Shock! "50 Shades of Grey" is just "Twilight" for adults! "Twilight" for adults: are the laurels of "Fifty Shades of Grey" deserved? Carrick Gray Vs. Carlisle Cullen

The phenomenal success of the eponymous literary brainchild of the British writer E. L. James It's easy to explain - it was this 50-year-old lady who had the audacity and ingenuity to sell the most ordinary pornographic fan fiction under the guise of a book to women of Balzac's age all over the world. Yes Yes, "50 shades of grey" was originally a fanfic for beloved "Twilight". It was called "Master of the Universe", and the main characters were Edward and Bella. However, unlike young girls who are not very surprised by this kind of writing (in the same AO3, one of the largest archives of fanfiction, you can’t stumble upon such a thing), for mature aunts, an erotic BDSM romance has become a real revelation, making it seem to tremble extinguished instincts and unraveled the most secret desires.

Dropping down, I swallow it deeper. Ha! My inner goddess rejoices. I will do it.

And then - it's a matter of technology and competent marketing. The popularity and discussion of the book grew like a snowball, two sequels were quickly released, and then a regular film adaptation, initially doomed to success, arrived in time. Someone will go out of curiosity, someone - "purely neighing", someone - in anticipation of a sensual erotic melodrama (and scenes of BDSM sex), and someone will be dragged by force. One way or another, two sequels are already in development, and you have to accept the fact that the picture will be an important media event.

He only lightly touched my hand, and the hormones are already making a pandemonium.

Let's make a reservation right away, the producers approached the film adaptation of a potential blockbuster with all thoroughness. Placed at the helm Sam Taylor-Johnson ("Become John Lennon"), sat behind the camera Seamus McGarvey, for a second, the operator "Avengers" And « » , the composer became Danny Elfman- And so on and so forth. A real team of professionals who, even if they wanted to, would not be able to cheat. Therefore, one should not be surprised that from the technical side the film was shot almost flawlessly. Noteworthy is the soundtrack, which is sure to top the Billboard charts.

Never trust men who dance well.

The movie tells about the beginning of the relationship between the innocent and dreamy student Anastasia Steele and the handsome billionaire philanthropist Christian Gray, who practices BDSM. The film ends in mid-sentence, literally cut by the leather belt of the upcoming sequel, so nothing more important will be there. Although the book was inspired by " twilight”, the screen version rather glances to the side "Nine and a Half Weeks" Adrian Laina, however, without the metaphors and symbolism of the latter. The stumbling block, as often happens, was the ego of writer E. L. James, who had too much power in the process of making the film and especially writing the screenplay. For, no matter how millions of copies of fanfiction are sold, it still will not become high-quality literary material, especially if you transfer ridiculous dialogues to the screen almost letter by letter.

He kisses my neck. I tilt my head to the side to give him more space. Sitting down, Christian slowly pulls my jeans and panties off my legs.

The consequences were not long in coming: timid attempts to sit on all the chairs and tell the sensual story of sexual relations between a man and a woman were trampled under the thick leg of the mother of the original source, who instead enriched the film with an idiotic plot, unconvincing behavior of the characters and the general absurdity of what is happening. No wonder the lead actor Jamie Dornan there are two facial expressions throughout the film: "God, what am I saying" and "God, what am I doing." Dakota Johnson, we admit, she is very sweet and convincing in the role of a student who knows carnal pleasures, but it’s useless if phrases are put into the mouths of the heroes, from which the entire auditorium is filled with laughter.

The most important puncture of the film adaptation creeps up next: there is simply no chemistry between the main actors. "No" from the word "none". At all. That is why all the sex scenes look strained, forced and almost as sterile as the office of the protagonist. And this is despite the fact that they are there for about 10 minutes at most. Forty-year-old aunts will see more soft porn on the Ren TV channel after midnight.

Please don't hit me, I whisper pleadingly. He furrows his brows, widens his eyes, blinks a couple of times.

Too ludicrous for drama, too timid for BDSM erotica, the film was embarrassed by its target audience, who came to see "it", but offered nothing in return. Empty, helpless and pitiful, from which side you do not come. After all, it's pardonable for an erotic melodrama to have a bad plot, but it's no longer permissible to be non-erotic.

Accidentally found out that the pseudo-vampire pseudo-passions of "Twilight" did not end there. Inspired by the far-fetched problems of the coexistence of a human and a vegetarian vampire, one E. L. James broke out into a creative - or not very creative - ladies' romance. Instead of a pomaded bloodsucker, the reader is offered an equally glamorous sadistic pervert. Otherwise, judging by the reviews, attributes like off-scale sexuality, wealth, universal worship and adoration of the female sex remain with the newly-minted Edward Christian. The image of Bella is even more easily recognizable: a gray-gray "mouse", which only according to vampire perverted concepts SUDDENLY turns out to be the One. And, just like Bella, the Main Character does not suffer from intelligence, quick wit, outstanding external data, kindness, or anything at all. At least, I did not find a single note about Anastacia's personal qualities in any review. However, it’s to blame: the Main Heroine is pathologically modest and shuns guys (except for the Coolest - the Mary Sue brand must be kept). Hello Bella. What does not prevent Anastasia on the hundredth (?) page from going to bed with a terrible pervert vampire. Hello logic. Note! The main character, she is Mary Sue, she is Bella, she is Anastasia, she cannot have a simple name. Olya, Katya (Kat, if in a foreign manner), Suzy, Jen - it's boring and vulgar. It is much more romantic to call a girl Anastasha, Isabella, Christianida, Almahabra or - a classic of the genre! - Reclamation Dark. Or Steele. But about signs of MS not now. Unlike the romantically inclined Myers, James generously seasoned the book (trilogy, oh my God!) with sex. They say that the reusable descriptions of the process are very, very monotonous, I don’t know - I didn’t even have enough for the first part of the “masterpiece”, which I honestly admit. I don't understand otherwise - how can you make a book out of sex ONLY?! A complete, readable book? I'm not against sex and I like to flip through some porn story when I'm in the mood. Well, what, no worse than the average porn, and the plot is just as uncomplicated - to masturbate, no more. I don't mind watching beautiful erotica - "Bitter Moon", "Eyes Wide Shut"... "Cage" there too, to some extent (erotic art house?). But to disguise drochevo as serious, semantic literature? This is already from the category of fiction, sort of like calling "Twilight" a deeply thought-out drama. Why is Fifty Shades so popular? The first reason: money, power, a beautiful life, embodied in Prince Charming. Rich Pinocchio Christian Gray SUDDENLY falls in love with an awkward mess and puts a car, pebbles and other small, but insanely expensive female pleasures at her feet. Everyone wants to dream of something like this. And how your friends would envy you! Reason two: sex. It seems to be clear, but I want to dwell in more detail. Here is not a specific male bang, where he savoryly signs how He pours lubricant into the vagina for the most not indulge and stuffs various toys into all holes (or voluptuously cuts tender places with a knife - a sadist, after all). But this is not a cloying "feminine" version of "slightly physical" love, where "his broad muscular shoulders resembled mountains," but "her beautiful body, exhausted, sank into a harsh but gentle embrace" (although something from it, I suspect, did was taken). The author chose the golden mean: like "I'll fuck in my mouth", but like "butterflies in my stomach." In addition, all this is served with a seasoning of expensive, refined, but, of course, very delicate BDSM. Again, I'll draw an analogy with "Twilight": Edward is a vampire, and it seems like it's very, very bad, but in fact the reader gets a shiny nyashechka with bonuses like super strength and eternal youth. In "Fifty Shades" it's the same: like the Main Hero is a sadist and a pervert, but multiple orgasms are pouring, as if from a cornucopia, on our modest girl. In addition, there is a reason to admire yourself, an innocent victim, in a sexy black outfit. Reason three: the crisis of feminism? I don't know, because I don't recognize feminism as such. It is wrong to put a man and a woman on the same bar - we are equal, but not the same. And this is clearly reflected in the novel: the dominant man provides for the woman who takes care of the family and children (yes, such a prosaic HE awaits the heroes of Fifty Shades). If we discard the veil of love, a man takes sex from a woman, a woman takes provision from a man. And in the book, both the first and the second are presented at the highest level! The fourth reason: the lack of the first three points in the life of the beautiful half of humanity. The novel is primarily popular among young girls who are still digesting the image of the Prince Charming in their minds, or ladies of Balzac age, who by their age have already earned indigestion from beggar "princes" in holey socks. In summary: do you recommend reading it? No, sorry for the time. Do I recommend watching? I am sure that for those who have a healthy sense of humor, the porn analogue of "Twilight" will give a lot of reasons to laugh.

Much has now been accomplished by the erotic novel by E.L. James "Fifty Shades of Grey" and his ever-growing mass of admirers, consisting mainly of women. The novel, which is released in paperback on Tuesday (April 3), started out as a Twilight fanfiction; in this regard, a couple of elements slip through the novel that are suitable for comparison with the Stephenie Meyer saga.

First, there's the insecure and naive beauty as the protagonist, Anastasia Steele, who doesn't know she's attractive until she meets Christian Gray controlling an older man with magnetic charisma. Apparently, James snatched Bella and Edward from Mayer's world and transported them several years into the future in an unsupernatural Seattle; on the Internet, her book was called "Master of the Universe." "Shades of Gray" shows everything that the Mayer series did when it adapted to pop culture trends. The New York Times bestseller book is about to hit the screens and has already been dubbed "mommy porn." Yes, I know Twilight is not "mommy porn" and that "Shades of Gray" is not just an adult version of Twilight, but there are similarities.

So what does this mean for the publishing industry and the fanfiction community in general? In this week's Twilight Tuesday, let's explore the increasing popularity of fanfiction.

To begin with, for the uninitiated, I’ll clarify that many fanfictions are spicy. Like the NC-17 and XXX ratings, but as much as I'd like to, I can't post examples here. Slash fiction, stories that tell about the relationship of characters of the same sex, can be very detailed. While these stories probably won't make it to the shelves, the idea of ​​a romance between Edward and Jacob or Edward and Jasper is intriguing.

'Twilight' writer Mayer seems to have mixed feelings about this, but she has admitted to liking some of the writers and especially the alternate version of 'Twilight', which she calls 'The Ruins'. [note: this is a play on words, "Breaking Down"].

"At first I didn't hear about it... I couldn't read works where the characters were copied," she once said during an interview with Twifans.com. “It drove me crazy. There was one about Harry Potter and Twilight, very ludicrous. And another story about a girl who is in the movie as Bella was funny.”

Mayer's "Ruins" was a crutch to help her get through the end of Breaking Dawn, a place where she could afford to wall herself off from blatant scenarios about her sincere and accurate characters.

“We came up with an alternative to Dawn called Ruins. It was amazing!” she said. "End the fall and destruction in the life of Bella Swan and everyone around her."

Naturally Mayer didn't publish that alternative tv-y version, but there are other cases of well-known authors who started their careers writing fanfiction; Take Cassandra Clare, who wrote the popular Harry Potter variant called the Draco Trilogy long before she appeared with The Mortal Instruments.

We could also count Seth Graham-Smith's best-selling Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which can be rated as fanfiction, along with other variations of Pride and Prejudice: Mr. Darcy Chooses a Wife and Mr. Darcy's Diary: A Novel. .

Authors who have a negative view of fanfiction claim that they own their characters and that the inspiration of the authors should be directed towards creating original works. So where do we draw the line, and more importantly, should we draw it? While the readership is being recruited, does this make sense? Or is it a challenge to prioritize quality over quantity?

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Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey, and the Fanfiction Phenomenon

The success story of 50 Shades of Grey, in itself, is worthy of becoming a literary plot, however, this plot would be best suited for angry social satire. Erica Leonard, a recent obscure Twilight fan and fanfiction writer, is now the hottest purveyor of erotic fiction.

The buzz around this story has steadily increased since last year, when an erotic novel by one E.L. James titled "50 Shades of Grey" was published in Britain. E.L. James is a pseudonym; in fact, the name of the creator of this stunning reading is Erica Leonard. The title "50 Shades of Grey" contains an untranslatable, but utterly trivial pun: the main character has a common surname Gray, which means "gray".

The plot is uncomplicated. American literature student Anastasia Steele goes to interview young billionaire Christian Grey; The publication must take place in the student newspaper. The girl begins to feel an irresistible attraction to Gray, but at the same time there is something in the interlocutor that frightens her. With difficulty coping with the influx of feelings, Anastasia talks with the mysterious rich man through a stump-deck, and after that she is sure that the interview did not work out, and hopes that she will not see Gray again. However, soon the billionaire and the student meet in a hardware store: Anastacia managed to get a job there, and Christian came for ropes and fasteners. Why, one wonders, does the head of a multinational corporation need ropes and fasteners, and why does he buy them himself? Soon, Anastasia (who is currently still virgin) and her friend go to the billionaire with a photographer, deciding to supplement the interview with a photo session.

Then everything happens that dear readers have already guessed. Gray turns out to be a consistent adherent of sexual practices, for which the general term BDSM is used. The relationship between a billionaire and a student is built on the principle of instruction: an extravagant rich man reveals to her all new know-how in that not too widely advertised area where he navigates with his eyes closed (and sometimes, as we understand it, blindfolded). The narrative, replete with details that are attractive to many, moves from the "basics" to the real tin. In the "game room" Christian has not only whips and ropes, but also much more severe objects, in particular the notorious cable ties, which prudent reviewers will repeatedly recall to Erica Leonard. To top it all off, Gray demands that Anastacia sign a contract, according to which he will have full control over all her actions, and she will have to unquestioningly obey her partner.

Probably every second person reading all this has already begun to get annoyed and perplexed: why pay attention to some idiotic trash sadomasochistic novel, the likes of which are a dime a dozen? It remains only to agree: the novel is really trash, and texts like it are really heaps. However, sadly for the champions of high culture, there are facts that turn the unpretentious London writings into a non-illusory phenomenon. There are two facts, roughly speaking: firstly, the wild popularity and unprecedented commercial success of this opus, and secondly, its rather unexpected and very funny origin.

London housewife Erica Leonard, who for some reason took the dull pseudonym E.L. James, began her bright journey on fan sites dedicated to Stephenie Meyer's iconic Twilight saga. Here, in order to more adequately understand the phenomenon, it is worth closing your eyes and trying as clearly as possible to imagine this kind of fan culture, its whole mind-blowing world, full of memes and fetishes, recognizable only by the initiated. Which very often, if not already in most cases, are the same age as our Erica, namely ladies under the age of 50 (and older). So, Erica wrote a fanfic whose heroes were, of course, Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, called it "Lord of the Universe" and posted it on the appropriate resources (and, note, under a completely different pseudonym, which translates as "the ice dragon of the Snow Queen") . Interaction with appreciative readers resulted in the text being rewritten; instead of the heroes of the vampire saga, ordinary people appeared in the story, who, however, were engaged in what was described above.

The wandering of the text through various sites and social networks incredibly quickly provided him with fame. After collecting a monstrous harvest of likes, Ms. Leonard's essay got to the publishers, and then there was a final breakthrough: the book began to be sold in frantic print runs. Wasting no time, Erica wrote two sequels - "50 Shades Darker" and "50 Shades Lighter", and by July 2012, more than 20 million copies of the resulting trilogy had been sold worldwide.

To this we must add one circumstance of an industrial-technical nature: the successful sales of the book are due primarily to the fact that it was actively distributed in electronic form. 50 Shades of Gray was the first release to sell a million copies on the Amazon Kindle.

You can meditate for as long as you like on the new formula for success, which, respectively, looks like this: “successfully rewritten fan fiction + removal of conditional sexual taboos + attractiveness for schoolgirls and women of middle and old age + social networks + electronic version of the publication.” But the fact is there: the formula worked. And in this fact, one can probably see nothing but one of the signs of a future that has imperceptibly come - the very one about which we have been warned for a long time. Something that, and the lack of shades of gray in this glorious era is clearly not expected.

We have long assumed that Hollywood workers simply do not have enough imagination to create new masterpieces and, in musical terms, they take a recognized hit as a basis and make a remix out of it.

Actually, now we will show and tell you everything ... Remember how, on the wave of popularity of the teenage "Twilight" saga, spicy novels for adults by E.L. James? But the writer claimed that all her plots and images are original. Yeah, we, of course, believed, but double-checked. And it turned out that there are more similarities than differences!

"50 shades of grey": The protagonist of the frank drama, Christian Gray, is a very attractive 27-year-old billionaire with his own secret, or rather, shrouded in a veil of secrets, and madly in love with the main character.

"Twilight": The protagonist of the vampire saga, Edward Cullen, is also handsome, wealthy, with no less secrets and secrets, and lost his head in love with the main character, but only 10 years younger!

"50 shades of grey": The main character of the novel by E.L. James Anastasia Steele is a completely ordinary girl who loves to read books, and does not notice how she bites her lips all the time. After meeting the main character, she not only falls in love with him, but becomes obsessed with him.

"Twilight": It seems that here you can simply take and copy the previous paragraph. Don't you think so?

"50 shades of grey": Yes, we remember that Jose Rodriguez is Anastacia's best friend, who takes care of her and suffers from unrequited love.

"Twilight": Is it worth recalling how her best friend Jacob cared for and worried about Bella, who, for the sake of the happiness of his beloved friend, was able to sacrifice his feelings for her?

"50 shades of grey": Well, here are just dry facts ... Elliot Gray is a very cheerful half-brother of Christian (the main character), who has an affair with the blonde Kate.

"Twilight": Hope it doesn't match? But no, because Emmett Cullen is also no less cheerful half (!) Brother of the protagonist - Edward Cullen, who has an affair with the blonde Rosalie.

"50 shades of grey": Well, you already know everything yourself, except that this beautiful and self-confident blonde is Anastasia's friend!

"Twilight": In the film, it is simply impossible without spectacular blondes, except that this one is Edward's half-sister. They decided to confuse us and distract us!

"50 shades of grey": Mia Gray is Christian's half-sister. A talented girl, but with her own oddities, who is always ready to help and support the main character, and with whom all viewers only fall in love from series to series!

"Twilight": Ellis Cullen - Edward's half-sister, Talented, but with her own oddities, a girl who is always ready to help and support the main character, and with whom all viewers only fall in love with episode after episode! Well, sorry...

"50 shades of grey": Even despite a small role in three parts, fans of the erotic drama managed to notice and fall in love with the hero of actor Andrew Airlie, Christian's adoptive father, and also a successful businessman and lawyer.

"Twilight": And here we will not surprise you either, because Carlisle Cullen is also Edward's adoptive dad, however, successful in the field of medicine!

"50 shades of grey": It seems that the fantasy is already running out, but how else to explain that Grace Gray was assigned the role of Christian's adoptive mother, who loves him very much, and gave all the tenderness and care after the death of his own mother. And she gets along great with Anastasia!

"Twilight": Well, let's do it again, shall we? Esme Cullen - Edward's adoptive mother, who took care of him after the death of his parents, and by the way - became friends with Bella!

"50 shades of grey":"Villain" from the novel by E.L. James has a huge hatred for the Gray family, and even kidnaps Mia to lure Anastasia into a trap and take revenge on the main character.

"Twilight": But the vampire villain hates the Cullen family with all his heart and kidnaps Bella's mother so that ... Well, you understand!

"50 shades of grey": Don't you think we've seen these footage somewhere before?

"Twilight": Ah… So here they are!