![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A bit of cultural rumination
Feb. 16th, 2015 07:13 am50 Shades of Grey has just had the second-biggest February box office opening in history. Right behind The Passion of the Christ.
Apparently ecstasy, be it religious or sexual in nature, is only acceptable in our culture if it involves obsession, dysfunction, and serious physical or psychological harm.
(Note that I'm not intending to slam either Christians or kink practitioners here; I think we can all agree that the films present a realistic version of neither Christianity nor the kink scene. In fact, it's that very lack of realism, as well as the focus on suffering, that makes their incredible popularity strike me as worrisome.)
Am I completely off base here? Does anyone else see this parallel?
Apparently ecstasy, be it religious or sexual in nature, is only acceptable in our culture if it involves obsession, dysfunction, and serious physical or psychological harm.
(Note that I'm not intending to slam either Christians or kink practitioners here; I think we can all agree that the films present a realistic version of neither Christianity nor the kink scene. In fact, it's that very lack of realism, as well as the focus on suffering, that makes their incredible popularity strike me as worrisome.)
Am I completely off base here? Does anyone else see this parallel?
