me. Because I was like, there is so much I can say about this 30-second clip on the screen, and I just wanted to hold it in.

Laura 8:12

We like to hold in our thoughts ahead of podcast recording so that we can hopefully shock or surprise each other or just be like very pleased that we share the same opinions. And it has been probably the hardest book to ever have to do this with because, like you said, it's just been consuming. It took so long to read this book because of the volume of notes I was writing.

Bridget 8:31

I'm also proud of myself because I didn't give up on my annotating. Normally I do, normally I'm like, ugh, whatever. And then I just write notes to my phone or whatever. This no, I I stuck with it to the very last page.

Laura 8:42

I am so proud of you. Mine has become the scribblings of a maniac. Do you like the colours I chose? Oh, very on theme. I'm seeing one, two, three, four, possibly fifty shades of grey.

Bridget 8:54

Yeah. This podcast episode contains lengthy discussions about the plot, characters, and minute details of the book Fifty Shades of Grey. If you haven't read the book or prefer to avoid spoilers, we recommend finishing the book before listening to this episode.

Laura 9:09

This episode will touch on themes of BDSM, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, child abuse, and pedophilia, drug abuse, sexually explicit content and language, and power dynamics in relationships. Listener discretion is advised. When literature student Anastasia Steele goes to interview young entrepreneur Christian Grey, she encounters a man who is beautiful, brilliant, and intimidating.

Bridget 9:34

The unworldly, innocent Anna is startled to realize she wants this man. And despite his enigmatic reserve, finds she is desperate to get close to him.

Laura 9:44

Unable to resist Anna's quiet beauty, wit, and independent spirit, Grey admits he wants her, too. But on his own terms.

Bridget 9:52

Shocked yet thrilled by Grey's singular erotic tastes, for all the trappings of success, his multinational businesses, his vast wealth, his loving family, Grey is a man tormented by demons and consumed by the need to control.

Laura 10:05

When the couple embarks on a daring, passionately physical affair, Anna discovers Christian Grey's secrets and explores her own dark desires. Okay, Bridget. I don't know where to begin.

Bridget 10:20

How are you feeling? I've got some dot points that I might just read in rapid succession to show to share how I feel about fire away. 50 shades of grey. Never in my life have I hated a book as much as I hated this book. I hate Anastasia. I hate Christian. Hate has been coursing through my veins for the last week. I threw the book when I finished. I hated it. How about you?

Laura 10:46

It feels so good to get that off my chest. Oh my god. Oh my god. I feel similarly. I actually think, and I'll just come out and say it. I think this is probably the worst podcast book we've ever read. It's the worst podcast book. It's the worst book I've ever read, full stop. This book is the blueprint for all of the other books we've ever hated.

Bridget 11:07

This is the source. Oh, I I I cannot speak enough about how much this book is bad. It's so disappointing.

Laura 11:14

I don't think I should be surprised, and yet I am. No, I am surprised as well. Because I kind of thought that we would enjoy it or I would enjoy it in the same way that reading Twilight again was fun. Yes. And it was not.

Bridget 11:28

I honestly don't know where to start. Last night we went out for dinner with some friends, and I could not focus on the conversation because I read this book. It took me so long to read it because I just had to have a breakdown every few pages. The amount of notes I've written. I listened to it as an audiobook. It's poisoned me, I think. Last night I was like dreaming about it. You know when people like there's like ultra-conservative people who were saying, like, pornographic materials is like twisting the mind of adolescence, blah blah blah. This has done this to me. I can't stop thinking about it. I I can't.

Laura 12:00

It was actually exhausting to read on so many levels and fully acknowledging that reading a book for the podcast is different to just reading a book for pleasure. And that's why we try to read them more than one time wherever we can, or consume them a different way, like in an audiobook like you did. But there was just so, so much to point out. I was keeping tally on so many things, and I am so grateful that this book is as famous and or renowned, whatever, infamous, whatever you want to say as it is, because I did not have the stamina to keep that up for the whole 500 pages of this book. The audiobook was 20 hours long.

Bridget 12:37

Why? How? I mean, should we start with the author? Like, do we talk about her first? We have to start somewhere. It's as good a place as any. So have you Googled EL James? I had a quick look at her website last night. It's like internet in its beta form. Yeah. There's nothing on there. That's all I did. I went on the website, got shocked by how bad it was. And then I immediately closed the browser.

Laura 13:01

So I don't know much about her. Well, I can tell you a little bit about her, but so she was born in 1963. Her name is Erica Mitchell, pen name obviously, E. L. James, but her prior pen name, the name under which she first published Fifty Shades of Grey on a fanfiction website, is Snow Queen's Ice Dragon. Which is quite nice. Why didn't she keep that? Oh, I don't, I don't know. It's it's your guess is as good as mine. So 1963. So she's 31 years older than us. And Fifty Shades of Grey was first published in 2011. So she was an adult woman. Just confirming. She would have been 48. With a fully formed, we can only assume, frontal lobe. And here's what she's gone and done. So I do have a quote that says, In 2008, James saw the movie Twilight and then became intensely absorbed with the novels that the movie was based on. So she read the novels several times over a period of few days and then set out to write a sequel to the books. Between January and August in 2009, she wrote two such books in quick succession. Pretty efficient, but could have sat on that a little bit longer, I would say. I would also say that babe, we were all obsessed. Yeah. We were all there. We were all reading the books, all seeing the movies. You didn't have to do this.

Bridget 14:29

No one's a bit more.

Laura 14:29

At the same time, it's like when you go to an art gallery and you see something, you say, I could have done that. But she didn't. And she just did what we were too scared. She's not one of those sheeple. She's the lion. And she does have some pretty phenomenal awards slash honours to her name. All in the same year, in 2012, she was named in Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world. She was also Publishers Weekly's Publishing Person of the Year. She won the National Book Award for the Popular Fiction Book of the Year for Fifty Shades of Grey. And she also won the National Book Award for the Book of the Year for Fifty Shades of Grey.

Bridget 15:14

You can't forget, also, on the back of my book, it tells me this book, a Good Reads Choice Awards, finalist for best romance. So don't forget to add that into your little list of accolades. Oh my goodness. Finalist, not winner. Looking at a list of other books that were published in 2011 just to see what the literary landscape was at that time. So obviously, our previous podcast book, The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller, that was published in 2011. But we also have Divergent by Veronica Roth, which I feel was a massive, massive success. We had The Martian by Andy Weir Shadow Me, which I feel like is quite popular on TikTok as well. It was released in 2011. And also Fifty Shades Darker. So she released two books in one year. She used 2011's Rebecca Yarris equivalent of just pumping them out. Boom boom. One after the other. So it is interesting to me that she won those awards. Me too. Because even though I didn't enjoy Song of Achilles, anybody could agree that that is a much better book than this.

Laura 16:19

It's also very interesting because I think this is probably one of the first examples, at least that I can think of, of fanfiction making it mainstream. Now we would have things like the idea of you after the love hypothesis. I mean, in a way, I think you could probably say things like the Song of Achilles would be a fanfiction. Sometimes it reads like one.

Bridget 16:39

I think for me, this is the first one I became aware of. Also the first one that I was familiar enough with the source material to be like, oh yeah, you know, I get it. We have been trying to find an accurate, up-to-date number of how many copies Fifty Shades of Grey and the trilogy has sold in the last 13 years. And we can't really find an exact number, but in 2019, NBC News reported that Fifty Shades of Grey was the best-selling book of the decade. In between 2011 and 2019, the series sold 35 million print and ebook copies. They were the top three grossing books of the 2010s, and obviously they inspired film adaptations. So many merch lines. Four and five. Four was The Hunger Games. And number five was The Help. The Girl in the Train was number six, and Gone Girl was number seven. That is insane. Yeah. The last three were The Fault on Now Stars by John Green, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Divergent. So there's a lot of really like popular, good books, I would say, on that list. But the top three: 50 Shades of Grey, 50 Shades Darker, and 50 Shades Freed. And that is so many copies, but also it's not even counting the resale of these books. Every single op shop that I have ever been in has at least one copy of each of these books. And like when I go to Book Fest, there's normally a whole table. Tables of these books. Knowing this, I didn't want to spend more than I had to on this book. But this was my dilemma. I didn't want to spend money on it, but I also didn't want to go to an op shop and purchase this in person. So luckily for me.

Laura 18:23

Laura didn't do that. My op shop addiction has uh finally paid off. I found not one but two box sets of 50 shades of grey. And purchasing it was more humiliating than I could have anticipated. I wasn't like super mortified, but I was a bit like, just don't read into it, lady, as I was handing over my money. You don't understand this is for something else. Yeah. The first time I bought it, uh the lady at the counter said, Oh, did you enjoy this movie, did you? And I said, Oh, uh, um, just the books my friend and I were doing a uh reread. And then I felt insane because I said we were reading it again, and she said, Oh, um, it's certainly an interesting book. And I said, Ha ha, yes, it's good to make fun of, or something like that, just trying to play it really cool. But I was crumbling. I would say that having read it, I am now more embarrassed than ever to have purchased those books.

Bridget 19:20

Having read it, I'm more thankful that I didn't have to do that. So thank you. You're welcome.

Laura 19:29

It's only right that we talk about the source material for this book. We are, of course, once again talking about Twilight. So, as we've already said, Fifty Shades of Grey began as a Twilight fanfiction. E. L. James read Twilight, it addled her brain, and she just had something to say. She had to get it out there, and the people loved it. So, I mean, who am I to say that her brain's been addled?

Bridget 19:55

When I started this, it took me a long time to get to, let's say, page five. Because in those first five pages were just so, so many things that I wanted to touch on, wanted to comment on, wanted to highlight, and then wanted to like rip out of my brain so I would never have to think of them ever again. But by page five, I had decided that comparisons to Twilight were an insult to Twilight. Because even the Twilight illustrated guide had more plot, had more substance, was more interesting than this book.

Laura 20:27

I fully agree. Twilight is a work of art compared to this book. That was actually one of my notes. I wrote something like reading this book makes me want to take back every mean thing I ever said about Bella. Yes, yes, a hundred percent. The comparisons were endless as well. Like you said, I did the exact same thing where I was like, oh my god, that's Mike. Oh, that must be Jacob. Oh my gosh, I guess that's Jessica. Oh, this must be like that scene. And then it just was like, oh, okay, acknowledging it is a twilight fanfiction, but that's the rule, not the exception. So there's no point pointing it out all the time because that's just what it is. That's it. There's some really good ones to point out.

Bridget 21:06

There are some really good ones to point out. Like off the top of my head, it could start anywhere, but like Bella working at a hardware store was something that didn't hit me until after I'd finished it the first time. I was like, oh my god, wait. In my head, I was like, but why did she work there?

Laura 21:20

And she's like a 21-year-old woman. She couldn't give her any other job. I this is my thought. But then I realized, no, it's because Bella worked at a hardware store. And Christian did have to come in to buy the cable tires and the tape. Did he though?

Bridget 21:34

There were so many things where I was like, why are you telling me this? And then later I was like, oh, it's because it's twilight. Yeah. So why do I give a shit that Jose's father and your father were once in the same army division? I don't care about that. And then I was like, okay, it's Jacob. That's why.

Laura 21:54

So insulting to just be like, um, what's another vague ethnic mm? Like minority we can check in here. Absolutely shocking.

Bridget 22:03

I could could not understand. Just after he decides to like sexually assault her, that's the time when he starts to speak Spanish. Like pepper it in. Like, oh, why did she make this choice? I just I don't understand. So we we had Jose, we had Bella, Paul at the hardware store is Mike. Her mother is Renee. It's a carbon copy of Renee. Attention spurn of a goldfish. There'll be something new next week. She worries me. She'll mortgage the house to pay for her candle making. And Bob, her relatively new but much older husband, instead of being younger, is hopefully keeping an eye on her. Their obsession with like the most boring music and the most boring paintings. Um she's not like other girls, just like Bella. She's so clumsy. And I think the worst comparison to Twilight that there is is this middle-aged author trying to be young.

Laura 22:55

So kind of like the hardware store where it's like, why, like, why are you still here? There's just so many things where I'm like, why did you stretch this plot to accommodate sort of vaguely fitting in with Twilight? Because it makes it hilarious. It makes it humiliating for your characters to participate in. It makes no sense. It worsens your writing. Like on a base level, just admit to yourself that you don't know how Americans speak. She's an English author. Is she? Yes. Just write a novel that is set in England. Have your characters be English. Just you're not. There are so many moments where the speech was just randomly like, take it down an arch baby girl, kind of thing. Like it just read so bizarrely. Anastasia almost getting run over by a cyclist instead of being run into my toe. So embarrassing.

Bridget 23:48

And he's like, Watch up, danger.

Laura 23:50

And she's like, Oh my god. And then she goes back to the apartment with Kate and she starts crying and she's like, I was I'm really rattled. I was hit by a cyclist almost.

Bridget 23:59

You know what I thought was so funny about that? So she stumbled into the office, then she gets hit by the cyclist. Oh, I'm the most clumsy person in Washington State. But then never again does she trip, stumble, or fall.

Laura 24:11

No. Because you think that would be a major drawback for her BDSM lifestyle. Yes. But she's pretty skillful. Two things. Tick, done. Nice. Never address it again. On a really base level, obviously they are Edwin and Bella. She's got like long brown, messy hair. She prefers to wear sneakers and jeans. She's not like other girls. She's clumsy. She likes quote unquote British literature. She really has no aspirations or interests. In the first 30 pages, she has three boys who are interested in her and pining after her, but she's no button special. No. Christian likes cars. We get a lot of boring car detail that we'd never asked for. Very boring. He plays the piano, he's controlling. He's good at everything. Another comparison that I found so funny was like the sub. The sub but Edward's like speed or how he almost can like dare I say fly due to his speed. What can we give Christian Grey that offers a similar effect? Helicopters and gliders.

Bridget 25:27

And she's like, it's so stupid.

Laura 25:37

It's so stupid. And then I'm like So the other day I was at work and where I was working was quite close to an airfield. And I was sending Bridget a voice message, and I was out and about looking up at the sky, and I said, Oh my god, there's so many planes up in the sky. There's like one, two, four, five, oh my god, one of these planes looks like it's connected to another plane with a string. And I was really like thought I was witnessing someone nobody had ever seen before. I was like, went in to Google like plane connected to other plane with string. And that's how I found out about gliders. So actually, it's quite topical for this Christian. I did. One other thing, and I'm so aware I've been talking for quite a long time here. Actually, maybe two more things. But another thing that I thought was so funny is when they are in Christian's BDSM room. The Red Room of Pain. I don't want to call it that because I have so much to say about that. BDSM room, yep. In the Red Room of Pain. Play room with his Xbox. And his little thing is like, don't touch me. And her whole thing is give me love. And she starts like nuzzling up to him. She's like, Oh, I just want to be in his arms and in his chest. And he's like, get away from me. And then he tells her to go and like kneel far away from him in the corner. And he's like jumping back, and it's like his eyes were shining with excitement. And it made me think, is that their version of how Edward cannot handle her smell and he's always like pushing her away? It literally is like, go crutch in the corner, you little girl. So embarrassing. It's so embarrassing.

Bridget 27:17

And I do not know how this book was published with the scenes that unfold, the conversation that unfolds on page 458. What I have done in my notes is I have the paragraph from Fifty Shades and I have the paragraph from Twilight. Amazing. And so I'm gonna read each because they are the same. So first of all, we have 50 Shades. You know it's really not fair. I glanced down at the formic a tabletop, tracing a pattern in it with my index finger, trying to sound nonchalant. Then we have Twilight. You really shouldn't do that to people, I criticized. It's hardly fair. Fifty Shades. What's not fair? Twilight. Do what? Fifty Shades. How you disarm people? Women, men. Twilight. Dazzle them like that. She's probably hyperventilating in the kitchen right now. Fifty Shades. Do I disarm you? I snort all the time. And then Twilight. He seemed confused. Oh come on, I said dubiously. You have to know the effect you have on people. I dazzle people. Do I dazzle you frequently? They have the same conversation. It blew my mind. And I was reading it and I was like, Brian, this is the same. And Brian was like, huh? And I was like, it's this, it's the dazzle, it's the dazzle you conversation.

Laura 28:26

Where's her ravioli in her diet coke? That's what I wrote. She did get a diet coke. She did. She was like, I wanted a diet coke. Yeah. After he orders a wine, then she's like, hmm, I had to admit the wine was actually pretty good. Um, with my soup. Nettle soup. Oh, but I don't understand. I mean, I did share your shock. I was listening to that part as an audiobook. Oh, and unfortunately, I was on the highway and I was like, I must write a note about this. And I was like, can I like reach into my bag and get a notepad and pen? Is it will I remember? And my head was just so full of things that I it was a bad idea. I just was driving along like gliders, pigtails, red room of pain, infantilization, remember it all, remember it all. And was like, ah, I just can't, it's so much bursting out of me. I think the dazzle and disarm thing is something that happens a lot in this book because as I'm sure you would have noticed, she uses a lot of extremely bizarre descriptors. Oh, I have a list. And I think possibly what she's done in many a place is just look up a synonym for the already stupid word that Stephanie Meyer has used.

Bridget 29:35

100%. I've never heard of most of these words. I've never, never, ever read these words ever anywhere. I'm gonna pronounce them loquacious, concupiscent, infinitismally somnambulent, expunge, epithet, profligate, esoteric, brusque, irreverent. It just went on and on and on. I wanna I want to test it. What is it what do these words mean? I don't think she means tell me what gamin, gamin, gamine.

Laura 30:05

I don't even know how to say it. What does that word mean? I read an article in Screen Rant, which had the most hilarious line: Anna gets to enjoy BDSM on her own terms, but Bella becomes a vampire on her own terms. Girl power! This takes place. Not quite what you think they are. But it is really, really funny because I have looked at Stephanie Meyer's reaction to the Fifty Shades franchise, and she has not made many comments, but the comment that she has made was quite emphatic. The interview with Stephanie Meyer reads, When I ask Meyer whether she's read Fifty Shades, she quickly, emphatically says no. She doesn't wish James ill at all, she says, but it's so not my genre. Erotica is not something I read. I don't even read traditional romance. Why not? It's too smuddy. There's a reason my books have a lot of innocence. That's the sort of world I live in. And that's the only comment I could find.

Bridget 31:06

There is a reason that your books have a lot of innocence. And it's not because you find it smutty, it's because you're a Mormon, Stephanie Meyer, and you're trying to convert.

Laura 31:15

Mormon Grey, perhaps? The last thing that I have to say here, and I don't want to read into it too much. But Stephanie Meyer's husband is named Christian. Oh. And I just feel like it's a little bit weird. It's a little bit weird. We're doing Ericard.

Bridget 31:36

I can think of one last connection to Twilight that was a big part of our episodes, and that was the absolutely unhinged timeline that those books had. And you know, it's the same in this one. This is from the Fifty Shades of Grey wiki, which is honestly where we get all the good stuff. So thank you to all of the fans that create wikis about their favourite things. But this all happened in 2011, and so on the 9th of May, Anna first interviews Grey. Four days later is Kate and Anna's last day of classes before finals. And then the very next day on the Saturday is when Christian meets Anna at her workplace. I feel like it really kicks off in the next week because they have the photo shoot on the Sunday. It's the week of the finals. The 20th of May is when Anastasia drunk dials Christian and he comes and saves her from the bar. The very next day, the 21st of May, 12 days after they first meet, Christian kisses Anna in the elevator. They fly to Seattle in the helicopter. He shows Anna his playroom, reveals the BDSM lifestyle, and they rectify the situation of Anna's virginity. 12 days after they've met. Jiggers up. The very next day, the 22nd of May, is when Anna cooks breakfast in pigtails. She aces oral sex and then she meets she meets Christian's mother who has the strangest name, Dr. Grace Trevelyan Grey. Trevelyan Trev, I don't know how to say Trevelyan? Trevelyan? We get it. She's rich. I mean, from then on, it just continues to get crazy. Like there's not more than a day between any events that happen. She gets the MacBook on the 23rd of May. The 25th is when they renegotiate the BDSM contract. The 26th is their graduation and the spanking and the crying and the sleepover.

Laura 33:33

The 27th.

Bridget 33:36

Three days after she gets the MacBook, she gets the Audi. That's sick. The next day she gets the BlackBerry. Then the next day she moves to Seattle. Then the next day, the 29th of May, is when she has her appointment with the gynecologist. So that is 20 days after they meet. A full 20 days after they meet. And then we have a very long conversation about contraception. It's her first playroom encounter with Gray. They have dinner at his parents' house and they have sex in the boathouse while looking at his rowing trophies. The next day is when she has her interview. She flies first class to Georgia. He rocks up on the 1st of June, meets the mum. They go gliding on the 2nd of June. They go to IHOP. And then he goes back because there's a situation. She's back on the 3rd of June. And then inexplicably, on the 4th of June, she's like, Yeah, hit me with the belt, hates it, cries about it, says I love you, breaks up with him. So that was the 4th of June.

Laura 34:46

Oh my god. Um, not even a full month. Somebody wrote a note that said, and spoiler alert, but with the exception of the epilogue, all of the events of the Fifty Shades trilogy take place during 2011. And I will happily spoil some of the plot points from the next books, but based off one user's calculations, they were engaged for 39 days. And from the first day they met, they were married within 81 days. I'm shocked. So the entire trilogy takes place from May to August 2011. God. Oh my god. Actually speechless. Let's continue the insanity by talking about our protagonist, Anastasia Steele.

Bridget 35:32

She's a pale brown haired girl with blue eyes too big for a face. Honestly, can we have a fan fiction without the quintessential character description? She's got blue orbs, etc. etc. The only thing missing is her going downstairs and finding out that she's been sold to One Direction. Like, what else could we expect? Honestly. Her hair, she's got tendrils escaping, she's got way wet hair, she's ponytail galore, sleeping with wet hair. Loves converse. Before when you said the author was from England, really threw me. Because Anastasia is a bit of a simp for all things English. And it just reads to me as if someone or an American who's obsessed with British culture. That's kind of what I was thinking. I was thinking, hello, Casey McQuiston. Yeah, literally, one of the most like vomit-inducing sentences was when she said on page six, to be honest, I prefer my own company. Reading a classic British novel curled up in a chair in the campus library. Okay, go on. Keep telling us how boring you are. Who gives a shit?

Laura 36:29

Like, oh, and like, not to yuck someone else's yum. I would love to go to England one day too. But she has never left the continental US. And then when they're discussing where to go, she says the place she wants to see more than anywhere else is England.

Bridget 36:45

And it's like, uh, I would love to see Paris, but I really want to see. You could do both. Also, the second thing that I found absolutely just like unfathomable, and now that I know that she is from England makes it even more ridiculous, is her favourite tea being Twining's English breakfast. And then her being so touched every time Christian remembers. And she's like, wow, if you have it, Twining's English Breakfast. Is Twinings not the most popular tea company in the in the world? What's it like? Two bucks. Yeah. And other than like uh bushels in Australia, Yorkshire tea in England, I cannot name any other tea company other than Lipton and Twinings. Can you?

Laura 37:26

Like famous. I mean, not off the top of my head. Twinings would be probably the number one brand that springs to my mind.

Bridget 37:32

Twinings is the one endorsed by the royal family. Like, it's not an underground tea brand. Where did you find it? I can't believe you have English breakfast.

Laura 37:42

It's just so, so stupid. She is so dumb. But she is a woman who contains multitudes. Not only do we have to hear about Anastasia, but it appears that there are two other characters that live alongside her. One of which being her subconscious. And the other, her inner goddess. Oh, oh God. Please tell me more. I mean, I told you I was tallying something. And the inner goddess and the subconscious were two other things I was tallying for some time. They're not the thing I was tallying. Oh, that's what I thought it was. I mean, they're weird on so many levels. But they're just something she decides to use after a certain point in the book and then never stops using. Like I think we went 50 pages through the novel without her referencing her subconscious. And then once she did it once, she was like, hello. I have hit on some gold here. Struck gold. Eureka. What do you think was more criminal? The subconscious or the inner goddess?

Bridget 38:41

The inner goddess really gave me the shits. But I hated the subconscious as well. The subconscious was a little slut-shaming bitch. And the inner goddess was an idiot. Both. So they're both horrible. I think the worst iteration of her inner goddess is when she said, My inner goddess is doing the merengue with some salsa moves. Or when her inner goddess was sitting in the lotus position looking serene, except for the sly, self-congratulatory smile on her face. In no world is that a sentence you should write.

Laura 39:17

It's so stupid. I had the merengue one, but I also had my inner goddess is doing a triple axle dismount off the uneven bars, and abruptly my mouth is dry.

Bridget 39:27

I just, I can't, I can't think about the inner goddess.

Laura 39:31

I flush. My inner goddess is down on bended knee with her hands clasped in supplication, begging me. How can you write that and live with yourself, honestly? So these are things that I was very, very thankful that I didn't have to count because they were said so many times, and it was actually so hard to keep a track of them all because I was just trying to get through this book. But the phrase inner goddess was mentioned 58 times in that book. And then the subconscious comes in at a mind-blowing 82 occurrences. We have Oh Mai is popular. Yep. Oh my had 79 occurrences. Crap, 101. Holy Moses, holy shit, holy fake swear, like whatever, you know, insert thing here, 172.

Bridget 40:18

My goodness me.

Laura 40:19

Gee's 82. And there was lots of gasping, sharp intakes of breath, lots of murmuring, whispering. But the inner goddess and the subconscious were the most offensive of all.

Bridget 40:30

The ones I wrote down that I thought were particularly egregious were double crap. Holy cow, monkey's uncle, holy hell, holy Moses. This is not the dialogue of a 21-year-old woman. It's especially not the dialogue of a 21-year-old woman who's been living out of home for the last four years. She's a dialogue of a lady in her mid-50s. She uses smart as an adjective, smartly dressed. Her jokes are not funny at all. Like on page 82, she said, probably to her subconscious, she was like, honestly, his surname should be cryptic, not grey. Like that's just not funny. It's like objectively not a funny thing to say. And even just things like when she was getting ready for her date. This is on page 85, and it says, under Kate's tireless and frankly, intrusive instruction. My legs and underarms are shaved to perfection, my eyebrows plucked, and I am buffed all over. It has been a most unpleasant experience. But she assures me that this is what men expect these days. These days, you're 21. That's true. These days, you haven't been like married for 20 years, and then now you're suddenly divorced and getting back into the dating scene. You're 21. Another one. When she is talking about Christian, just the way that she talks about him is so nauseating. He's talking about a helicopter or a plane or a car or something. She goes, Oh, boys and their toys. No 21-year-old is saying that. There's a time when he drops her off and she's like, Oh, by the way, I'm wearing your underpants. And then she sachets into the house and like, oh, it's just, it's actually, it makes me sick. When she's reading the contract in her bedroom, she's like, Oh my, some of this is hot, but is it from me? Holy shit, could I do this? I need space. I need to think. Nobody thinks like this. It's it actually hurt my brain trying to make my notes. And then the last thing, the amount of times she referred to her MacBook as a mean machine.

Laura 42:29

I didn't, I didn't pick up on that at all.

Bridget 42:32

She did it like at least 10 times. She was like, I booted up the mean machine to check my email to see if I had one from Christian. Why are you calling your computer a mean machine? I don't understand.

Laura 42:42

I think it's so interesting that you've viewed her as an old lady. Now that you've explained it, I totally see how you got there. But I was viewing her as a child. Like I thought her character was extremely infantilized. And I guess it can be both. Like it's a character, it's an older lady trying to write an innocent character and taking it too far. So much of her internal monologue and the weird lines in the sand that she draws are things that come from the point of view of an older woman. She had shame about such strange things that made me feel like it's just not of this time to be concerned about. Even just the language she used to describe her own body or her own anatomy was like, just call it what it is. She would always say, you know, desire pulls way down low. Down low. Way down there. Or this one I thought was particularly telling. This time he doesn't stop at my knee. He continues up the inside of my thigh, pushing my thighs apart as he does. And I know what he's going to do. Part of me wants to push him off because I'm mortified. I'm embarrassed. He's going to kiss me there. I know it. She is so stressed and ashamed about these things. And then he'll Ask things like, oh, are you on your period? Or have you taken your birth control? And she's like, so invasive! So out of line. Oh, you're so intrusive. And I just think he just put eggs inside you, and you're concerned about him asking you about if your period's due.

Bridget 44:15

This is something I was constantly annoyed about. And Christian and Anastasia were both through this. And I just could not understand why they were constantly gasping. Gasp is used 34 times, gasps is used 11 times. Whenever someone said anything slightly like risque, Christian says something about being unable to stay away. And she says, then don't. And he gasps. It's like it's not that shocking. And then on the very next page, he says that he'd like to bite her lip and she's gasping. She says that she liked it when he kissed her in the elevator and he gasped. He told her to stop chewing on her lip because she's already sore and she gasps. Like you've just spent the whole night having sex. This is not a shocking thing that happens. And I just don't understand her like constant switching between this like innocent virginal creature and then letting her inner goddess freak flag fly. Which one is it?

Laura 45:07

The way that her desire and her arousal is written really creeped me out. It really made me so uncomfortable because I feel like I read a lot of not a lot, but I have read literature where in parts there have been scenes that are described from a child's point of view doing that sticky weird thing that kids do where they're like, My privates feel funny, or like, you know, I watch them kissing on TV. I'm tingling. Like I and that is the way that she speaks about her own sexuality. Adult body. Yeah, mm-hmm feels fizzy. Mmm, me like you. It's so disgusting. It's so just call it. I I don't, I honestly felt so confused about what this book was trying to achieve because it's like this book that's describing these pretty explicit acts, but then using language that's so veiled and like shrouded in sort of I don't know if it's shrouded in shame, but like to me, it's like just call it a penis, just call it a dick. Don't call it my apex, just say clitoris, for God's sake.

Bridget 46:07

Like because you do on other pages. Yeah. Also, like after he took her virginity, you know, as we have in every like historical novel, there's like the blood on the sheets, and she's embarrassed by the blood. He doesn't give a shit about like a speck of blood on the sheets. No. Later in the book, he takes your tampon out and puts it in the toilet for some strange reason and has sex with you on your period, and she's still like, oh, my period. What? He doesn't give a shit, and neither should you. Like, is she that you're both adults? It's so embarrassing to read someone like that who was so caught up in her head. It's just so inconsistent.

Laura 46:43

And of course, just like every book that we ever read, we get the it's so big. How's it going to? Oh my, will it fit? I can't believe that was inside me. And then again with the um virginity scene, that was excruciating. It says, Oh, I cry as I feel a weird pinching sensation deep inside as he rips through my virginity, as he rips through your hymen, babe.

Bridget 47:07

Yeah.

Laura 47:07

Google it, Anastasia, for God's sake.

Bridget 47:09

Honestly, who gives a shit about virginity? And I feel like even in 2011, we were having conversations about this. And I just feel like when I was a kid, I was given a lot of books about puberty and like, you know, sex education maybe wasn't great, but it was there for us. But the way I feel like I learnt about puberty and like hormones and things like that is from books that were written at an age-appropriate level about things like this. And I feel like even when I was 13, 14, I knew that this would not be how this sort of stuff happens. And this is a woman who was born in the 60s who is writing a book that I think is quite damaging for young women to be reading. Like her first orgasm comes from nipple stimulation alone.

Laura 47:52

And she never stops coming from that point on.

Bridget 47:55

It never stops. And then instantly after that, an orgasm from penetrative sex. She is single-handedly undoing all positive sex education from like any source with this stupid, stupid book. Have you never read a scientific book? Even as a child, I knew that this wouldn't happen. It's so true. It's so stupid. Erica, if you need a book, babe, I've got a book. It's called Girl Stuff. It's by Kaz Cook. Give me your address, I'll send it to you. It'll clear up a lot of these misconceptions that you're thinking. It just doesn't happen like that, okay? It's so ridiculous.

Laura 48:31

Yeah, I don't know. It's just the whole thing when he tells her about going to the playroom and she's like, You want to play Xbox? He perpetuates this as well. He's like, You're so naive, you're so innocent, I love teaching you things. And then there's that really gross scene where she does the pigtails, which is something she does repeatedly. First time she does the pigtails, he says, You look so young with these. And that won't protect you. Horrific. And she even has the thought, maybe if I look more young and innocent, it'll protect me from blue beard. So I was trying to catalogue these moments that I called naughty anesthesia, which was just where she would do things that was just so dumb, and then she'd be like, Oh my god, it can't believe I just did that. And one in particular that truly, truly made me spiral was Wait, can I guess what it is? Yes. Is it the toothbrush? Yeah.

Bridget 49:31

Oh god, do you want to do the honest? I've got a few, I've got four like sections, unhinged parts. First one's called Are You Stupid? The second one is Womp Womp. The third one is visceral reactions. And this one was in visceral reactions. She used Christian's toothbrush, not once, but twice. And she said, I felt so naughty. It's such a thrill. And I just wrote R.I.P. Laura. Because we've had this conversation before in the romantic comedy episode. And it's one of my favorite bits from any episode we've ever done. Because you're like, hang on, hang on. We cannot gloss over this because you are so appalled that you think that Erin thought it was okay to for the character to use someone's toothbrush, and you are so affronted by it. I to this day am upset by that. And I could not believe it happened twice. And I could not believe how stupid she was about it. She was like scampering around like a little pixie, being like, hee hee hee, I used his toothbrush.

Laura 50:32

Another one was when she says to him, Does this mean you're gonna make love to me tonight, Christian? Holy shit, did I just say that? His mouth drops open slightly, but he recovers quickly. Another one was when she just cannot comprehend where the heck her underwear has gone and why he would be taking them. He's like, Why hasn't he given me back my panties? I steal into the bathroom, bewildered by my lack of underwear. She just has no thoughts. And like she contradicts herself frequently. It will say something like, I love this uncomplicated man, or then like this isn't like Christian at all. And then I don't know Christian at all. Like, I'm so surprised. I shouldn't have been surprised at all. Like, just stop thinking. We don't want to hear any of it.

Bridget 51:23

Please. You're not overthinking. A few times, like, she's accused of overthinking. She's underthinking. She's barely conscious. She's barely sentient. She's so stupid. I hate her so much. I hate her so much as well. She's like, she's so much worse than Bella. I've had like pretty strong feelings about Bella for most of my life, but I've forgotten everything I ever hated about Bella.

Laura 51:48

I hate Anastasia. Apart from naughty Anastasia, one of my other sections was Anastasia the Freethinker. And I just truly cannot understand the stupid lines in the sand she draws for the sake of being different.

Bridget 52:09

I hate it. I hate it so much.

Laura 52:14

Oh God. One thing that really annoyed me was out of all of the points in the extremely long contract, the main point that she took issue with was nobody's gonna tell me what I can and can't eat. And then she doesn't eat. There's this whole thing with food. And I feel like it's there for Christian to exercise his control over her.

Bridget 52:39

I feel like so much of this book is building the foundations for the second and the third book. Instead of just focusing on the first story, giving the first book a proper structure, she spent the whole time trying to put these little clues in about what's happening in the second and the third books. And I it's dumb because it's not a complete book.

Laura 53:01

No, no, it actually ends on I love an unresolved ending, but this was just pure stupidity.

Bridget 53:08

And I want to talk about it later. But I think the food thing is like, yes, control, but also Bella never ate. I do know what you're saying about how she seems like, you know, a child. He treats her like a child. I think the reason why I think she's an old woman is because of this line on page four. She's given Kate the soup. She's been like, would you like Nayquil or Tylenol? Which is another like American thing.

Laura 53:35

Panodol or Neurofinbade.

Bridget 53:38

She's given Kate the soup, she's made sure she's got her medication. She's made some sort of slut shamey comment about how hot Kate is and how that annoys her and whatever. But then she gets in Kate's car. And Kate's car is a sporty Mercedes-CLK. Oh, the Merc is a fun drive, and the miles slip away as I hit the pedal to the metal.

Laura 53:58

My guess.

Bridget 54:00

And from that moment on, middle-aged mother.

Laura 54:03

Like we always said, what is lost by just aging them up in Twilight a bit. We have slightly aged up characters, and this is what you choose to do with it. Speaking of her having no thoughts, she had absolutely no critical thinking around any of her interactions with Christian, but especially the initial ones. She had no sort of sense of alarm when he came into her store buying masking tape, zip ties, and rope.

Bridget 54:32

That was one of the strangest interactions that I've ever read in a book. And it's part of my notes category that is titled Fifty Shades of Who Cares? This is full of shit. But I don't understand why this scene with the hardware store was included, other than because of the fact that Bella works at a hardware store for like a minute. Obviously, she's got to work there too. And then she's got to, you know, have the pole being in love with her, blah, blah, blah. But I also just found it so unrealistic. And I mean, I'm not somebody who frequents hardware stores. And if I do go, it's like for some flowers or something. And so I thought I would text my friend Tim, who loves going to hardware stores. And he goes, and I've been with him before, and he's like looking for a certain, let's say, nail. And he gets the shits because people have like picked nails up and put them in the wrong place. So I've stood there with him before as he restocks the shelves. And so I thought if anyone's gonna know about these things, it'll be him. So I messaged him and I said, How many widths of masking tape would you say they would be in a normal hardware shop? Because I thought it was so ridiculous that they only had two. Yeah. Turns out that's correct. He said normally there would be a 25mm and a 50 millimeter. Okay. It was good as well. Okay, cool. And then I said, also, if you were working in a hardware shop and someone asked you for cable ties, masking tape, and natural filament rope, and then asked you what else you would recommend to go with those items, what would you recommend? Because that was just so stupid. Yes.

Laura 56:02

And she was like, uh coveralls. And I wonder if the joke or quote unquote joke was also like, haha, these items seem like he's a serial killer. A serial killer would wear coveralls so he didn't get blood on his clothes.

Bridget 56:14

Yes, and she's so stupid. She's so stupid. That she doesn't ever think of those things.

Laura 56:18

No, not even though.

Bridget 56:19

She thinks he's doing renovations. As if this billionaire is renovating his apartment, you idiot. And then he said, I don't know what else you'd need unless I knew what you were doing. Yeah, that's right, Anastasia. And then he said, Rope, cable ties, and tape sounds sus though. Yeah, once again, Anastasia, you're an idiot. The next day he sent me a message. I suppose now is a good time to ask why you asked these questions and ask that Brian is okay. I require proof of life.

Laura 56:51

See?

Bridget 56:51

Tim would never end up in a BDSM relationship with Christian Grey. I would argue that no one in the world that has a brain like bigger than a six-year-old would end up in a BDSM relationship with Christian Grey. Oh my gosh. She is the stupidest character I've ever read.

Laura 57:06

And like when he rocks up at her bar, he's like tracking her cell phone or something. And she thinks that's funny. Yeah, he love bombs her with the Blackberry, the MacBook, and a car. And we now know that that was in what, like the space of a week? A week after being met? Maybe two weeks at the absolute most. He crashes her holiday with her mum, which was insane.

Bridget 57:29

Yeah, and he was like, Do you want me to go? And she was like, No, I'm happy you're here. Why? You got you you came here to have time away from him so you could make an informed decision. You had less, probably less than 48 hours away from him.

Laura 57:42

And you think that's okay. I am really starting to come around to your concept of Anastasia Steele as an elderly woman. Because a couple of things that I had highlighted, I called it like old sport language or southern mama language. One was in the section where she says, Holy crap, how she didn't know how to put on a condom. She says, I admire my handiwork and him. He really is a fine specimen of a man. Looking at him is very, very arousing. Shut up. Another section is Christian talking. And he says, Oh, Anastasia, you taste mighty fine, he breathes. Shall I make you come? Please, I beg. And then later on in the page, well done, baby, he murmurs. Did that hurt? No, I breathe. I can barely keep my eyes open. Why am I so tired? Did you expect it to? And then it's like turns motivational. You see, most of your fears in your head, Anastasia. Would you do it again?

Bridget 58:52

It's just so stupid. It was one bit. And they're in the playroom and they're having sex. She's tied up to like a pole. I don't know. Who cares, honestly, what they're doing at any point. But he goes, hold on, Anastasia. He shouts through clenched teeth. Like she's riding the horse. We're about to jump over the canyon. Hold on. So stupid. I don't know. Hold on to what?

Laura 59:26

You tied up her hands, babe. She's trying her best. And then when he unties her, he's like, easy, mama. Well, there girl, we'll get you a fan of water. We'll have a nice Caesar salad and diet coke.

Bridget 59:44

Stupid Natal soup.

Laura 59:48

Astonishingly, my favorite Anastasia steel line comes Mia lines after Hold on, Anastasia. Is it when they've cleared the canyon? They're over the canyon. So she's trussed up. My arms are aching, my legs feel uncertain. My scalp is getting sore from his tugging on my hair, and I can feel a gathering deep inside me. Oh no. And for the first time, I fear my orgasm.

Bridget 1:00:23

Is she gonna shoot herself?

Laura 1:00:26

If I come, I'll collapse. How she hold on? My body is responding. How? But suddenly Christian steals slamming really deep. Come on, Anastasia, give it to me, he groans. And then after he cuts her off the thing, he says, I declare this Anna open. And sorry, it could be a good segue, but one of the most egregious things he says is when he's talking about Kate and Elliot. Oh yeah. Do we want to talk about it now? Yeah. They are busy making the beast with two backs. What does it mean? Why did he say that? The devil lives within their station.

Bridget 1:01:32

When I finished the book, my first thought was, did I get a dud copy? Like, am I missing the last third of the book? Because they have the same conversation for 80% of the book. They reiterate the same things over and over and over. They come to conclusions and then they immediately go back to the start and they start again. It's a cycle that never ends. So that's 80% of the book. The other 20% of the book, they're either emailing each other the exact same conversation or they're having sex. That's the whole book. And I just don't understand. Does the author not understand the structure of a narrative? So when children are in primary school, they are taught the structure of a narrative is there is an orientation, which is the beginning. We have the complication, which is the problem. We have the climax, which is the most exciting part. And then we have the resolution, where there's a happy ending or a sad ending. Where was the resolution? I I mean I would argue where was the climax because there was nothing exciting happening at all. But why did we spend so much time setting up shit for the sequels? Because the things that I remember happening in this trilogy, none of it was in the first book. And so like I was getting to like page 500 and I saw that there was 13 pages left. They're still like happily having sex and doing whatever. And I'm like, where's the stalker? Where's where's the the how he buys the publishing house? Like, what is going on?

Laura 1:03:02

It's not even in this book. It's absolutely nothing. I'm happy and sad to report that you have not received a dud copy that is simply the book. Should we talk about Christian?

Bridget 1:03:12

I'm a bit confused by Christian, and I think the rest of the world is too, because I tried to Google, I typed in is Christian Grey, but then I got sidetracked when I looked at the autocomplete Google searches. And so we have is Christian Grey abusive? Yes. Is Christian Grey a narcissist? Yes. Is Christian Grey a psychopath? Yes. Is Christian Grey a sadist? Yes. Is Christian Grey gay? I would say he's a homophobe. He does seem to be. That was weird. Is Christian Grey adopted? Yes. And then we have, is Christian Grey autistic, married, a Scorpio, a position. And I think that is a discredit to the author because her character is not fleshed out at all. That these people are Googling these things, they're confused.

Laura 1:03:57

They both have potential to be interesting characters as well. Like the themes of this book aren't unenticing. And it has the potential to kind of dispel a lot of myths and challenge a lot of taboo, I guess, if it were respectfully and accurately describing things like BDSM or the experience of abuse or the aftermath of abuse. But I feel like it does it so indelicately.

Bridget 1:04:27

I feel like Christian is always about a centimeter away from making a sensible point. And then he just pivots and he's back to being like unhinged. And I think that's because of her research process. I mean, I don't know anything about BDSM either, and I wouldn't know how to write a respectful and like accurate book about it. But that's that's why I'm not trying. I feel like what she did was she was like, I am gonna write a book that is so sexy, I'm just gonna chuck like heaps of mud at the wall and see whatever sticks. Because we had like all the BDSM stuff, that's like an umbrella for all that stuff underneath it. We had the foot fetish that kept reappearing when they would soak each other's insoles. I feel like she just had heard of something one time and just chucked it in without thinking about how that would connect with the rest of the things that she put in.

Laura 1:05:23

I have done a little bit of reading, and overall it does seem like the consensus is that this does not accurately represent the BDSM lifestyle. On one blog post I was reading from Ree Spark in an article called The Misrepresentation of BDSM in Fifty Shades of Grey, so pretty black and white, um, it says the film, and I think by association, the book represents the community by putting forth the idea that BDSM does not really involve clear communication and consent, alongside advancing the notion that submissives don't have the power or have any power, I think I would say, within a BDSM relationship. It goes on to say that a key component of this is like having a healthy power dynamic. Everybody needs to consent to the roles they're to play, and they have to understand what those roles are. I don't think he's giving her any or all of the information. He's always like, just wait, you'll find out, you'll love it. But how can you consent to something if you don't know what it is? You know, like and yes, they have the safe word, but she's not experienced enough or confident enough to enact that safe word. It's not an equal power balance.

Bridget 1:06:30

I feel like a safe word is intended to be something that is like almost automatic when like someone who knows their limits, they know their boundaries, and once those boundaries are being reached or approached, it's an automatic reaction to use that safe word. That's not something that is automatic for Anastasia. I don't think she even remembers them half the time. A lot of the time she's trying to prove herself to Christian, and that doesn't seem to be a safe way to proceed. They're daring each other to go further, except one person has more knowledge, experience, and power than the other.

Laura 1:07:04

And I think another thing that I really struggled with with this BDSM element is that from my understanding of it, it seems like there's a lot of confusion from the author between BDSM and abuse or trauma. Especially with the language that was used around Christian's sexual preferences in this book. They're called like sexual proclivities or your sick and twisted kinky fantasy. Yeah. It's very much ingrained in the idea that he has these sick, twisted sexual tendencies as a result of his abuse. And it doesn't really give a lot of nuance to the fact that a BDSM lifestyle can exist in perfectly healthy, well-adjusted people with no history of trauma or abuse in their backstory. It kind of furthers that as well by having his sexual preferences seen as something to be changed or cured by Anastasia. She's wanting to make him more, you know, he wants to be so that he wants to be touched, so that he cuddles her, so that he's, you know, shows love in a way that she understands or can accept. And also in the way that he uses sex as a weapon.

Bridget 1:08:09

Which I think is the only intelligent thing she ever says. She's spot on. And he says things to her like on page 293, do you really feel like this after she's feeling shame? I think after she's being spanked or whatever. He says, Do you really feel like this or do you think you ought to feel like this? And this is what I mean by he's always a centimeter away from making a good point. He says two very different things. If that is how you feel, do you think you could just try to embrace these feelings, deal with them for me? That's what a submissive would do. He could have gone into this whole monologue about society wants women to feel shame. They want blah blah blah. You know, we could talk about this until the cows come home. He ruins it in one second. He's like, do it for me. That's what a submissive would do, even though they have established time and time and time and time again that she is not a good submissive, she is not a true submissive, she doesn't even know what that means because she's still confused. Does he want to hurt me? Is this right? Is this wrong? Like she still doesn't get it, and they've never signed a contract. And she doesn't even understand what she has to do with the contract. I especially think that their relationship doesn't work because she doesn't listen to a word he says, and he doesn't listen to a word that she says. And so the night that she thinks that she's going to lose her virginity to him, like they fly there and the chopper, she says, Here I was foolishly thinking that I'd be spending a night of unparalleled passion in this man's bed, and when negotiating this weird arrangement, he literally told you multiple times that you would be doing paperwork. What did you think that meant? What did you think paperwork meant? And you're sitting down shocked that there's paperwork involved. And then she signs the NDA without reading it, and then later is confused about what the NDA entails. She would have known if she just read it before she signed. But then also when she gets the contract and she's like, Oh my god, this is crazy. What this is crazy shit. He's messed up. And then she says, What am I gonna do? I want him, but on his terms, I just don't know. Perhaps I should negotiate what I want. Go through that ridiculous contract line by line and say what is acceptable and what isn't. That is 100% so obviously what you are meant to do and what you should do.

Laura 1:10:26

And we have to read that stupid contract three whole times in this book.

Bridget 1:10:31

Even later, when they say it the contract is a moot point now, we still have to read it again. Yep. Why?

Laura 1:10:37

I don't know. I don't know, Bridget. I was spiralling so hard by that point. I don't understand why we had it. The second time sent me into a tailspin, but then the third time sent me directly into orbit. On that same blog from Re-Spark, there is a quote that says the way that Fifty Shades of Grey portrays BDSM is problematic because it's a form of sexual or erotic play that can influence someone's lifestyle. BDSM is not something that a person should need to behave functionally in a relationship, just as it shouldn't be all-controlling of an individual. And I think that's a good point as well. And I'm still not sure how to fully articulate this, but Christian Gray uses Anastasia and by extension women because his submissives are only women, because he's like, I don't go in for that with men. Like just join a fight club or a gym. But he uses it as an outlet for his anger or his frustration and his need for control. He refers to it as his therapy at one point. And even like moments where, you know, he's saying, I'm palm-twitchingly mad, that's not an established thing between them. They've only known each other a couple of days. And like maybe if that was a dialogue that existed in your relationship and you had some other foundation where you were like, okay, he's a nice normal guy. We have a healthy and safe relationship. That's a sex thing that we both do and understand. It doesn't mean he wants to hurt me, then that's fine. But if I were just meeting someone and they were telling me, I want to hit you, I would be interpreting that as only a dangerous and scary thing.

Bridget 1:12:09

On page 67, he says, Well, if you were mine, you wouldn't be able to sit down for a week after the stunt you pulled. The stunt was she went out to a bar and then one of her friends tried to kiss her without her consent.

Laura 1:12:20

Yeah, that's not her fault. No. Oh my god. She gets so close to this point so many times. I think it's the email she sends him possibly before he flies to Georgia. Um and the subject line, God, it killed me how they changed the subject line every single time. D did people used to do that in emails? I can't remember. I hated it. And she says, but as usual, you overreact. You can't write things like that to me, bound and gagged in a crate. Were you serious or was that a joke? That scares me. You scare me. I'm completely caught up in your spell, considering a lifestyle with you that I didn't even know existed until last week. And then you write something like that and I want to run screaming into the hills. I won't, of course, because I'd miss you, really miss you. I want us to work, but I'm terrified of the depth of feeling I have for you and the dark path you're leading me down. Well your offering is erotic and sexy, and I'm curious, but I'm also scared you'll hurt me physically and emotionally. After three months you could say goodbye, and where will that leave me if you do? And she says a bunch of other stuff, but if you have known someone a number of days, and this is not the first time, and it's not the last time in this book where she says, I'm scared of you, I don't want you to hurt me, don't hit me, don't spank me, whatever it is, I would probably put that relationship on the back burner.

Bridget 1:13:32

Especially when the only time she can be honest with him is through email.

Laura 1:13:35

Because she's expecting no repercussion, and then he shows up in Georgia, that's terrifying.

Bridget 1:13:40

And she's like, Yay! It's interesting to see the people around them and their reaction to their relationship. So we saw this a little bit in Twilight as well. Like Charlie was rightfully hesitant to accept Bella and Edward's relationship, and Renee said that they like orbit around each other, but didn't really seem to think that that was any sort of problem. But in this book, we have Kate Kavanaugh, who is Anastasia's best friend, and honestly, probably one of the only people that ever has anything like resembling sensible to say. But like Christian, she gets so close to making a good point and then like ruins it. So at the dinner party, or like any time they meet, Kate is stirring Christian up by saying, you know, she went to the bar with Jose, or tells Ray that Christian is Anna's boyfriend before they've discussed whether that is actually what's going on or anything like that. And she's trying to stir him up, she's trying to make him angry, but then when she gets Anastasia alone, she's like, I don't like him, I don't trust him, he's dangerous. All you do is cry since you've met him, you're a different person. So she makes him angry and then leaves her alone with him and leaves Anna to deal with those consequences. And that's just not something a friend should do. No, it's so bad, and I just don't understand why we can't have one good character.

Laura 1:14:58

Kate is uh not a great friend, and I really like to think that she does those things, you know, tells Ray because she's like, I actually don't trust this guy, and someone needs to know what's going on here in case anything happens, or you know, she's trying to out him to hold him accountable or keep Anastasia safe, but I really don't think there was that much thought going into it. I think she was just there to be like a oh my god, you can't say that. Wait, so are we actually a boyfriend, girlfriend?

Bridget 1:15:24

Oh my god, put sunscreen on him in the love hypothesis. It's literally what it is. Another thing I was wondering, and another thing that made me instantly think of you, like the toothbrush, was when Christian encouraged Anastasia to do to do some research. And I mean, first of all, Anastasia was like, internet, I don't have access to a computer, only Kate's laptop, and I couldn't use the one at Clayton's, not for this sort of research, surely. Which doesn't make any sense to me because in 2011 people definitely had computers. Yes. And so she was at college, was she handwriting her assessments because we were in high school at that point, and our assignments were on the computer. She didn't have a computer in 2011. I found that astonishing as well. There wasn't a library, even Bella had a laptop. Even Bella had a laptop, it had all those viruses on it, but it definitely she had a laptop. And then the second part of this that I thought that you would have really hated was Christian told her that she started her research with Wikipedia. Always start with Wikipedia.

Laura 1:16:27

Look, we tell our students Wikipedia is a good starting point, but only if you're hoping to gain a basic understanding of a topic. I, for one, would like to know what she found on Wikipedia that was useful to her because surely it would be a more of a visual, audio-visual kind of thing that would help you out in this. And you can't tell me that he didn't have a book. Or there could have been anything. Like he could have they could have watched something together or read something together and talked through it a little bit.

Bridget 1:16:58

They could have had a single conversation about like what is expected of her as a submissive and but the Wikipedia, woof, that took me out.

Laura 1:17:08

I did circle that. I remember circling that in my book. There was something that made me think of you, and it was also computer adjacent. It was the fact that he used his work emails to send these filthy, filthy, damaging, often threatening, violent messages to her.

Bridget 1:17:27

At one point, she says, How can you send these on the company server? And I wrote in my book, even Anastasia knew not to use email Alex and Henry. Even Anastasia, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Laura 1:17:45

What's the point of getting someone to sign an NDA if you're just gonna put all of that stuff in email? I don't know.

Bridget 1:17:52

So dumb, even though we've sort of gone back to Anastasia. Where I land with Christian is in books, I love Toxic Men. I love Edward. I love Corey Elenus. I love who Christian was trying to be. I would say for 99.999% of the book, I was like actively repulsed by Christian. And at no point did I think I love him or I'm rooting for this guy or I want their relationship to work. The only time I was like, oh, hang on a minute, was when we watched the trailer before, and I watched a little bit of the scene where he takes her home from the bar, and I was like, Oh, actually, I kind of get it. Yeah. And I was like, oh, it's like that Britney Broski meme, like, oh, we were both honestly quite speechless. But then he did something so gross, which was he took his shirt off and then he like prowled up the bed and took a bite out of toast that was in her mouth. And I was okay, you've just ruined it now. Like you opened your mouth, you ruined it. And I just think, other than the shock value, because I don't think this book would have been so famous if it wasn't for the sex and it wasn't for the BDSM, but I would have enjoyed it if it was a all of the aspects of like billionaire, college student, interviewing him for the paper, maybe a little bit of like a control freak. I would have enjoyed all of that, and I would have actually liked Christian if it wasn't for all of that other stuff. Like it it was just too much, too dark, but with no real reason why.

Laura 1:19:21

Yes. There were some elements that in a better written book I know I would have loved, and one of those is like he's never brought anyone home before. He's never had a girlfriend before. And it's that same thing that I enjoyed about Twilight, like the being seen, being picked out from the crowd. I enjoy that. I enjoy a shy character coming out of a shell. I enjoy the softening of like a hard, hostile man. But this just it didn't deliver on any of its promises, as is documented.

Bridget 1:19:51

We hate the who did this to you, and like that sort of aggro alpha male um sort of personality. And he said his guiding philosophy on page 12 during the interview is a man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled. And like, what kind of shit is that? That is just a bunch of words put together to sound like you're an alpha male. It's so dumb. I and at that point I was like, no, nothing this man can say will make me like him. And I was right, except for one thing. There was one thing I found endearing. It was Later's Baby. You liked that? I thought it was a bit cute how he sort of adopted it. That's the only thing I liked about him.

Laura 1:20:40

I didn't mind it the first time he said it. Yeah. And I would have liked it a lot more if he hadn't kept saying baby throughout the rest of the day. I hate baby. I hate baby so much, and I do not believe that Christian Grey is a man that says baby. No, I don't think anybody should say baby. That's what was giving me Southern Mama. Like, you're doing so good, baby. You're done so good. She's almost there. She's the baby's crown in mama. Like, mom and Bub doing well. But I have some things that made me hate him. Yes. Um, or made me laugh hard. When Anastasia says, This is mean you're gonna make love to me tonight. Holy shit. Did I just say that? No, Anastasia, it doesn't. First, I don't make love. I fuck hard. My mouth drops open. Fuck hard. Holy shit, that sounds so hot. But why are we looking at a playroom? I am mystified. You want to play on your exbox? Oh my god. And then she repeats that back later as well. She says it more than once, but at one point he says, you know, we're gonna he finds out she's a virgin, they've got to quote unquote rectify the situation. I thought you didn't make love. I thought you fucked hard. I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry. So embarrassing. And then at some point later on, she says to Kate, Oh, Christian doesn't make love. He only fucks.

Bridget 1:22:05

Oh, someone said that to me, I'm like, okay, take a step back, please. I don't want to know about this. So gross. Another thing that really turned me off, this. He takes my hand once more. Holy cow, he's leading me onto the dance floor. Shit. I do not dance. He can sense my reluctance, and under the coloured lights, I see his amused, sardonic smile. He gives my hand a sharp tug, and I'm in his arms again, and he starts to move, taking me with him. Boy, he could dance. And I can't believe that I'm following him step for step. Maybe it's because I'm drunk that I can keep up. He's holding me so tight against him, his body against mine. If he wasn't clutching me so tightly, I'm sure I would swoon at his feet. Oh god. What are they dancing to?

Laura 1:22:49

Boy, he can dance. I hate, I think we've talked about this before. You are a notorious dancing in books hater.

Bridget 1:22:55

It's so embarrassing. It really is. Why are you dancing? No one's good at dancing at the club. Like, what is he doing?

Laura 1:23:02

Like, oh, it's so gross. It could have been like wildfire or icebreaker. I feel like it's really bad in those books. They're always like grinding, and suddenly we were grinding, our body's heaving under the strobe lights.

Bridget 1:23:13

I wouldn't even mind if they were grinding, but they were matching each other step for step. Like he's doing a fully choreographed like Monica and Ross New Year's Eve dance routine. Like that's what I was imagining in my head. It's so embarrassing.

Laura 1:23:27

Another thing that's so embarrassing is when he says, Oh, 50 shades are fucked up.

Bridget 1:23:33

And then she kept trying to give her a little spin on it. Oh, it's so bad. I have two more things that aren't really Christian related. It's the things that Anastasia says, but I had like a like a full-body tremor of disdain when I read it. The first was on page 28, and she's embarrassed for one of the many reasons. She says, I must be the colour of the communist manifesto. Why would you say that? Why? Do you think that's a good description? And then when they went into the playroom for the first time, she said the walls and ceiling were a deep dark burgundy and it was womb-like. Yes!

Laura 1:24:19

Not everything has to be like, oh, I don't even know. Like a vagina. I just it's so stupid. She's trying to be so like arty. Instead of saying dawn, she said early pre-morning light. I have one more thing about Christian that is probably his most egregious thing, and that is he repeatedly wore jeans with no underwear.

Bridget 1:24:47

I mean, I'm not a man. I don't know how that would feel. I kind of imagine anything other than horrible.

Laura 1:24:53

Anastasia at the end of the book puts on her jeans without underwear, and she says it's chafing on her butt or something like that. I wouldn't be worried about the butt, honestly.

Bridget 1:25:01

I'd be worried about the bits. Worried about dot dot dot down there. But the fashion, okay. Someone's been to the Stephanie Meyer School of Fashion. When she goes to the interview, she's wearing her one and only skirt, a sensible brown knee length boot, a blue sweater and a backpack. Nice. Delectable.

Laura 1:25:21

What's the word that Edward uses? Indecent. She's indecent.

Bridget 1:25:25

Utterly indecent in her blue sweater, sensible brown knee length boots, and one and only skirt. When he goes into Clayton's, he's really uh embodying Edward's love of like a cream outfit. He's wearing a cream chunky knit sweater, jeans, and walking boots. He's always wearing his white shirts, grey flannel pants, which in my head, when you say grey flannel, I think pajama pants or tracksuit pants. Me too. But he was wearing them like everywhere. He was wearing them to the office, he was wearing them to the parents' house for dinner. So I think I'm confused about what grey flannel pants are. I'm with you. I thought it was tracksuit pants. I mean, there's so many other things. It's just like a lot of combinations of like black jeans, a lot of camoufles, linen shirts, and then like the two outfits that she seems to wear whenever there's like something special happening is her plum-coloured sheath dress and her grey chiffon halter neck, which she wore to her graduation and the golf club.

Laura 1:26:24

It's multi-purpose.

Bridget 1:26:25

It's so weird to me that they are the outfits that they chose.

Laura 1:26:31

And he's wearing Converse, and she's like, he's so freaking sexy in his Converse. Yeah. Which doesn't fit the image at all because that's the shoe that she wears, and she's the least sophisticated, classy Povo chick in the whole world.

Bridget 1:26:44

Also, I feel like converts are really hard to take off. Yes. And if you're taking them off someone else, you've really got to be in there, like pull it. Like it's hard to do it on your own. And then you've got some swamp feet under there. And she's licking her in step. Oh god. Yeah, in some dirty old converse. No, thank you. There was this thing that kept happening where like Anastasia was like, I'm just like, I'm a nobody, and I'm not even that pretty. And all these other blonde girls, so pretty, and I'm so ugly. And then when she gets back from the interview and she's like, um, I don't think I was dressed as as cool as I as I could have done for the second interview. And Kate's like, what do you mean? She's like, Oh, well, Boho Chic might have done it. And Kate raises an eyebrow. You and Boho Chic, actually, Anna, you're one of the few people who could really pull off that look. And like, are we surprised that Anna once again could pull it off? Everything she puts on. She's so hot.

Laura 1:27:42

The thing that I was tallying that wasn't the subconscious and it wasn't the inner goddess, was something that did indeed stem from Anastasia's subconscious. And it was the multiple, multiple, multiple mentions of Christian Gray's. Long fingers. Did you pick up on this? Oh my god. Well, I lost track. I counted at least 20, but I would say there's more. And I found a post on Tumblr that has compiled them. So we have he extends a long fingered hand to me once I'm upright. Dot dot dot. Trailing his long index finger across his lips. His long finger presses the button, summoning the elevator. He rubs his chin with his long index finger. She's dreaming of smoky grey eyes, coverals, long legs, long fingers, and dark, dark, unexplored places. It just made me think of E.T. I didn't like it at all. Mention it a couple of times. Don't mention it that many times, babe. You've you've done enough.

Bridget 1:28:44

I mean, I've said it many times again. I don't I don't know why I feel like I need to keep adding a disclaimer in. I'm not a writer. I wouldn't be a good writer, you know, etc. etc. etc. But when I read books that I like, I notice the description of the character, the location, the fashion, the room is not that important. Yes. But in this book, that's all you get. And you get a shitload of it. We know what the art on the wall is, we know what colour his shirt is, we know how long his fingers are. We know every minute detail about the location and the characters, but there's nothing else to know. There's nothing else to learn because all of the 513 pages are filled with is boring descriptions. Show, don't tell. Look at us.

Laura 1:29:30

Please, look seriously, look it up. And did you know that she's done this series? She's gone and done a Midnight Sun. I didn't know that until the other day. Oh, me either.

Bridget 1:29:40

Astounds me.

Laura 1:29:41

And she did what Stephanie Meyer could not and wrote the full three-book trilogy. God, I wish. We received some responses to our call out for talking points for this episode, and a lot, honestly, a lot of them were people wanting us to discuss the 9-11 to 50 shades pipeline. This is something I have heard of before.

Bridget 1:30:08

Had you heard of it? Yeah, it is one of my favorite like historical domino effects without it like floating around on the internet.

Laura 1:30:15

Sorry, ridiculous. Oh my god. And so I looked it up so that we could explain it to you all. And I've actually found not one but two historical domino effects courtesy of this franchise. So the first is that the Romanovs, they've taken it back further than you could believe, are responsible for 50 shades of grey. So this one comes courtesy of uh TikTok user Natalie Harrell13, and it says Romanovs are responsible for 50 shades of grey. So the Romanovs died, and the USSR was formed, which was communist. This led to the Cold War happening for decades. After the Soviets got involved in Afghanistan, Ronald Reagan gave the Afghans weapons in the 80s. These weapons were used by terrorists in 9-11. That was observed by Gerard Way, who created My Chemical Romance. This led to Stephanie Meyer being inspired, and so she created the Twilight series, which inspired 50 Shades of Grey. Love it. I love it. And I love the next part, which is obviously Ellen's downfall. This historical pipeline is Gerard Way watched the Twin Towers fall on 9-11, which inspired him to start My Chemical Romance, which was one of the largest inspirations behind Stephanie Meyer writing The Twilight series. Twilight was one of the inspirations behind E.L. James writing the Fifty Shades of Grey series. This was turned into a film series starring Dakota Johnson, which led her to being on talk shows like Ellen. That led to the groundbreaking actually, that's not the truth, Ellen moment. That is amazing. And that comes courtesy of Tragesty on TikTok.

Bridget 1:31:47

I really love that you guys know our brand. You know that we want to talk about Twilight any chance we can. And like stupid internet stuff like this. So thank you if you're one of the many people that submitted that.

Laura 1:32:01

So many people. And so many people wanted us to discuss the twilight to 50 shades of grey, like similarities, comparisons, as if they could be avoided. You know us. Yeah. You know us. We were never gonna not do that. But I I love that you asked, so thank you. I'll do anything to bring up twilight. I'll do like absolutely nothing and still accidentally bring up twilight.

Bridget 1:32:26

I'll lie in the front yard reading a book and fall asleep. Oh we've got twilight. Something's watching me.

Laura 1:32:32

One more thing that we were asked to discuss was the movie, if we've seen it. And we've touched on it a little bit, but it's actually been something that's been on my mind so much throughout this conversation and like so much when I was reading out those quotes. So you've only watched the trailer that we watched before.

Bridget 1:32:48

I've watched it about six minutes, I think.

Laura 1:32:49

Like it's fine, it's working with what's available. The Fifty Shades of Grey movie is exactly the same as Twilight in that people say the movie's not good or the acting is bad, but people need to wake up and have a look at the source material they're working with. Also, the Twilight movie is good. It is cool. The first one. Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornen are acting their little hearts out. They are doing a good job, okay? And that was something I was thinking so much when I was reading out those horrible, horrible, stupid quotes. And I think it's something that Dakota Johnson does so well in her betrayal of Anastasia is that she doesn't try to play her in this like earnest way. She doesn't go down the like startled prude route. She doesn't go down the like childish I know nothing route. She almost plays a character in this kind of like dry, sardonic in this- That's what I was gonna say. Oh no, our brains have been rotted by the confirmed. She almost plays Anastasia in this dry, sardonic kind of way. It's like she's making fun of him. Yes, and that's honestly the only way, sh the only way you can get through this experience. Yeah.

Bridget 1:34:00

I watched the bit where she calls him on the phone when she's drunk, and I love a good drunk phone call. And I actually did enjoy that in the book. I thought it was quite realistic. Like, that's what you would do if you were having that weird, like, why did you send me these books? And then you I liked that, and I was so endeared to her in that moment because she was so funny and she was so cute. So, I mean, I like her and I like him.

Laura 1:34:26

I liked them both, yeah. I think they both did a great job. Also, what a soundtrack I have had this whole week that it's just been a buddy away. And like Beyoncé re-recorded um Crazy and Love.

Bridget 1:34:44

Yeah. So we have Annie Lennox, we have The Weeknd, Ellie Golding, Beyoncé Sia, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, and Frank Sinatra are all appearing on the first soundtrack. But then, like in the later ones, we have Taylor Swift and Zane with I Don't Wanna Live Forever. They put a lot of money behind this, is what I'm trying to say. They have a lot of good artists, they have a lot of good um people working on the movie. And I think I mean you can't really fault Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan for honestly just like getting their bag. Yeah. Like getting their start in the industry and then like skipping off into the sunset. You would do it too for a check.

Laura 1:35:21

And like to their credit. I mean, maybe it was a kind of twilight thing where they didn't quite realise the size or the fandom around what they were signing up for. But I did see an interview with Dakota Johnson where she was kind of like, I just thought it sounded really interesting. It was like something I'd never done before. I wanted to do the nudity because I just felt like I would wanted to have like, you know, integrity and control, and just I think it's a beautiful thing to do. So I didn't look a lot in my research about the movie, but I don't really see them speaking very negatively about it as well, which I actually think is quite refreshing.

Bridget 1:35:55

So I made reference before to one of my note categories, which was 50 shades of who cares, because the thing that I kept writing in my book was who cares? About so many of the things. And I'm just gonna go through all of them. If you've got anything to say, please jump in. First of all, page 21. Anastasia says, Once we've eaten, I'm able to sit at the dining table with Kate. And while she works on her article, I work on my essay on Tess at the Derbervilles. Damn, that woman was in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong century. Why are we getting a book review? Why do we care? Two. All of the detailed recounts of conversations with Ray. All seems well with him. Who gives a shit about Ray? Why are you calling him? Why do we need to know about this? Helicopter shit? Now, I know nothing about helicopters. Once again, not a writer. This is how somebody who knows nothing about helicopters, air travel, anything like that, and who has no interest in finding out more but rider scene. These are just some of the jargon that she chucked in. Protracted procedure of checking gauges, mind-boggling array of dials and lights, put your cans on, pre-flight checks, disembodied voice, tower, PDX, Charlie Tango, Golf Echo, EC135, Eurocopter, equipped for night flight.

Laura 1:37:16

Who gives a shit?

Bridget 1:37:17

Who cares about the helicopter? And then like her cooking the morning after they first leave together. She says something absolutely crazy like, there's nothing like music to cook by, which makes no sense to me. I don't know if that's a is that a saying?

Laura 1:37:33

No, you think you'd say something like it's nice to listen to music while you're cooking.

Bridget 1:37:37

Well, wouldn't you say there's nothing like music to cook to? Why cook by? I really got stuck on that. She was saying, Holy hell, I'm hungry. She was dancing, she had the pigtails. So embarrassing. I figured out how to use a state-of-the-art range.

Laura 1:37:53

Okay. And also, that was another weird discrepancy in her kind of confidence because she's like, oh, frick, frick, frickin' hell, I don't fit into this world. I'm just gonna cook all of his food. Yeah. I can make a me lasagna. I'm gonna use his toothbrush.

Bridget 1:38:09

Also, in that same bit, she was going over how she's a misfit. Yes, that song that really resonated with her because she'd always felt like a misfit. But now I realize I'm not actually a misfit. Christian Gray's a real, oh, just stop talking.

Laura 1:38:21

And then she's like, oh, he's depraved. Yeah. But I fit in with him. Yeah.

Bridget 1:38:25

So Am I depraved? When she asked him, where do you keep your placemats? I contemplated quitting. Quitting the podcast. Quitting everything.

Laura 1:38:37

I can't read any more of this. I completely relate because there were so many moments where I was like, laughing, laughing, laughing. This is ridiculous. And then just one simple line like that would push me too far. Yeah. Energy zapped.

Bridget 1:38:50

It's like one of those coin games at the arcade that I'm obsessed with. And you shoot the coins, and then you know, it pushes back, pushes back. And then every now and then it all just goes over the edge. That put me over the edge. Where do you keep your placemats? You're 21. Placemats. When she was talking to her mother on the phone, she said her precious words give me a warm glow inside. Why do we care about this? Another instance of her on the phone to Ray. My heart swells talking to Ray, and a huge lump fawns in my throat. He has been my constant through all of Mom's romantic ups and downs. We have a special bond that I treasure. Even though he's my stepdad, he's always treated me as his own. And I can't wait to see him. It's been too long. His quiet fortitude is what I need right now. What I miss. Maybe I can channel my inner Ray for my meeting tomorrow. I just, I can't, I could not handle it. And then, like, they're packing up their house. I don't understand. Like, that happened over like eight days or something. Why was packing up their house such a big plot? And she didn't even live in their house. She says the physical activity of boxing everything up has been a welcome distraction. And I'm tired. I want a good night's rest. Okay, Anastasia. And then one more thing to end this little section of Fifty Shades of Who Cares is for some reason, like as they're about to have sex, she makes this astute observation. Holy cow, men carry a lot of crap in their pockets. Anastasia is not the time. Also, no one cares.

Laura 1:40:25

Oh god, she is truly dumb. There were a couple of things like that as well, and I don't sadly have them all written down, but one was like, Holy crap, I'm naked in a bath. Like, yeah, that's what you did.

Bridget 1:40:39

Yeah, you are. Good job. This was like the fourth time you've had sex by this point. In like 24 hours, who cares? Uh, get a grip. There was one, actually, one line that I thought was funny in like, I assume it was meant to be like a like humour. And it was when they're doing this stupid, stupid like musical thing, and she's got the headphones on and she can't hear and she can't see, and whatever. I think it's around the time of the hold on Anastasia. Around that time. And she goes, Okay, a musical interlude. Not what I was expecting. Does he ever do what I expect? Jeez, I hope it's not rap. Actually, it was so funny, but I'm unsure if that was the intention. I don't know. I think it was like so sincere.

Laura 1:41:29

She is not like other girls. Please not rap. I'm not down with these street beats.

Bridget 1:41:36

It's actually so funny.

Laura 1:41:38

That's one of my things I was desperate to write down on the highway, and I'm so glad you remembered it because I was cracking up. And another thing that I cracked up at, oh, I was laughing so hard was when they get in his car and Bruce Springsteen is playing, and he says, gotta love Bruce.

Bridget 1:41:56

I mean, I feel like we have to really, really, really quickly, because I am aware that we've been recording for over three hours now. But I really quickly want to talk about the music and the paintings. Because every time she looked at some stupid, like bizarre, abstract art that sounded so, so, so boring. I just kept getting that line from 500 Days of Summer in my head. Tom goes to visit his little sister, and she says, Tom, just because she likes the same bizarro crap you do doesn't mean she's your soulmate. And I think someone needs to tell Anastasia and Christian that. You guys should not be together. But they do like the same bizarro crap, and by bizarro crap I mean boring. The art in his office sounded so boring. The opera in his car.

Laura 1:42:40

Do you know the flower duet? No. You do, but you don't. Okay. It's the one that's like obscure. It's like as soon as they said two voices interwoven, I was like, no, surely not. I knew. I knew what it was.

Bridget 1:43:07

Oh so humiliating. The art in his office, boring, the opera in his car, yawning. Kings of Leon, sloppy. Frank Sinaja, Bruce Springsteen, Snow Patrol, lazy. Britney Spears. Is there anything more of the time than Snow Patrol? Kings of Leon. We did have Britney Spears.

Laura 1:43:27

We did have Britney Spears. He didn't put that on his iPad. That was so funny, though. And when she's like, he'll never guess. He'll be really shocked that they picked this crazy music out. I'm just quick. I don't think this is worth like cutting in anywhere, but I just need to let you know that the director of Fifty Shades of Grey. Oh my god, I know this. Is Sam Taylor Johnson? And I don't have all the facts. I don't have enough information to make a comment on that. Just a little bit interesting though. Mrs. Robinson Robinson? Mrs. Robinson's too close to the sun. How many times did we have to hear a mention of Icarus? And Mrs. Close to the Sun. Yeah. The last thing that I want to say is that I have possibly never had such a visceral reaction to a line as I had to the line. He's my very own Christian Grey popsicle. That is a line that is delivered by Anastasia Steele as she is giving him a blowjob. That is it's too much. The fact that she has described his penis as the classic velvet wrapped steel. Yeah. Velvet encased steel. And then the idea of like wrapping your lips around velvet, it's a textural thing.

Bridget 1:44:43

And I don't know if it's in the same part, but she also like vividly described her lips. She said something like, I wrapped my lips around my teeth. Like, we don't need to know that. We don't need all of this detail.

Laura 1:45:02

At one point she said something like, He is literally under my skin. It's like, what are we talking about here? Like labium honora? Like neither?

Bridget 1:45:11

I don't think he is, actually. Like, what's going on? Oh, I hate it. So bad.

Laura 1:45:23

Oh, I'm so glad I never have to think about this. I am not, I'm, there's no way I'm I'm not reading these books. Like, I'm not reading any more of them. And this is the first podcast book because I keep all of them and I buy physical copies of them all. And this is the first one where I'm like, I actually don't want it anymore. I want to donate this back.

Bridget 1:45:42

You can't all your shit written in it. You can't do it. I know I have so much shit written in it. I have like brain dead. Lame. Bye. Grow up. Mine is who cares? WTF, who cares? Naughty Anastasia. Shut up. Okay. I mean, favorite character? The driver. Oh. Taylor? Taylor. Taylor, baby. Taylor is doing such a good job. My favorite character is. I mean, I'm really struggling to think of a favorite character here, but maybe Mrs. Jones.

Laura 1:46:20

Like anyone that we didn't have to find out that much about is good in my book. Maybe the gynecologist. She was weird. Another, another weird line in the sand that Anastasia draws. She's like, actually just been introduced to this BDSM lifestyle. She's been love-bombed. He's like crossed so many boundaries, already ignored her wishes, makes her go on birth control, and then the gynecologist is like, she's a beautiful young girl to take care of her or something. And she's like, how inappropriate.

Bridget 1:46:52

I agree, but that's why you draw the line again. Come on, Anastasia. How about stalking you via your phone and showing up at your work unannounced? Lee's favorite. I think for me it has to be a tandem. It's an Anastasia and Christian. I can't separate them.

Laura 1:47:12

That's really generous of you. I think I'm just gonna have to go with Anastasia because I have spent too long. I have spent too long in her head. I don't want to hear it anymore. I was dreaming about it last night. Dark hallways, long fingers, popsicles.

Bridget 1:47:26

Oh. And I mean, this is obviously the most obvious little shit we've ever done and will ever do, I think. I think so. Little shit, Laura. So shit. It's so shit. It's a hundred percent shit. It's pure, it's steaming shit. It's never been more shit.

Laura 1:47:46

And it never will be more shit. I was feeling so sad as I was reading this because I already know it's gonna put me in such a funk. Like, I won't want to pick up a book. I need a remedy. I need a cure. I'm sad in anticipation. It's garbage. Pile of shit.

Bridget 1:48:02

513 pages of shit.

Laura 1:48:05

513.

Bridget 1:48:07

So embarrassing to have to read this in public. I put poster notes on the front cover, but they all fell off.

Laura 1:48:20

Let's agree to never do this again. Unless we get money.

Bridget 1:48:26

More than 10 people saying please do the sequels, then we will.

Laura 1:48:30

That's more realistic.

Bridget 1:48:31

How much money did you want for it?

Laura 1:48:33

Like 50 bucks. Sponsorship from the soup. Yes, Daris, if you're listening, I've had a big month and it's thanks to you.

Bridget 1:48:45

Our next episode is the inaugural Talk Lit With Us episode, where we discuss your controversial opinions, hot takes, or things you just need to get off your chest. Have your say on what we read next by keeping an eye on the link in our show notes and on our socials. Make sure you subscribe to the show, and if you want to be on the same page as us, follow us at talklit.get on Instagram and TikTok.