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Abstract

Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) was denigrated before and after its release. Upon close inspection, there is a difference between criticism directed towards the main text’s romanticisation of intimate personal violence (IPV) and towards a perceived impressionable audience for passively absorbing ideology. By using existing feminist film theory and concerns over the repression of sexuality in media, this thesis will argue that a text can be read in different ways, depending on the types of paratexts that the viewer encounters. While some paratexts advocate progressive (and feminist) readings, other paratexts direct the viewer to see the main text as sexist or dangerous. In doing so, not only do such paratexts shape the viewers’ interpretation of the text, but also reveal the ways in which society seeks to contain female sexuality and pathologize it in order to maintain male authority. In doing so, female-oriented media is pushed further down a cultural hierarchy by painting its audience as passive and/or by undermining the eroticism in the film through mockery. By using Stuart Hall and Jonathan Gray’s theories of encoding ideology and paratextual formations, this thesis will analyse such paratexts; one which mocks the film and another that warns non-readers about the dangers of the text. In doing so, this thesis will argue that both paratexts demonstrate little knowledge of the ‘main text’ (the film or book) and therefore rely on an understanding of other paratexts (which become substitutions for the main text). It is suggested that these paratexts display a repression of feminine sexuality for they don’t critique the main text but, instead, create and critique a perceived audience as impressionable. This then becomes a justification for avoiding the main text.

Course: Film Industries and Creative Writing - BA - U2652PYC

Date Deposited: 2020-10-28

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis13601.html