50 Shades - It's Not The Actors I'm Worried About.

Posted by Ethne~

NOTE: This post is not family-friendly.  Come back tomorrow for regularly-scheduled broadcasting.

Now that I’ve had a few days to mull over the casting of Charlie Hunnam and Dakota Johnson as Christian and Ana in the 50 Shades movie(s), I must comment.  I suspect a good portion of you out there expected me to.  You’re welcome.

Of course I have something to say about this. Credit: tell me if you know.

A 5-year-old was doing my hair - DON'T BE PERVERSE.  It hurt.

My first response to the outcry over it not being Ryan Gosling was TOLD YOU SO.  I knew he never fit the part.  Even though I do love the “Hey Girl Hey” montages from Pinterest.  My second response to the petitions to the president that it’s not Matt Bomer was HE’S EFFING GAY, DUDES, HE CAN’T BE CHRISTIAN GREY. Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay, or playing straight, generally.  How-effing-ever, in this PARTICULAR role, I think you’ll agree with me that I need to wrap my mind around the fact that the actor is into the ladies when I’m watching him administer butt plugs and nipple clamps.

AS YOU WELL KNOW, I had done thorough IMDb research and cast Christian’s role myself.  I never selected Charlie Hunnam as a candidate, and had hand-selected Cam Gigandet, as you’ll recall from my 50 Shades of Wet Dreams post here.  BUT, who can blame me, he’s hot.  (Like Cam, Charlie does meet Kari’s and my criteria of being a minimum of 6’ tall – he’s 6’1”.)

Fortunately for me and my well-endowed ego, I’ve not gone without mention of Charlie Hunnam on this blog.  As it turns out, I said in this post that I wanted to have a foursome with him and, among others (including you, SHAUN), the tragically-departed Cory Monteith.  I also mentioned that I wanted Shaun to join a bad-a$$ biker gang because Jax Teller (CH’s character on Sons of Anarchy) is effing hot.  And by that, I mean he could flog me with a riding crop seven days from Sunday.  This from a girl who doesn’t like men with long hair. 

He's an effing chameleon. Credit: FX

When it comes down to it, it’s not the bad-a$$ biker that appeals so much as Charlie Hunnam.  He rocks my world in every episode.  And let me say, since SOA is on cable, not network, they let you see his butt and it’s FINE.  As a matter of fact, they let you see his butt while he’s banging his wife in a bathroom, and next to a guy he just offed, just for starters.  (Why are you not watching this show, ladies?  New season starts September 10.)  I will also not be rioting about him being British since I know this in advance and since I already know his American accent is impeccable.  (I riot when I find out LATER that a quintessential American character is played by a Brit actor, such as in Deadwood or Band of Brothers.  Shaun loves this.  I rioted when I found out about Charlie/Jax but I'm over it because of his hotness.)

Charlie Hunnam will clean up and do [it] quite nicely er... strictly?

I don’t have as much to say about Dakota Johnson.  I’ve not seen the movies she’s been in, which is pretty terrible considering that WE’RE RELATED.  That’s right.  And that’s how I know that that casting her will work – because I’m awesome.  It’s genetic.  (I admit I was a little off-put that a relative was cast for this particular role, but then I got over it, as she seems to fit the bill.)

If you know who gets credit for this, tell me.

[I’m totally not lying about this.  You can ask people who know me.  I don’t bring it up because it’s irrelevant in everyday conversation.  However, when Dakota’s mom, Melanie Griffith, was super popular in Working Girl with Harrison Ford, I was proud to proclaim it.  And when her dad, Don Johnson, was on Miami Vice in the ‘80’s when that was the coolest, I was proud to claim that he was related by marriage.  In elementary school, in North Dakota, you had to talk about something.  If you recall, we had given up on being pen pals with that East Coast elementary school because they literally thought we were still pioneers without wheels and Nintendo and we were super offended.

Anyway, here’s one of the rare occasions when it’s relevant.  Dakota’s maternal Grandma, Tippi Hedren, is first cousins with my paternal Grandpa, Tom Hedren.  My last name, also Hedren.  We are Swedish on that branch.  That would make me fifth cousins with Dakota.  I’ve never met any of them.  Grandpa and Grandma visited Tippi regularly in California though, on her big cat preserve, Shambala.]

Dakota looks more like Tippi than Melanie, I think.  And Don.

Tippi and her parents.

Just to make sure I wasn’t totally off-base in my affirmation that Charlie & Dakota’s casting would work out JUST FINE, I did a little research.  CNN had an article about other casting backlashes, a couple of which are particularly noteworthy in the article’s conclusion that the internet needs to settle the eff down: Robert Pattinson was rioted as an ill-fitting Edward for Twilight (myself included) and is now [my] beloved; Michael Keaton was highly questioned for Batman, but the movies were good anyway (though it was noted that it was not necessarily his performance that totally made the movies); Heath Ledger was thought to be an odd choice for the Joker, but his performance was so outstanding that everyone shut the hell up immediately and he won an Oscar; Vivian Leigh, when cast as Scarlett O’Hara for Gone With the Wind, had to adopt a Southern accent and demeanor for the role – and no one thought she’d ever pull it off since she was British with not much background.  She also won an Oscar for her performance.

I’d say what we 50 Shades devotees have far more to worry about is if the script writers and screenplay people and movie-making flunkies get it right.  Bringing a book to the big screen is no easy task.  I happen to think that aside from the casting of Kristen Stewart, they did a pretty decent job with Twilight.  50 Shades is a very particular sex book, however.  If the movie people don’t get it right, it won’t matter what actors they pick.  Personally, I think that if this thing gets anything less than an NC-17 rating, it won’t work.  And I’m not saying I want to stare at a bunch of vag for 2 straight hours.  But there’s no way you can address the subject matter (insert any single liaison in the Red Room of Pain, for example) with a less strict rating.  See the worry?  Let us quit with this foolishness over the actors and take to the power of the internet to ensure that the Motion Picture Association of America rates this effer properly.  PRIORITIES people.

So I say, my Friends, make sure your vibrators have fresh batteries.  If the movie people get it right, these actors should leave us twitching in our theater seats.  (Um, that’s totally disgusting.  Never mind about the ratings.  Make it G.)

Narcissim at its finest - I couldn't have the other one be my only picture in this post.  So I found one of me with Mr. T. Grey.

FINAL NOTE: After Dakota Johnson was cast, Melanie Griffith tweeted her pride (at the bottom of this article) that her daughter would be playing “Anna” Steele.  WTF.  That did not help your cause with the die-hards out there who are already rioting.  I felt a family obligation to forgive the oversight (no I didn’t) (surely it was autocorrect?) but no one else will.  Good one.