50 Shades of Breasts

This past Sunday evening I went to view the film 50 Shades of Grey with some friends and classmates from this seminar since our previous attempts to view the film as a class never worked out.  While there are many thought provoking topics that could be discussed about this film, I decided to focus on film in general and how societal standards of what is “obscene” affected the production of this film. How does society pick and choose what content and images of certain parts of individuals’ bodies is appropriate in film? And what do those decisions say about how we sexualize bodies and society’s opinions on sexuality in general.

            First of all, I understand that this film is closely based on an erotic novel, but I did feel like I ultimately spent 2+ hours watching soft-core porn with a very developed back-story. So with that in mind there was A LOT of sex and A LOT of nudity. However, it was really interesting to me what was “allowed” to be shown of the characters bodies. Essentially, only breasts, and butts were permitted with some random flashes of pubic hair. It was really surprising to me that what is normally a hyper-sexualized part of a woman’s body (her breasts) was repeatedly shown and often the focal point of most of the sexual scenes in this film. It kind of got me thinking about the consequences of these choices. Essentially, this kind of media defines breasts’ primary function as sexual. As such breasts are considered obscene, sexual organs that are only permitted to be seen in public via R-rated films based on erotic novels; but god forbid their public exposure to feed an infant, which is their primary function by the way.

            Additionally, the fact that women are allowed to be “more” nude (by society’s standards) on screen than men implies something about how society allows women to be perceived. Considering the novel 50 Shades of Grey is based on a heterosexual couple, and numerous critics have claimed that this is a “woman’s novel” first and foremost, we can assume that the majority of moviegoers were heterosexual women. Therefore wouldn’t it cater to the film’s target audience to have more male than female nudity in the film? Despite what I think would have been an obvious answer, the FCC standards imply that female nudity is more acceptable than male nudity. Ultimately, I believe that this means society is more comfortable with the idea of sexualizing women than men in film and other aspects of life.