9. It's a Bad Influence
Maybe this is the old man in me speaking, but honestly I'm okay with that. People are always grumbling that girls and guys don't have proper role models, and a lot of celebrities speak publicly as if they have their adoring public's best interest at heart, but sometimes I have to wonder. Some 27 year old BDSM fella' takes the virginity of a 22 year old girl who, only after she experiences what BDSM is like in the end, decides they are incompatible. Clearly you wasted your first time there girly (and our time,) and sorry but you can never get that back. But this isn't to say that Fifty Shades is only a bad influence in one direction. I'm not strictly talking about the sexuality of it, that's evident. (And yes, it is a large component of this argument.) The way it's the worst influence is that it tells aspiring writers and filmmakers that poor writing and generic, thoughtless plot is the way to make a quick buck. The book and inevitable film set the bar pretty low for what passes as a good story, and it suggests that to cut it in this industry you don't really need to have a whole lot of talent or creativity or even come up with an original idea, you've really just got to come up with something campy and figure out how to market it right. Somehow, E.L. James found out how to sell this trilogy and, in a way, God bless her for taking advantage of the system. My anger is less with her than it is with the people who've embraced the bull she peddled them and have come to realize that if she got famous off material like this then why can't they? It's a dangerous Katamari Damacy and I fear the day that it grows into a trend; one that suggests it's okay to cover a turd in copper and try to pass it off as precious metal.