Why 50 Shades of Grey proves romance is dead
February 14, 2015 by admin
Filed under Choosing Lingerie
Romance is dead.
It’s more than dead – it’s been killed, dragged outside, buried, exhumed, kicked for a while, dressed in stockings, had a pole shoved up its arse and then forced to tapdance to a disco version of the Frog Chorus.
It’s deader than George Osborne’s eyes. It’s more muerte than Theresa May’s sense of style. It’s so terminal it should have its own rail link and a baggage strike.
It’s not just because on Valentine’s Day we’re all told to give capitalism a hard-on by purchasing overpriced tat, cheap lingerie, disappointing steaks or cards that are pointless if you sign them and a stalking offence if you don’t.
And it’s not just because I could name several couples of my acquaintance who’ll make every effort this weekend to show their partner they love them while not mentioning they don’t fancy them, like them or particularly enjoy their company any more and are only sticking with it because they can’t think of an exit strategy.
It’s because romance, whether you like it or not, is about optimism, hope, and blithe ignorance of statistics. And we’re all out of those.
The financial crash took away our optimism. Thatcher sold off hope to the private sector in the 1980s. And everywhere you look there’s someone waving a statistic at you like Danny Alexander in a flirty mood.
One in two marriages end in divorce. 85% of relationships fail within three months. A fifth of women and a quarter of men have cheated on their current partner. Nine in 10 people have plotted the death of their loved one. I might have made one of these up.
These days, romance is about keeping up with the Joneses. It’s about fashion, and trends, and looking like you’re doing what you ought rather than what you want (which in so many cases is DUMP THEM LIKE IT’S BIN DAY AND HIGH-TAIL IT TO RIO).
So “romance” becomes a thing that involves being mugged in a perfectly normal restaurant which has brought out the pink tablecloths and stuck a zero on all its prices. It means choosing to be oblivious to all the many things you don’t like about your relationship for the other 364 days a year. And, this weekend, it means 40% of bored couples trying to re-enact 50 Shades of Wha-Hey.
To humans romance always was, and always will be, whatever they are told it is. They’re not very good at making their own minds up on this topic.
And the terribly-written 50 Shades, which has been turned into a film just in time for the Valentine’s market so humans can be told what’s romantic while being charged £15 a pop for it, is absolutely no different to Barbara Cartland or Jane Austen.
Young girl meets emotionally distant older man. Only her innocence and wit can thaw his icy heart. After 400 pages or so he declares his passion and they live happily ever after.
You could replace Christian Grey with Mr Darcy, or a Victorian duke seducing improbably dense virgins, and you’ve got exactly the same book. The only difference is the sex, which Cartland didn’t want to mention and EL James can’t stop blethering on about.
Campaigners want you to boycott Jamie Dornan’s naked torso because he’s glamourising abusive relationships. Critics say it’s a terrible flop anyway so don’t bother going.
In fact despite the unending hype people are going to stay away in droves for two simple, human reasons.
1) Who will you go to the cinema with?
Partner – no. Mum – no. Alone – very no. Bunch of mates so you can giggle all the way through it? Fine, cinema’s all yours.
2) We are past the point we want to believe it
And that’s the death of romance, right there. Twenty years ago we knew it was rare to come across a handsome landowner in wet britches, but we continued to hope. Forty years ago we knew Regency rakes and ducal libertines were unlikely to have their heads turned by a peasant girl for longer than it took for a rape in the hay, but we dreamed.
A hundred years ago it was a horny-handed gardener and the lady of the manor. Before that it was Mr Rochester, and way before everything it was Mary Magdalene and the virgin carpenter of Galilee.
There’s something about the human brain which wants romance, craves it, and forces it into the same mould century after century. We want the hope, whether we’re male or female.
But today we’re presented with a billionaire CEO who wants to initiate a young girl into the kind of sexual practices most people graduate to only after getting bored with orgasms and we just laugh at it.
We’ve stopped believing – we’ve stopped WANTING to believe. Because what happens when you land Mr Emotionally Damaged But Sexually Quite Exciting?
You row. He refuses to speak to your mother. You realise the bedroom smells of farts. His shirt only gets wet when it’s covered in sick, his stomach starts to bulge and you stop shaving your legs between September and March.
And why have we become so cynical, do you think?
Because instead of tricking ourselves with this stuff as we’ve done quite happily for years, now we’re being sold it. It’s capitalised and commercialised to the point where the thing which gets us all out of bed in the morning – the hope of happiness – becomes something we have to buy.
It becomes a red rose, because the rose growers say you should. It becomes a £5 card, a £50 bra, a £100 dinner or, if those things are not manifest in the way we’re told they should be, a £10,000 divorce.
All over the world, people are sighing resignedly about Valentine’s. They’re preparing to watch 50 Shades not because they want to but so they can say they have. And romance is rotting like roadkill on a hot day.
So because you think romance is whatever you’re told, humans, pin your ears back and listen to this.
Romance is when you tell the person you hope will love you how you feel. It’s when you tell the person you’ve loved for years that you still do, and always will.
It’s when you say that, despite everything, it’s not working and you hope both of you will be happier apart.
It’s when you DON’T buy the meal, the flowers or go to the film because it’s February 14 but because you want to, even though it’s a wet Wednesday in November.
But if there’s one thing that means romance more than anything else in the modern era, it’s this:
When you’re with them, you want to put your phone down.
And if you can’t manage that, people, then I’ve no hope for you.
