Entertainment desk
< October 20	<< Sep \| October \| Nov >>	October 22 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Entertainment Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

October 21

Hypothesis: Did the Fifty Shades of Grey film cause a lot of sexual frustration?

The reference desk's job is not to entertain or evaluate hypotheses.--WaltCip (talk) 19:55, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I assume that Fifty Shades of Grey (film) has caused a lot of sexual frustration, especially among hardcore female fans. Reasons for this assumption:

Newspapers wrote a lot about hardware stores anticipating a huge run on cable ties etc., but mostly kept silent whether this actually happened (some confessed that it did not at all).
The film has very low IMDB viewer ratings, 3.7 for males, 5.0 for females. However, this gap was much larger in the beginning. After some 8k votes, male ratings were down at 2.1 (which would have sent the film to flop 100), while female ratings were at a decent 6.9. Reasons seem obvious: At first, the film was mostly watched by female fans of the franchise (who liked it), and their partners (who were immensely disappointed and frustrated by the film). Later, when other audiences watched the film out of curiosity, female non-fans dropped the ratings, while males without any expectations gave milder ones.

As far as I can see, this means: Female fans were confronted with frustrated partners, who were hardly in the mood to live any BDSM phantasies after consuming the film, thus also frustrating their other halfs. Very little was written about the effects on audiences, which I rather see as a confirmation. But is there more definite evidence in either direction? --KnightMove (talk) 13:18, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you describe the initial male viewers (where partners of females) as "frustrated"? I'd have expected most of them merely to be bored.

Re cable ties: as someone employed in a maintenance industry, I know that cable ties are bought and used in metric shedloads. Any additional uptake for BDSM purposes (a bad idea anyway – they're not safe, and a safe BDSM activist of my acquaintence fulminates about the film) would always be minuscule by comparison, mostly fulfilled from minor workplace "borrowings" or existing DIY household holdings, and undetectable in the noise of their general trade.

I suggest that without more robust evidence, such as polls of the film's viewers directly probing reasons for liking/disliking it, your hypothesis is entirely unsupported, and unnecessary. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.27.88 (talk) 14:33, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Merely bored users usually don't give that low ratings - that requires a much more negative emotional state. --KnightMove (talk) 14:44, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You are attributing your own opinion into the ratings of a large population that you do not know in any way. You also state that you are attributing absence of contrary evidence to be confirmation of your personal bias. Until you come to grips with why those are bad things to do, there is nothing that can be said to further your request. It is possible that many of the "men" were not men. It is possible that many of the "women" were automated rating services. It is possible that many of the ratings came from people who never saw the movie. It is possible that at least one man gave it a low rating because he expected more boobs. Overall, you need to abandon your opinions before you can see the plethora of alternate intermingling possibilities. 209.149.113.4 (talk) 16:12, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well said. The sub-conjecture (pardon the pun) that there were a bunch of frustrated women out there because their men would be uninterested in BDSM or role-playing after watching a crappy movie involves so many layers of assumptions that it's difficult to know where to begin. Matt Deres (talk) 21:47, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.