Review Of Foucault's 'Fifty Shades Of Grey'

Although Foucault’s idea that there was an upsurge of discourse about sex from the 18th century on may be correct, that does not necessarily negate the concept that there wasn’t still repression of sex. People can still talk and write about sex, but simply having dialogue is not be enough – what is more important is to have productive dialogue that challenges and advances ideas about sexuality. If discourse maintains the status quo of sex, it is not groundbreaking. Foucault uses the medicalization of sex to support his argument that there was increased discourse about sex. However, Alfred Kinsey’s work in the 1950s may show Foucault’s error in thinking that acknowledging a subject necessarily means improving conversations around it. For instance,

For every movie that shows a sexist depiction of a woman’s sexuality, there might be another that has a very pro-feminist message. There have also been more female directors now than in the past; “Fifty Shades of Grey,” a movie that many have criticized as manipulating BDSM practices to legitimize physical violence, was directed by a female director, based on a novel by a female author and its screenplay was written by a female writer (“Female Sexuality”). Thus, Foucault would say that it is not a “binary” power situation after all, with men pitted against women. If there is unfair treatment and portrayal of women, there are also women who are perpetuating these images. Power is being held by the female creators in that situation, so perhaps it is because they were not repressed that they had the freedom to make such a sexually explicit film. However, these female directors might have been influenced and controlled by greater powers, such as the executives of the movie studio, in order to make a more profitable film that also appealed to men. These women perhaps faced pressure from a more powerful entity, so in that situation they are not actually in control of the entire film production process. In the end, the “male gaze” and a male-driven culture still dominates, further perpetuating the repression of female sexuality in