Fifty Shades Is Where You Find It
OKAY. Let’s get the obvious out of the way. E. L. James is indeed all that.
She’s literature’s White Knight. Her Excalibur is called Fifty Shades. Her books, Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker, and Fifty Shades Freed get people hot and bothered. The exploits of Christian and Anastasia are all in our faces. Those enticing book covers are everywhere we look.
And on just about everything.
Because Fifty Shades of Grey is pop culture personified. You don’t fight it as much as you ride it out until the next big thing comes along. In literature, we’ve seen it before: J.K. Rowling, Stephenie Meyer. They’ve had their day and, while far from dead and buried, they’ve gone the way of what have you done for me lately?
Now it’s E. L. James’ turn.
And as expected, there’s a lot to go around, because Fifty Shades and E. L. James are like blood in the water for people who live and die by the next big thing. The interest is not so much about the relative merits of Fifty Shades’ odyssey as it is about what that odyssey means. And the pundits are having a field day with the notion of the books as a lightning rod for the new erotica and the middle-aged woman who’s gotta have it. You can almost hear the heavy breathing coming from the enterprising journalist who coined the phrase “mommy porn.”
Not too far behind is the breathless examination of the dollars and cents of it all and what E. L. James means to an industry that has, admittedly, seen better days. The skinny is that the formerly bastard stepchild known as fanfiction has suddenly taken on an air of respectability, and the marginal world of e-book erotica is the new minor leagues for the major league publishers beating the bushes for a proven track record to bring up to the bigs.
But on a deeper, personal, and ultimately more important level—women of all ages are talking openly about sex. Many are blushing but they are definitely talking.
However, what is being studiously avoided in the rush to canonize E. L. James is that Fifty Shades has become a cash cow. You can find the brand just about anywhere and in any form. Take the books for example.
If you’re an erotic reader of a certain age, you’re well aware of what were known in the trade as “fuck books” whose heyday ran from the ’50s to the ’70s. Simple line drawing covers, crude and rude titles, pages upon pages of hard-core and extremely raw sex buttressed by a simpleton story. Traveling salesman knocks on the door. Woman lets him in, they have rough sex for what seems like an eternity. It was the War and Peace of its day for the genre. You could find them in most book and magazine shops on both the good and bad sides of town. The key to this kingdom was that you had to be twenty-one to go into the section with the “dirty books.”
But society has put lipstick on the Fifty Shades brand and that respectability has translated into point of purchase targeting where these mommies live. Walk into any supermarket or warehouse store whose name is ten letters or less and you won’t have to look far for a stack of Fifty Shades, rising phallic out of the floor on aisle four, a mere spitting distance from the creamed corn. Go in for steak and come out with the sizzle. It’s all too spot on and perfect.
Booksellers who, in the old days, would walk on the other side of the street to avoid acknowledging the form are now courting erotica as if it were the second coming. Those coveted front-of-the-store tables and end-of-the-aisle endcaps, primarily reserved for the latest offerings by “branded” bestselling authors or the hot “serious literature,” are now stacked to overflowing with the Fifty Shades trilogy. And who’s to blame booksellers for changing their tune? There are light bills to pay and doors to keep open at a time when, sadly, brick-and-mortar bookstores are dropping like flies. In the immortal words of the bard, “Money talks.”
Librarians have raised the expected stink and a few have made token attempts at banning the books outright. But patron demand soon had them falling in line.
So much for the source material. Here come the moneybags that are inevitably late for the dance. Movie rights? No biggie there. You knew that was coming. Hell, there’s already a soundtrack of Christian Grey’s favorite tunes to spice up the aural centers. Notice I said aural and not … well, you get the picture. Been to a mall department store lately? It’s like a journey into Christian Grey’s Red Room of Pain. The lingerie, Christian Grey–style boxers, T-shirts with pithy come-hither slogans, caps, journals … don’t forget the pink furry handcuffs. They’re all emblazoned with a variation on the Fifty Shades logo.
And this is just the authorized stuff that lawyers signed off on, where major money was exchanged.
Further down the evolutionary trail of cashing in is the fringe market. Unofficial Fifty Shades books (lifestyle guides that will spend 50,000 words telling you what you already know) and graphic novels, knock-off erotic novels reconfigured to reflect the Fifty Shades lifestyle. Adult shops catering to the hardware of kinky sex are noticing an increase in the sales of whips, handcuffs, and restraints. Some enterprising erotic outlets are reporting big attendance at hastily formed couples therapy/sex workshops.
You get the picture. Who knew that a pop culture phenomenon, chopped and channeled for mass consumption, could be so laughable? But this is what happens when one writer sits down and comes up with the most brilliant idea on the planet. At least for the moment.
Because the ball is now in E. L. James’ court. Continue to write the books that are making millions of women sing and you’re locked in for the hall of fame. Rest on your laurels and pocketbook? You, too, could be a trivia question of the future.
Mercenary? More likely just good business. Cynical? Sure. Fifty Shades of Grey is not only literature but an immensely important cog in the pop culture cycle. But there is an upside to all this mass marketing. People are once again reading in a very big way.
Thank you, E. L. James. You’re the stuff Pulitzers are made of.
MARC SHAPIRO is the author of thirty-six celebrity bios and entertainment books. His young adult biography J. K. Rowling: The Wizard Behind Harry Potter was a New York Times bestseller. His biography Justin Bieber: The Fever was a bestseller in Canada. His most recent biography on singer Adele is currently available, and he has just completed writing The Secret Life of E. L. James, An Unauthorized Biography. He is a published short story writer, poet, and comic book writer. He does this for a living. Don’t tell the authorities.