Roy Exum
Fandango, an online ticket hub, reported on Saturday that every showing of the steamy “Fifty Shades of Grey” in Chattanooga this Valentine’s weekend is already sold out. Every showing of the R-rated film is already full Thursday through Sunday night, both here and at hundreds of theaters across the United States unless theater owners add new screens and/or post more showtimes in an unparalleled market.
The movie, based on a best-selling erotic book by the same name, is the fastest-selling pre-order ticket in Fandango’s 15-year history and – believe it or not – the hottest sales are in the southern United States.
The top five states are Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia, Kentucky and Alabama.
What is unbelievable is Fandango’s sales in Mississippi are four times what they are normally, followed – in order -- by Arkansas (2.8x), West Virginia (2.7x), Kentucky (2.1x), Alabama (2.0x), Louisiana (2.0x), North Dakota (1.9x), South Carolina (1.8x), Iowa (1.7x) and – in 10th place – Tennessee (1.6x). Do you notice a trend of sorts? The South is hot!
Some groups are calling for a boycott, since the BDSM theme purportedly favors sexual violence towards women, and the country of Malaysia has banned the film, calling it sadistic. “Hollywood doesn’t needs your money, abused women do,” claims the social media site #50DollarsNot50Shades.
“Mistress Trinity,” who works as a professional dominatrix in Los Angeles, has a master's degree in philosophy and her academic work focused on a woman's ability to consent to violence in a sexual context. The mistress wrote on Huffington Post last week that she likes the theme but panned the book. “The book sold over 100 million copies worldwide, proof that the people who bought it -- mostly women -- are turned on and intrigued by the power dynamics involved in BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadomasochism.) That's a great thing!” she opined.
But then she added she thought the book was terrible. In a hysterical revelation, the mistress even admitted, “I currently use the book in sessions as a torture device. Very bad slaves have to read the book aloud … One of my slaves pleaded for me to stop the pain, offering to receive 100 strokes of the cane if he could just stop reading. Another used his safe word and willingly gave up a year's salary to me to ‘end this horrific task.’ So, my inner goddess thanks you, E.L. James, for 500 pages of pure torment.”
Already filming is starting on the two sequels to Fifty Shades of Grey.
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A man in Sweetwater, Tenn., has been arrested not once but twice for driving his car with flashlights tied to the bumper instead of headlights. Knoxville television station WBIR said the police report stated the man tied flashlights to his bumper with a bungee cord.
The man was cited on Monday at 2 a.m. for improper headlights, violation of the state registration law, and driving without insurance. About 18 hours later, he was cited for the same charges again in north Knoxville.
George Bernard Shaw once said, “When a stupid man is caught doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.”
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Cobb County Solicitor General Barry Morgan issued a written statement Friday that recommended the dismissal of a citation written against an Alabama man and a red-faced judge immediately signed it.
Madison Turner was given a ticket for violating Georgia’s distracted motorist law. His crime? He was eating a double quarter-pounder with cheese as he drove his car. The officer told him, “You can’t just go down the road eating a hamburger.”
Later the officer was politely informed millions upon millions eat in their cars and trucks all day long – that’s why it is fast food – and the media in both Georgia and Alabama have had a field day with the line, “You can’t just drive down the road eating a hamburger.”
George Carlin once said, “Think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are stupider than that!”
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A 911 operator in Washington D.C. has been “re-assigned” after telling a teenaged girl to “stop yelling” and “quit whining” when the girl called to say her father and his fiancé had been struck by a car while changing a flat tire last Sunday night.
The Baltimore Sun and other outlets are carrying a tape of the crass operator, who had no way of knowing the girl’s father had been killed and the fiancé was unconscious. An Anne Arundel County fire department spokesman apologized, saying, “He certainly used a poor choice of words. That 911 call did not meet our expectations of how we want a call handled and it didn’t meet the public’s expectations of how that call should have been handled.”
And there you have it: We live in an age of smart phones and dumb people.
royexum@aol.com