50 Shades of Grey

Telling right from wrong, what’s desirable or less so, or how to make the best decision from a long list of choices has never been a “black and white” affair. We often pretend it’s that easy and we always have preferred a simple “yes” or “no.”
The current moral maelstrom over the soft porn movie “50 Shades of Grey” offers a timely review of why almost nothing is as a simple as black and white — not even for newspapers. To examine this point, we have stolen the attention caused by this embarassing movie based on an even more embarassing (but extremely popular) novel.
The movie “50 Shades of Grey” is based on a novel written by E. L. James, a British woman. It is about a sexual relationship between a younger woman and an older, well-to-do man, whose name is Christian Grey. The couple engage in kinky sex involving bondage and sadism/masochism. Based on reviews, the plot is thin and the prose is very poor. But that has not stopped Feminists from agreeing with Fundamentalists that it should be banned or boycotted. All the while, 150 million copies of the book have been sold and the movie’s opening on Valentine’s Day weekend was a box office smash.
Talk about shades of gray. We are looking at a big commercial success based on the sexual curiosity of millions. To make matters more grey, we are also hearing all this social outrage about objectifying women, free choice and decency.
If anything, what this social divide is telling us is how hung up we still are about any mention or depiction of sex. Sex should be an intimate, very private affair. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t find ways to talk about it without giggling or yelling “porn.”
Then again, sex is not the only subject we talk about that gets confusing and easily caught up in fifty shades of grey. Politics, of course, menu choices and friendships are never black-and-white. The original meaning of shades of grey tried to describe the complexity of an issue, that there are always more than just two sides to a subject or sitution.
One person’s choice of what’s right can be another’s caution about what is wrong. A neighborhood committee may protest a new housing development, but the city council may favor it. Building a winery on my road is a terrible idea because of too much traffic, unless my road is home to my family’s farm that now wants to make wine.
Take the current question about the future for Windsor’s fire services. Isn’t that a pretty clear “black-and-white” issue? The current fire service contracts are set to expire and the community’s fire safety is a top priority. (Black.) A new fire safety plan likely will include new costs. (White.) Any joint service agreement may involve a loss of local policy control. (Grey.) Old relationships between the Town’s government, Windsor Fire District and county agencies may face additional reforms. (More grey.)
In the end, when the Town Council or fire district responds to these “quality of life” questions, it will look like a black-and-white answer was made. But that won’t be the case. It could take a collection of 50 or more black and white facts to add up to a “shade of grey” decision. We don’t like that. We want our answers in black and white. We unfairly force these thorny issues into smooth “yes” or “no” boxes.
Ask a local elected official if any decision is ever that easy. Ask a frustrated newspaper editor why the story can never be as “black and white” as we’d like.
Most of the time, 50 is just a beginning number for how many different answers there might be.
— Rollie Atkinson