An Argument Older Than Time

:::WARNING! This blog post contains adult content, themes, and language. Do not read it if you're a minor or easily offended. Consider yourself warned.:::
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I've been bouncing this topic around in my head for a good month now. At least. I don't know why I hesitate to put my thoughts into words. I enjoy a good argument. I enjoy instigating arguments. I'm generally an argumentative person. Unfortunately, arguments don't happen on my blog. I'm beginning to question the future of my blogging but that's not the point of this at all. But I think more it's that the subject is a bit difficult to write about to a general audience and it can be construed as TMI.

50 Shades of Grey. Know it? Heard of it? Read it? Loathe it?

I first heard of the 50 Shades trilogy on the Today Show (which I no longer watch since they ditched Ann Curry, THANK YOU VERY MUCH! Idiots.) They had a bunch of so-called "house wives" and other "every day" women talking about reading these books. How hot they were. How steamy. How much reading them improved their sex lives. How much their husbands loved them reading the books. Blah blah blah. Still, I was intrigued and downloaded them all to my Nook.

My First Impressions - I'll admit that I read all three straight through in about two days. They were superficially compelling.

To put it briefly, these novels are about a somewhat naive college girl who meets a man who is into S&M and the romance that ensues. Supposedly, and according to the women interviewed on the Today Show, the relationship that plays out in the trilogy is one that all women fantasize about. Hmm. Maybe some women fantasize about a more...adventurous love life, but I don't think that necessarily equates to all women dreaming of being in a relationship where they are dominated by a man who can only relate to a woman when he ties her up for sex. But I can only speak for myself.

After my initial impressions of the books settled into a more distanced perspective, I had a hard time getting past the plethora of typos and grammatical errors. Didn't the author have an editor? I also thought the author's repeated descriptive words were trite and well...repetitive. Very reminiscent of Stephenie Meyer's novels. I'm surprised Mr. Grey didn't sparkle. ;)

In the end, if women used these books as inspiration to spice up their love lives, then more power to them. But what I really think is that for some odd reason, the 50 Shades books brought erotica for women to the mainstream and made it okay for women to read these types of books and admit it out loud. It's an extreme double standard in our society that pornography geared towards men is ubiquitous and even expected and accepted but when a woman picks up a novel in the same vein as 50 Shades, she has to read it in the dark and hide it under her mattress. Which brings me to point #2...

I saw a comment on Facebook recently where someone said that if there had been a movie made about strippers that men got all excited about that they'd be perverts but when a movie like Magic Mike comes out, it's okay for women to want to see it. Hello!!! How many movies have been produced for men having to do with strippers, hookers, gratuitous sex, etc. etc.?? Do women have an equivalent to Hooters or The Tilted Kilt?? How many strip clubs geared specifically to women exist compared to strip clubs for men? And I'm willing to bet that if women had a restaurant called Buns or Banana Hammock and we said that we like to go there for the wings (ha ha), very few of our husbands or boyfriends would eat there with us. We can be expected to eat a meal while some 19 year old coed flaunts her perky boobs in the faces of our men, but I doubt very seriously if men would have a meal with their women while looking at the washboard abs of a well-endowed 19 year old man. Am I wrong?

To conclude...The double standard irritates me. The success and popularity of 50 Shades irritates me. Going by quality of the writing alone, it's like shouting out that women read books without really reading them. It also irritates me that everyone constantly says, "Read them. Your husband will thank you." Psh. Lastly, someone really needs to open up a restaurant where I can ogle some guy's six-pack while I eat my dinner. ;)

Free Movies??

I saw this online from Work at Home Mom Revolution. It sounds like a good deal  to me! There’s a  Regal Cinema pretty close to where I live so there’s a good chance there will be one close to your house too. Go to Regal’s Website to read more about the offer and to check your state for a participating movie theater.

REG Free Family Film Festival Beginning June 2009!
When school’s out, kids around the country visit selected Regal theatres for the Free Family Film Festival. It’s a fun-filled nine weeks of movies for kids and parents. Since 1991, Regal has provided this service to the community, and best of all it’s FREE!

Selected G & PG movies start at 10AM each Tuesday and Wednesday during the festival. First-come, first-served seating is limited to theatre capacity. The Free Family Film Festival is safe, lots of fun and a great way for kids to spend a weekday morning in the summer.

Tickets for our 2009 Free Family Film Festival are exclusively available at select theatres’ box office on the day of the show.

Things I Did This Weekend

The title makes it sound like I actually did stuff this weekend, huh? After our whirlwind weekend last weekend, I was determined to do as little as I could get away with this weekend. Having it rain 75% of the time really helped me attempt to achieve my goal.

Saturday, I got in an afternoon run on the elliptical. No rest for the too fat and lazy. I haven’t slacked off of the exercise at all, but after our weekend in Georgia, my eating habits have been on a downhill slide. I gained almost three pounds over that weekend. THREE POUNDS!! But you know, without the pecans, pralines are basically pure sugar. I wonder why I gained so much weight!!! Anywho, Saturday night I did something that I haven’t done in a looong time. I actually planned to and sat down to watch a movie. Sex and the City was on HBO and I enjoyed a girlie night to myself on the couch. Glass of wine in hand, candles lit, and the windows open to a fantastic night breeze, I enjoyed watching the movie all by myself. The Mister was on the computer or something and the girls were in their rooms playing. It was really nice. And the movie was pretty okay. For a chick flick, you couldn’t really ask for more. It was very predictable though.

Sunday, the Mister and I hit the commissary and then he disappeared for a marathon paper writing session. I, however, sat down to read Twilight on my Kindle app. I’m almost done with it and I have to laugh at how many times Meyers uses the words “beauty” and “beautiful”. It gets to the point where the meaning is completely lost. It’s just like when you say, “I’m sorry” all the time and people stop believing you after a while. I was prepared to thoroughly dislike this book. I began reading it keeping in mind that the intended audience is tweens and teenagers. In fact, that’s why I decided to read this book at all, because my 12, soon to be 13 year old daughter, wants to read it and I wanted to read it first before I gave her permission. I can see why it would appeal to teen girls but I really could take it or leave it. The dialogue comes off as being fake 90% of the time and Meyers has yet to make me care about the characters. Also, I dislike how much she has deviated from the traditional vampire myths and legends. I don’t mind creativity but her take on vampirism comes off as too contrived. It’s as if she was trying to be different just for the sake of being different. Whether or not I read any of the other books in the series depends on whether or not the oldest child wants to continue reading them. Twilight is too easy to put down to make me want to read the rest of them for myself.

As for the rest of my Sunday, I washed my car. It was such a gorgeous afternoon that I wanted to spend some of it outdoors so I decided to clean off all the bug guts from the drive too and from GA. It was disgusting. The really irritating part is that as soon as I was done washing my car, it had a layer of pollen all over it. Pollen freaking sucks. I also got my garage cleaned out AGAIN, so that I could park my car inside of it. I’m hoping that it will keep the pollen coverage to a minimum.

And that, folks, was my fun and exciting weekend. I got my workout in already this morning and now I’m headed for the shower. Then it’s work, dinner, work, bed, rinse and repeat.

Thursday Meme

Here is our Thursday meme courtesy of Booking Through Thursday.

Books and films both tell stories, but what we want from a book can be different
from what we want from a movie. Is this true for you? If so, what’s the
difference between a book and a movie?

I expect to be entertained by both books and movies. I don't watch movies looking for the meaning of life in them nor do I want to be preached at or have someone's political views shoved down my throat. The same can be said of books but I do look for books to have more substance than a movie if that's what I'm looking for when I pick up a book. Sometimes, I just want to read fluff so that it can take me away from my life for a bit.

I prefer books to movies because they are way more versatile. You don't need an outlet to read a book the same way you need a TV or some other device to watch a movie. Books can be transported anywhere, picked up at any time, and put down whenever you need to do something else.

Weekly Meme

Meme. Look it up.

Today's Meme courtesy of Booking Through Thursday:

1. In your opinion, what is the best translation of a book to a movie?
Lord of the Rings or Silence of the Lambs.

2. The worst?
Harry Potter.

3. Had you read the book before seeing the movie, and did that make a difference?
I had read Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter before I saw the movie but not Silence of the Lambs. I definitely think it makes a difference in my opinion. If I've read the book first, I invariably hate the movie. Where Harry Potter is concerned, the books are too long and there is not enough time allotted in the movies to do the books justice. Too much that I consider important to the plot is cut out. With Lord of the Rings, I hated that they developed Liv Tyler's character when she was only mentioned on few pages out of all three books in the entire trilogy. That being said, the action, special effects, and acting in the movie was superb enough to make up for what had to be left out.