Tuesday 17 February 2015

Fearful symmetry

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, according to Mister Newton. Although, it turns out that some reactions aren't quite as opposite as you might expect:
As the world gleefully awaited the release of Fifty Shades of Grey, Evangelical Christians were awaiting ... well, it would be inaccurate to call Old Fashioned the Christian version of the film, but it's definitely meant to be the Christian response...
...Fans of Fifty Shades might see echoes of that book in this basic plot summary. In both stories, a man with unconventional notions of romance and sex woos a woman, getting her to at least consider his viewpoint. Except in Fifty Shades, this involves lots of sex, and in Old Fashioned, this involves, well, no sex at all.
Brandon Ambrosino in Vox explores how the Evangelicals' cinematic response to this season's BDSM blockbuster ended up being an awkward mirror-image of everything it stands against, with celibacy and spanking respectively cast as revolutionary acts challenging the permissive/vanilla mainstream.  As any parent will tell you, you need to pick your battles and it often turns out that tactically ignoring some challenges is far a better option than launching an unwinnable counter-attack.

In this case, action and reaction aren't even close to being equal, either:
Since its February 6 release, Old Fashioned has brought in about $258,000. On its opening Friday alone, Fifty Shades pulled in over $30 million, making it the fourth highest opening night box office of any R-rated film ever, according to Box Office Mojo.
Fortunately, Isaac Newton was never a film critic.

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