So, most of us at least know of Fifty Shades of Grey where one Miss Anastasia Steele falls for Christian Grey: a controlling, BDSM loving, tycoon who demands that to have a “relationship” with him is to sign a contract that pretty much states “I say ‘Jump’ and you say ‘How high’.” Ever since the book came out and reached terrifying heights of popularity, I’d been avoiding it like the plague.
When I learned the book was Twilight fan fiction, I have to admit I became curious. As much as I like to deny it now, I was once Team Edward. My excuse is that I started reading it when I was fifteen and it weirdly influenced my crazy, adolescent views of love and romance. As much as I hate it now, it stuck with me. So, after about a year or so of fighting it, I finally started reading Fifty Shades. They say curiosity killed the cat, but I’m not dead…just angry at my adolescent self.
I didn’t love it. I didn’t even like it. On the contrary, I was constantly yelling and wildly gesturing at Anastasia like I often do during a movie. “Oh come on! Really? You’re really contemplating doing this? He spanks you as punishment and you don’t even like it. You went to Georgia to visit your mother and he FOLLOWED YOU. Nothing about that is sweet or sexy! These characters are unbelievable!” Reading the book was a struggle to say the least and I’m proud to say that I completed it with my sanity intact and no desire to read 50 Shades of F***ed up Part Two.
However, I found one aspect of Fifty Shades that caught my interest: the similarities between Christian Grey and Patrick Bateman. Both Bateman and Grey are both well-off, white, attractive males whose dichotomies of their public and private spheres are severe and complexly constructed. Throughout both books, we see how these two spheres threaten to and eventually interact and collide.
Bateman increasingly exhibits erratic, reckless behavior throughout American Psycho until it culminates in Bateman splitting from reality. At lunch with friends, he deliberately alludes to serial killers smoothly introducing them to the normal conversation. Yet, the reactions usually incite an awkward silence or complete disregard for any deeper meaning to what can be seen as “outbursts.” He whispers vicious threats under his breath to deaf crowds. He stores dead bodies in an apartment of a man he killed letting the rot inside grow to disturbing proportions. At the climax of the novel, he begins a public killing spree that ends in a confession that turns out to be meaningless.
Granted, Grey is not nearly as complexly written as Bateman nor does his character make sense most of the time: a grown man who is supposedly refined and has taste would not say “Laters” in an email. He’s a BDSM fiend, not a twelve year old girl.
Despite the flaws in Grey’s character, the nature of his crisis is the same as Bateman’s. Until Grey meets Anastasia, he has never let a woman sleep in his bed, meet his family, fly in his plane, or not sign one of his freaky dominate/submissive contracts. Sex and women are the private part of his life because he likes it with whips and chains in a creepy playroom in his house. In true Twilight style, forgettable Anastasia makes him break all of his rules and she quickly becomes as much a part of his private life as his public life creating a not too riveting crisis for Mr. Fifty Shades.
And he’s in “murders and executions”…I mean “mergers and acquisitions.
Bateman and Grey’s similarities bother me for one simple reason: if all the people who were were besotted with Christian Grey were to read about Bateman, they wouldn’t fantasize about him coming into their house and teaching them a lesson…they probably wouldn’t survive the experience. Yet, Christian Grey is hot and everyone is waiting to see who will play his character in the film. It’s scary and yet not surprising that both characters and both books have elicited powerful yet opposing reactions from the public. Makes me wonder where the line is between desire and fear…
That may be a discussion for another day. This post is already way too long.
A special thanks to kepagewriter and her comment for giving me another way to look at things.
“Wear the old coat and buy the new book.” 