I’m not proud to say it, but I saw “50 Shades of Grey” (and before you get upset, I made proper amends for feeding into the franchise).  I didn’t go into it with high expectations.  I read the first book and couldn’t bear to read the other two.  As I anticipated, the movie showcased all the things that bothered me in the book: the fetishization of domestic violence, the inaccurate representation of what a consensual BDSM relationship looks like, the fact that I couldn’t stop seeing the characters as one dimensional reproductions of the “Twilight” characters, and so much more. 

However, what ended up bothering me the most was something I’m not sure was even in the books–the fact that every time Ana tries to eat something someone else takes it from her or stops her.  When Ana comes home from interviewing Christian for the school newspaper, she offers to make her roommate a sandwich.  The roommate turns her down, but as soon as Ana has finished making her own sandwich, her roommate gets up off the couch, takes it off her plate and walks away.  So instead of eating, Ana Googles Christian Grey. 

The next time it happens is the morning after Christian throws a fit and drags a blackout drunk Ana back to his hotel room. She wakes up and he hands her a piece of toast and says she needs to eat.  She takes a bite and he then takes his shirt off, climbs on top of her and eats most of the toast.  I don’t know about everyone else, but there aren’t many things I find less sexy than eating my food without my permission.

Finally, the morning after she and Christian sleep together, Ana gets up and makes a huge breakfast for the two of them. As she finishes cooking her food and sits down, Christian grabs her hand, kisses her wrist, and says it’s time for her to go get cleaned up. It seems that the poor girl hasn’t eaten in days at this point. The freaking contract says that she has to eat (albeit off a list of foods Christian makes, but eat none the less).    

I’m not sure if this was just some oversight on the part of the people making the movie or if they are trying to encourage some sort of starvation and body image issues among their ardent fans, but as someone who gets pretty territorial about her food, I couldn’t help but notice that Ana apparently cannot have her cake and eat it too.  Forget “50 Shades of Grey” for Anastasia’s stomach it was more like “50 Shades of Growl.”