Fifty layers of chocolate (and vanilla)

[Article originally published in Italian. English translation made by Proudlyproserpinaa, with the revision of JoSeBach.]

“Christian Grey exercises control in all things: his world is neat, disciplined, and utterly empty– until the day that Anastasia Steele falls into his office, in a tangle of shapely limbs and tumbling brown hair.”

It was the year 2011 when the literary phenomenon of Fifty Shades of Grey spread like a wildfire in the middle of August… a wildfire whose effects are still visible today.

Originally born as a Twilight fanfiction titled Master of the Universe (He Man is still asking compensation for copyright violations), then removed on various platforms due to Terms of Services violations and then published in three separate novels with minor edits to names and content, the book actually doesn’t retain much of the original work, not to mention the passage from horror to horrid taste; still it shares with it the interplanetary success.
May it be due to the BDSM unveiled in every detail to romance readers? Or is it transgression, taboo and free expression of sexuality, readily available on the bookshelf?

None of them.

The responsible for the success of this saga is none other than the male protagonist of the story, the charming billionaire Christian Grey, who quickly conquered the hearts of the vast majority of the female readers (to the point he’s considered the “Alpha Male” standard that will appear everywhere in the next Young Adult novels) and also gained the fury of who see him as the death of years of women’s rights fights.
But who is, in detail, this polarizing figure, capable of sparking animated debates between drooling fangirls and haters?

Exploring the novel’s scummy twists-and-turns (or, rather, getting our hands dirty with this so-called chocolate-made material), the profile of this youngster appears to be the one of a 27 (then 28) year old man, successful CEO of a Telecommunications company, socially committed, second adopted son of a wealthy couple, with refined taste in music, art and clothes, expensive hobbies and multiple talents (among which his favorite is to make love, if we could even call it a talent). And, last but not least, he’s drop-dead gorgeous, as stunning as the Sun (PRAISE THE): after five minutes spent staring at him, you’ve gone blind.

Almost the perfect man, we could say… but we’re not there yet. What’s missing is that damnation, that dark past that he keeps in his battered heart every day of his damned (but lucrative) existence, to the point of waking up the most dangerous and degrading feminine instinct by cultural heritage: the “red cross nurse” syndrome.
After all, how could a story be captivating without the miraculous power of Love ™ that can do everything and fears nothing?

But don’t you worry, because E. L. James has thought about that, too!
Christian Grey, in fact, comes from a horrible childhood of misery previous his adoption (his mother, a drug addicted sex worker, dead because of overdose and abuse from her own pimp), which caused him to develop aphephobia (fear of being touched) and receive sexual gratification via inflicting pain to women as dark haired as his mother, masking everything under the guise of BDSM, practice to which he had been introduced at sixteen by his mother’s best friend.

Isn’t all of this absolutely adorable?

After this description of our Amphitryon of bad boys in suit and tie, we must get into the merit of the relationship he creates wit this poor girl, Anastasia Steele, in order to answer the question “but what is it that women find so irresistible about Mr. Fifty Shades?”.

The relationship starts initially kind of like an unpaid internship, with a contract and an NDA: Christian wants Anastasia, but only on his terms (as Dominant and Submissive) while she, even if hesitantly, wants to understand him and then she wants to soothe his pain, tenderly love him like the heroine of a 19th century love story. Despite this, even if Anastasia does not become his submissive and the couple starts their journey towards a more vanilla type of relationship, the aftertaste of chocolate is still firmly there.
Christian is overbearing, obsessive, possessive and violent (as previously mentioned); catchphrases of the novels are his constant ordering her around “eat!”, “don’t roll your eyes!”, “learn to accept my gifts!” and so on that we could summarize in “do what I want without objecting” (to the point I’m surprised how Ana never ended up calling him “daddy”), all of this with the threat of spankings and punishments.
Constantly horny like a teenager in a nightclub, he often proposed to his girlfriend small erotic challenges that are borderline ridiculous (like when he steals her panties before a party, ooh, how scandalous!), as long as her reaction is always under his control.
Male friends, brothers of friends or male bosses are not allowed because, as Christian is firmly convinced, they’re all aiming to play like Indiana Jones with the entrance of Ana’s temple, and, because of that, she can hang out with them only if he’s clinging to her like a mussel to a pole.
Dulcis in fundo, the stalking, starting from using his company’s employees (Welch, I hope they’ll pay you enough, at least), to literal ambushes.

I’m itching to see her again—those blue eyes have haunted me, even in my dreams. I haven’t mentioned her to Flynn, and I’m glad because I’m now behaving like a stalker. Perhaps I should let him know. I roll my eyes—I don’t want him hounding me about his latest solution-based shit. I just need a distraction . . . and right now the only distraction I want is the one working as a salesclerk in a hardware store.

The ideal boyfriend, for sure.

And yet, despite all these blatant flaws and the obvious machismo… it’s appealing.

Some say that such characters’ charm relies on wealth and good-look; but the readers deny it. According to what they state, they project themselves in the books, so much so they would love Mr. Mystery even if he would’ve looked closer to a broke Danny De Vito (n.d.r. in that case, how can we blame them? Name one person who doesn’t love De Vito).

And yet, Grey’s characterization is so awful and relies so desperately on wealth&good-look that I must question this fan-casting…

The answer to this question needs to be found deeper, unironically right in the “complexity” of the character himself and in the way he’s portrayed to us.
Starting out from the latter point, the original trilogy puts his behavior in the spotlight: very gentlemanly, sophisticated and apparently attentive to her needs (not to mention his ability in bed, since we’re talking about erotica, or should we say pornography); since there’s no decently built plot, the story needs to immediately show it all, making it obvious from chapter one that the two main characters will develop an attraction, not even too gradually, prompting us to bet everything on him.
Not that there’s much choice, since all the other characters’ development (male or female) is completely absent, to the point that they all are closer to cardboard cutouts. None of them will get the chance to express any qualities that could compete with Mr. Grey’s. There’s nothing that our hero doesn’t know how to do better than anyone else!
Apart from cooking, that’s Ana’s place.
A minute of silence for Paul Clayton, José Rodriguez and Ethan Kavanagh.

But, as previously mentioned, the beautiful-and-damned is what attracts people and, because of it, what the story also does is moving the readers, to make them feel compassion for what the poor Christian Grey had to endure as a child. This move immediately introduces us the “Red Cross Syndrome”, promoting violent and wrong behaviors as if they were a desperate cry for help and, hence, deserving of patience and compassion. Even doctor Flynn, Mr. Grey’s psychiatrist, treats him with condescension as if he were just a naughty boy, despite his violent inclinations.

“She walked out because you belted her. If she doesn’t share your tastes, can you blame her?”

I would be more inclined to blame him for having beaten her without a contract regulation.

Focusing on the character’s complexity, it’s more clearly fleshed out in the rewritten trilogy, still a work in progress, with all events in Christians’ point of view. And, believe it or not, Mr. Grey’s character might be complex, but it’s certainly not well-built. At times, if anything, the difference between his actions and his thoughts gets dangerously close to utter incoherence; if we want to make an example, in the original trilogy, presented in Miss Steele’s point of view, the manner with which she expresses herself in her interior monologues is almost identical to the way she interact with the external world, except a few comments not externalized to self-control and shyness.
But do you remember the refined and sensual behavior distinctive of our patriarch of the backside strokes?
Well, forget about that and let’s give a round of applause for Fifty Shades of Longshoreman!

Fuck! How did I not notice how inviting that mouth is?
“S-Sorry. I’m not used to this.” [insert Lenny’s face here]I can tell, baby, but right now I don’t give a damn because I can’t keep my eyes off your mouth.

Quiet, dignity and grace, like a certain Frederick Frankenstein would say.

The scandal, we want to clarify, it’s certainly not born because of the use (even though definitely excessively frequent) of a vulgar language, to which everyone, past ten years of age, is used to and that in certain context gives more credibility to a certain type of dialogues; what actually leaves perplexed is obviously the abyss between what Christian thinks and the way he acts in public.

Is it a personality disorder, perhaps?

It’s way more likely we’re assisting to E. L. James’ badly executed attempt to set apart her monologues from his, giving more emphasis to the fact we are observing everything from a male perspective.
Men who are reading, don’t you fully recognize yourself in this stereotype?

But apart from that, let’s get to the point, because I’m convinced our prince charming diamond is actually very complex in his essence and that all things considered, added to the other points previously taken into consideration, we should get the full picture of his charm’s etiopathogenesis.

Whether it was intentional or not, Christian Grey thinks and acts exactly like a teenager in the middle of a hormonal crisis, rather than a supposedly young man. We have to point out that this teenage-typical immaturity is many times criticized by doctor Flynn and Ana herself, but only referred to specific acts (from jealousy to the inexperience in sentimental areas), while we wholly analyze his behavior.

Considering his language, worthy of the worst longshoremen, the even more vulgar explicit comments and some behavioral patterns that are just borderline criminal, we can say those so-called innocent turmoils stick out like a pair of flip flops at a wedding, to the point that they feel forced in the narrative just to please the readers. Because, we have to say it, if there’s something that E. L. James is good at it’s giving the public what it wants.

The mysterious dominant, so cold and apparently aromantic (and what a win for the aromantic community that would be, am I right?), hides a soft side that you could cut with breadsticks, which brings us to a second level of identification in which the readers go from feeling sympathy to real, actual empathy towards him, thanks to the similar thoughts and the disappointed expectations.

I sit. Waiting. My heart is thumping. It’s 5:36 and I stare through the privacy glass of my Audi at the front door of her building. I know I’m early, but I’ve been looking forward to this moment all day.
“I’m going to see her.”
I shift in my seat in the rear of the car. The atmosphere feels stifling, and though I’m trying to remain calm, the anticipation and anxiety are knotting my stomach and pressing down on my chest. Taylor sits in the driver’s seat, staring straight ahead, wordless, looking his usual composed self, while I can barely breathe. It’s irritating.
“Damn it. Where is she?”

What can I say, we gotta melt like an ice-cream on the hood of a car.

In conclusion, I can define our Dark Knight just like any Mythological Creature: men like him don’t exist. That’s the hard truth, my dear readers, and you need to come to terms with it. There are, however, some men who share his misogyny and who don’t have a lot of respect (if any at all) for their female partner, trying to pass it all as the typical lover. And in these cases, the only thing that should be understood about them is that they should be left to their own devices.

HacchanADL