By: Megan Bell

The erotic new flick, Fifty Shades of Grey, is breaking barriers. The upcoming film has been both celebrated and harassed.

Within the first year of its release, E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey reached $70 million in sales. The Fifty Shades trilogy joins Harry Potter, Twilight and a few others on the exclusive list of best-selling series of all time.

The movie portrays an innocent 21-year-old college student, Anastasia Steele, who interviews the enticing 27-year-old billionaire, Christian Grey, for her college newspaper. The two continue to “bump” into each other to hint that he’s infatuated with her and she’s intrigued by him. Christian doesn’t believe in love and targets Anastasia to draw her to his “red room of pain,” as she calls it – a bedroom furnished with chains, whips, handcuffs and other bondage-related sex toys. Throughout the film, they are both tested to push their limits and discover the sacrifices one makes for love.

The popular movie search engine, IMDB catalogs the soon-to-be blockbuster under “BDSM” (bondage, domination, sadism and masochism). There are many controversies surrounding the flick. Labels like “mommy porn,” abusive, manipulative and so on continue to be hurled at the film. A campaign has been started to urge the public to donate rather than see the movie. #50DollarsNot50Shades encourages filmgoers to give money to a domestic violence shelter rather than Hollywood because women in Anastasia’s situation usually end up there.

The actors who star in the steamy sensation, Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan, have identical perceptions of the movie in multiple interviews. They applaud the twisted love story created by James, as well as the visual approach Director Sam Taylor-Johnson has devised. They believe people should see the film before arriving to any negative conclusions.

Fandango, an online ticket vendor, said the movie is the quickest selling R-rated headline in the company’s history.

 

 

More From KZCD-FM