PARRY Big-screen Romance by Metro and Screen Education magazines

TAINTED The Troubling Messages of Big-screen Romance From classic Disney films to Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey, Screen Education I ÂŠ ATOM I No. 90

Hollywood has a long history of presenting distorted, unrealistic depictions of romance. As GRETA PARRY argues, such problematic representations are likely to have a negative impact on the way young people understand relationships and gender dynamics, which makes itÂ all the more important that these messages be critically addressed. www.screeneducation.com.au

TAINTED The Troubling Messages of Big-screen Romance From classic Disney films to Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey, Screen Education I ÂŠ ATOM I No. 90

Relationship experts and psychologists stress the importance of young people having healthy relationship models. If they can see healthy relationships, they are more likely to enter and maintain such relationships themselves.3 A recent study has also highlighted the need for parents to actively educate their children about healthy relationships, beyond just modelling them.4 Crucially, the study finds that it’s not happening, and the authors point out that, in lieu of this education, popular culture is left to fill in the gaps. This is an issue, they write, because

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many forms of entertainment and media […] spawn all kinds of misconceptions and reinforce deeply ingrained cultural myths about romantic love: that love, for example, is an intoxication or an obsessive attraction; that ‘real love’ is clear, unmistakable, and undeniable; that love happens suddenly and is forever, which means that you shouldn’t give up on it even if it means that you are degraded or shamed.5

IDEALISED POWER IMBALANCES: TWILIGHT One of the biggest teen romance texts of the twenty-first century has undoubtedly been Twilight. The book series by Stephenie Meyer, which constitutes four titles released from 2005 to 2008, sold a combined 120 million copies worldwide,7 becoming an obsessionworthy phenomenon among young women.8 This popularity extended to the film adaptations, which made over US$3.3 billion across the globe.9 The story of a teenage girl who falls in love with a sexy vampire enthralled readers and viewers to the point that devoted fans were given their own moniker: ‘Twihards’. Fighting to be heard amid the outpouring of love for the franchise were voices that expressed concern about the messages that the Twilight texts were sending about the sexism and misogyny that characterise Meyer’s fantasy world – in particular, the relationship between Bella Swan and Edward Cullen.10 The first film, simply called Twilight (Catherine Hardwicke, 2008), is a neat introduction to the storylines and themes that run through the series. In it, we meet Bella (Kristen Stewart), the new girl at a high school in a small town in Washington state. She soon becomes fascinated by Edward (Robert Pattinson), a mysterious, brooding fellow student. Several key sequences between the pair early in the film position Bella as passive, and as a victim.

Screen Education I © ATOM I No. 90

he year 2017 saw women’s rights gain unprecedented attention in certain areas, most notably with the #MeToo campaign, which dominated headlines and social-media feeds in the wake of dozens of allegations of sexual assault being made against heavyweight Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Women around the world told their stories of abuse at the hands of men, and alleged perpetrators were outed in Hollywood and beyond. Not only that, but there were real consequences for these alleged abusers, particularly in Hollywood, which saw powerful men lose their jobs, their roles and their careers. The so-called Weinstein effect shows no signs of slowing in 2018. The first of January saw the founding of Time’s Up, a movement against sexual harassment that is supported and funded by some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. The movement successfully urged (almost) all women attending the Golden Globes ceremony to raise awareness by wearing black on the red carpet, and prompted many men to wear ‘Time’s Up’ pins. The overwhelming message to emerge from this movement is that Hollywood has long been a man’s world. As Maureen Dowd writes in The New York Times, ‘We’re talking about a world that is just as cutthroat, amoral, vindictive and misogynistic as any Quentin Tarantino hellscape. We’re talking about Hollywood’.1 This, combined with the fact that men still write, direct and produce a vast proportion of the content we see at cinemas,2 must lead us to ask a vital question: can we expect Hollywood to create stories that speak to, and for, women and girls? If Hollywood is home to a culture of misogyny in which abuse is rife, can we really expect its products to emerge unscathed?

Indeed, when considering adult ‘models’ in young people’s lives, it is naive to exclude the role that adults in popular media can play. Focusing on romance movies, which are an obvious source of mass-distributed messages about love, Jessica Reynolds identifies seven common tropes that can lead to dangerous expectations regarding real-life relationships, including ‘love at first sight’ and ‘fighting means you have passion’. Citing several relationship experts, Reynolds writes that ‘watching these story lines unfold over and over again can distort our vision of love’.6 Which makes sense: when certain behaviours and kinds of relationships are repeatedly idealised on screens, it’s only natural that viewers will, over the years, come to expect that love looks that way. This is especially likely if they don’t have targeted education or relationship models in their lives to counter what they see in the media.

Her overwhelming ‘love’ for Edward is presented as the only thing that matters – and the intensity with which she feels it, which is likely a misrepresentation of the very fear and danger that he elicits, is presented as wildly romantic.

Screen Education I © ATOM I No. 90

During their first (wordless) interaction, when Bella is seated next to Edward in Biology class, he leers at her threateningly and shifts uneasily in his seat, obviously disgruntled at being in her presence, before abruptly storming out of the room. Soon after, she walks into the school office to find him being told he can’t change classes, at which point he angrily pushes past Bella while muttering, ‘Fine, I’ll just have to endure it.’ Though in their next interaction Edward apologises and asks Bella questions about her life, as soon as she turns the focus on him, querying the changing colour of his eyes, his disrespect returns: he suddenly walks away mid conversation. Their first meetings play out like literal interpretations of the adage ‘treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen’: Bella is attracted to him even when (or perhaps because) he seems to actively dislike her. Edward holds all the power: his mood dictates the tone of their interactions, and he decides what they do and don’t discuss. Immediately after their first stifled conversation, Bella spots Edward across the car park. Their eyes meet, and linger; her gaze is sad and dejected, and his, cool and almost menacing. The exchange is interrupted by a car veering out of control towards Bella, at which point Edward heroically saves her life. His power now extends to whether she lives or dies. Other unsettling evidence of this power imbalance in the first third of the film includes Edward following Bella without her knowledge (this is otherwise known as stalking) and breaking into her bedroom to watch her sleep. Edward’s jealousy, particularly regarding Bella’s friend Jacob (Taylor Lautner), and his urge to control Bella also continue unabated. When he tries to convince her she’s wrong about witnessing his superhuman speed and strength, it sounds and feels exactly like gaslighting: ‘I was standing right next

PREVIOUS SPREAD: Fifty Shades of Grey THIS SPREAD: Twilight (two images) to you, Bella,’ he condescendingly insists – and when she objects, he tells her, ‘You hit your head. I think you’re confused.’ The explicit danger Edward poses to Bella – and her explicit attraction to this danger – is clearest soon after Bella figures out that Edward is, in fact, a vampire. Alone together in an isolated, ominous woodscape, Bella and Edward enter a tense exchange: BELLA: You’re beautiful. EDWARD: Beautiful? This is the skin of a killer, Bella. I’m a killer. BELLA: I don’t believe that. EDWARD: That’s because you believe the lie. It’s camouflage. I’m the world’s most dangerous predator. Everything about me invites you in: my voice, my face, even my smell. As if I would need any of that. As if you could outrun me! As if you could fight me off. I’m designed to kill. BELLA: I don’t care. EDWARD: I’ve killed people before. BELLA: It does not matter.

The scene soon cuts to Bella alone in her bedroom as her voiceover concludes: About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him, and I didn’t know how dominant that part might be, that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him. Edward has explicitly and firmly explained how dangerous he is, and that he has wanted to kill her and doesn’t know if he can control himself. Bella insists that he can, despite only knowing him for mere weeks and knowing next to nothing about

vampires (indeed, she admits in voiceover that she doesn’t know how dominant his bloodlust is). Her overwhelming ‘love’ for Edward is presented as the only thing that matters – and the intensity with which she feels it, which is likely a misinterpretation of the very fear and danger that he elicits, is presented as wildly romantic. Once they officially enter a romantic relationship, he displays possessiveness, jealousy and more controlling behaviour, all the while continuing to warn her about the danger of vampires (i.e. him). Not long into the relationship, Bella tells Edward she wants him to turn her into a vampire so that they will never be apart. Though he refuses to, he expresses an equally committed sentiment by stating, ‘You are my life now.’ Even this early in their romance, there is a startling level of co-dependency. It may be tempting to read the irrational and frankly concerning intensity of the relationship as a modern-day Romeo-andJuliet story – young lovers whose overwhelming hormones lead

Screen Education I © ATOM I No. 90

EDWARD: I wanted to kill you. I’ve never wanted a human’s blood so much in my life. BELLA: I trust you. EDWARD: Don’t.

THIS SPREAD, L–R: Twilight; Fifty Shades of Grey; Beauty and the Beast them to act out and make questionable decisions. While I think even this is a stretch (if you know a teen girl whose paramour is breaking in to watch her sleep, call the police), the text itself rules out this reading because Edward has been ‘seventeen years old’ since 1918. He is, in fact, over 100. Jealousy, controlling behaviour, co-dependency, the threat of violence, an imbalance of power, and constant drama or sadness are regularly identified as signs of an unhealthy and abusive relationship.11 Furthermore, a woman’s inability to acknowledge signs of danger and mistreatment despite clear evidence because she

necessarily identify with Bella. But if Twilight significantly influenced how even a fraction of those girls understood love, the impact is potentially enormous. Such girls may have grown up believing that controlling behaviours such as stalking and possessiveness are romantic rather than dangerous, which can translate to an inability to read warning signs of what may become an abusive relationship. When considered in the context of a long line of Hollywood films peddling misguided messages about love, it is not a stretch to posit that this low-level but long-term indoctrination risks setting girls and women up to

When Twilight mania was at its peak, millions of girls and young women received the message that they should dream of having a love as romantic, dramatic and sexy as that between Edward and Bella. Screen Education I © ATOM I No. 90

is ‘blinded’ by love is an all-too-common scenario in many abusive relationships. This label applies to Twilight’s central relationship even more when the characters’ age gap is considered. What is most alarming about the franchise’s treatment of this troubling relationship is that it’s presented as an ideal. When Twilight mania was at its peak, millions of girls and young women received the message that they should dream of having a love as romantic, dramatic and sexy as that between Edward and Bella. Of course, viewers aren’t simply sponges that will unquestioningly absorb every message sent their way, nor will all girls

otentially be complicit in their own abuse. At the very least, it p is robbing them of the ability to categorically identify problematic behaviour in their early romantic relationships. It’s important to also acknowledge that the normalisation of abusive behaviours in texts such as Twilight doesn’t just affect girls. While Hollywood romance narratives are overwhelmingly produced and marketed with women in mind, it is naive to assume that boys don’t watch them – or that problematic romances aren’t also portrayed in less gender-specific genres. Educating boys about healthy relationships in order to

encourage respectful behaviour is thus just as crucial as educating girls about informed decision-making. Furthermore, while the focus of this piece is on male characters’ mistreatment of women, it’s worth noting that abuse is not always enacted by men, and not necessarily within heterosexual relationships.

INTERNALISED MISOGYNY: FIFTY SHADES OF GREY

Universe, reimagining the central relationship between Bella and Edward. When this proved to be very popular among readers, the author rewrote it as a standalone novel. This became Fifty Shades of Grey, which turned into a trilogy that has sold over 125 million copies worldwide,13 subsequently being turned into a film series that has made well over US$1 billion to date.14 The erotic tale, in which rich, powerful business mogul Christian Grey pursues naive young Anastasia Steele until she agrees to enter a BDSM15 relationship with him, has been repeatedly slammed by critics for presenting a distorted depiction of BDSM that removes the vital element of consent, and for glamorising dangerous power dynamics and violence against women.16 The story essentially takes all the abusive elements of Edward and Bella’s relationship to what is arguably their logical conclusion by introducing regular violence – but retaining the message that these behaviours are passionate and therefore desirable. That Twilight fan, the director of the first Fifty Shades film, and the vast majority of the audience devouring these stories? Women.17

NEW FILM, OLD MESSAGES: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST A lot has changed since the world became obsessed with Edward and Bella, but a lot hasn’t. Fifty Shades Freed (James Foley) hit the top of the Australian box office when it was released in February this year,18 proving that the appetite for dangerous romance on screen is still high. Perhaps even more telling is Disney’s recent decision to film a live-action version (Bill Condon, 2017) of Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise’s 1991 animated Beauty and the Beast, and the fact that this new adaptation was the second-highest-grossing film of 2017 globally.19 Disney has always been associated with the resolutely conventional values embedded in its animated retellings of classic fairytales. Full of handsome princes saving their princesses from a life of boredom, films like Sleeping Beauty (Clyde Geronimi, 1959), Cinderella (Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson & Hamilton Luske, 1950) and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (William Cottrell et al., 1937) have offered generations of little girls an ultimate goal of beauty, ball gowns and true love’s happily ever after. Reynolds, writing before the Beauty and the Beast remake was in the works, name-checks the original Disney film as pushing the unrealistic idea that ‘you can change someone if you try hard enough’. ‘Remember [when] Belle [Paige O’Hara] attempts to

When we consider the Twilight franchise in the context of misogyny both within the texts and within Hollywood, we must also consider the fact that the books and the first film are authored by women. How can this story be in any way ‘bad’ for women if it was created by women? It’s a very good question, and there is no simple answer, but it’s crucial to acknowledge that women can also produce work that bears ideas and messages that don’t benefit women. It’s a product of what’s known as internalised misogyny, which is a fancy way of saying that, when women display anti-feminist behaviour, it’s usually a result of being raised in a culture that normalises sexism and discrimination against women.12 In other words, women are a product of patriarchy. Twilight thus not only operates as a product of this, but also continues the cycle by reinforcing patriarchal ideas about relationships. The strongest evidence of Twilight’s role in this cycle actually lies in another text. One Twilight fan was so enraptured by the story that they wrote an unofficial sequel to the novels, then wrote a Twilight fan-fiction novel called Master of the

soften the Beast’s [Robby Benson] demeanor through unconditional caring?’ she asks. ‘In real life, she probably would’ve resigned in frustration – or have been mauled.’20 But when the live-action remake was announced in such a seemingly ‘woke’ era, and when women’s rights activist and UN ambassador Emma Watson signed on to star as the bookish Belle, there was hope that the film would offer young women something more inspiring than a girl who is captured by, and then falls in love with, a literal beast. In the lead-up to the film’s release, Watson pre-empted the backlash by refuting the idea that the film presents an abusive relationship founded on Stockholm Syndrome. ‘In fact, she gives as good as she gets,’ Watson reasons. ‘He bangs on the door, she bangs back.’ She goes on: ‘They are having no illusions about who the other one is. They have seen the worst of one another, and they also bring out the best.’21 Watson’s arguments don’t ring true, however. In fact, Belle is captured by a moody, violent beast (Dan Stevens). The ‘worst’ of Belle seems to be a small amount of defiance – hardly a negative thing compared to the Beast’s tendency to imprison people. The two characters fall in love, which prompts the Beast to transform back into a human, and everyone has their happily ever after. The unambiguous moral of this story is that if you overlook brutality, and continue to love someone, everything will work out for you in the end. In reality, it is extremely unlikely that a happy and healthy relationship could be built from such an extreme power imbalance. Total control (here represented by imprisonment) must be understood as an indication of danger rather than a hurdle on the path to ‘true love’.

The year past also gave us hope that an oppositional voice might be getting louder: not far behind Beauty and the Beast, at number ten on the yearly global box-office ranking, was Wonder Woman (2017).22 The film, directed by Patty Jenkins, has a strong romance storyline running through its tale of an Amazonian warrior’s battle to save Earth, but Diana (Gal Gadot) is not a conventional romantic heroine: her mission remains her firm priority, and her banter with Steve (Chris Pine) reveals a woman who doesn’t need a man, but who falls in love as an aside to her rich and meaningful life. Their relationship is founded on something close to equality: she saves his life, then he guides her to London; she regularly outdoes him on the battlefield, displaying remarkable skill and bravery, but the fearlessness he displays when going undercover is similarly impressive; and they truly work together to achieve their goal. Most revolutionary is Steve’s death at the end of the film. While this is presented as tragic and devastating for Diana, it does not define her: she continues to work on her primary mission of keeping Earth safe. The global success of Wonder Woman will hopefully inspire more stories of strong women whose romances complement and enhance their lives rather than define or destroy them, but the global success of Beauty and the Beast reveals that Hollywood won’t be dropping its patriarchal romance tropes any time soon. And maybe this is okay. It isn’t realistic, nor even desirable, to eliminate problematic relationships from entertainment media. Conflict is an essential element of compelling drama, and we need compelling drama to keep us engaged. While Wonder Woman sources its conflict from an epic wartime battle, most romance films are not set against such a high-drama background – the discord often lies within the relationships themselves. The problem, then, is the extent to which unhealthy interpersonal behaviour has been uncritically presented on screen in the name of romance. In order for young people to form healthy ideas about romance, love and relationships, they need to be equipped with the tools to critically assess the problematic messages coming from the media. It’s okay to feel swept away by the grand romances of Twilight and countless Disney fairytales. It’s okay to fantasise about what that kind of dramatic love might feel like – in the same way that it’s nice to dream about what it would be like to save the world. But it is crucial that we understand that these grand romance narratives are just as overblown as the stories in the average action movie. While we are brought up being told that violence in movies isn’t real – ‘it’s just tomato sauce’ has long been uttered by concerned parents – we don’t have the same lessons about love. This desperately needs to be addressed because, as the aforementioned study’s authors note, ‘Media images of love, in part because we are not taught to view them as aberrant, may be more harmful than media images of violence.’23 We’ve just witnessed a landmark moment for women’s rights in Hollywood, but it is vital that the interrogation of one of the world’s most influential media sources continues into 2018 and beyond, moving past boardroom conversations and into the onscreen stories. Empowering young people with the ability to identify the fantasy and fallacy of Hollywood love – and to understand that a bad tree is likely to bear some rotten fruit – is something that could genuinely save lives. https://clickv.ie/w/screen-ed/beauty-and-the-beast Greta Parry is a freelance writer, subeditor of Archer magazine and former editor of Screen Education. SE

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MOVING FORWARD: WONDER WOMAN

Maureen Dowd, ‘This Is Why Uma Thurman Is Angry’, The New York Times, 3 February 2018, <https://www.nytimes. com/2018/02/03/opinion/sunday/this-is-why-uma-thurman-is -angry.html>, accessed 25 February 2018. 2 See Brent Lang, ‘Women Comprise 7% of Directors on Top 250 Films (Study)’, Variety, 27 October 2015, <http://variety. com/2015/film/news/women-hollywood-inequality-directors -behind-the-camera-1201626691/>, accessed 25 February 2018. 3 According to ReachOut, ‘Teenagers subconsciously look to adults for models on how to behave in relationships’; see ‘Help Your Teenager Develop Boundaries’, ReachOut, <https:// parents.au.reachout.com/skills-to-build/wellbeing/things -to-try-romantic-relationships/help-your-teenager-develop -boundaries>. Similarly, Parentline advises that ‘young people with parents and carers who respect each other are also more likely to form happy and healthy relationships with others and themselves’; see ‘Tip Sheets – Respectful Relationships’, Parentline, October 2014, <https://www.parentline.com.au/ parenting-information/tip-sheets/respectful-relationships. php>, both accessed 25 February 2018. 4 Jenny Anderson, ‘Parents Are Getting the “Sex Talk” All Wrong – and Not Because of the Sex Part’, Quartz, 25 May 2017, <https:// qz.com/989014/parents-are-getting-the-sex-talk-all-wrong-and -not-because-of-the-sex-part/>, accessed 9 April 2018. 5 Richard Weissbourd et al., The Talk: How Adults Can Promote Young People’s Healthy Relationships and Prevent Misogyny and Sexual Harassment, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 16 May 2017, available at <https://mcc.gse.harvard.edu/files/gse -mcc/files/mcc_the_talk_final.pdf>, accessed 25 February 2018, p. 8. 6 Jessica Reynolds, ‘Hollywood’s Relationship Myths Can Wreak Havoc on Real-life Romance’, Chicago Tribune, 26 August 2014, <http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/sc-fam-0826-romantic -myth-20140826-story.html>, accessed 25 February 2018. 7 ‘Ten Years on from Twilight’, Bookmarked, 8 October 2015, <https://www.dymocks.com.au/Blog/Book-News/Ten-years-on -from-Twilight>, accessed 25 February 2018. 8 Lisa Marks, ‘Twilight Spawns a New Film Demographic’, The Guardian, 7 November 2008, <https://www.theguardian.com/ film/filmblog/2008/nov/06/twilight-film-demographic>, accessed 26 February 2018. 9 ‘Twilight’, Box Office Mojo, <http://www.boxofficemojo.com/ franchises/chart/?id=twilight.htm>, accessed 25 February 2018. 10 For a brief overview of the many opinions critics had about the series, see Ashley Fetters, ‘At Its Core, the Twilight Saga Is a Story About’, The Atlantic, 15 November 2012, <https://www. theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/11/at-its-core-the -twilight-saga-is-a-story-about/265328/>, accessed 25 February 2018. 11 See ‘Signs of an Abusive Relationship’, ReachOut, <https:// au.reachout.com/articles/signs-of-an-abusive-relationship>; ‘Unhealthy Relationships’, The University of Western Australia website, 29 August 2016, <http://www.student.uwa.edu. au/experience/health/fit/share/relationships/unhealthy>; ‘Relationship Support Services’, Better Health Channel, September 2016, <https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/ healthyliving/relationship-support-services>; and Darlene Lancer, ‘Power, Control & Codependency’, PsychCentral, 17 July 2016, <https://psychcentral.com/lib/power-control-codependency/>, all accessed 25 February 2018. 1

Useful introductory resources regarding internalised misogyny include Laura McNair, ‘What Is Internalized Misogyny?’, Her Campus, 3 October 2017, <https://www.hercampus.com/school/ augustana/what-internalized-misogyny>; and Sian Ferguson, ‘4 Common Phrases That Demonstrate Internalized Misogyny’, Everyday Feminism, 6 June 2016, <https://everydayfeminism. com/2016/06/common-internalized-misogyny/>. For a take on the phenomenon in relation to Hollywood, see Broede Carmody, ‘Anne Hathaway Opens Up About “Internalised Misogyny”’, The Age, 20 April 2017, <http://www.theage.com. au/entertainment/movies/anne-hathaway-opens-up-about -internalised-misogyny-20170420-gvobz9.html>, all accessed 25 February 2018. 13 Jessica Goodman, ‘Grey Sold Over 1 Million Copies in Four Days’, Entertainment Weekly, 22 June 2015, <http://ew.com/ article/2015/06/22/el-james-grey-book-sales/>, accessed 26 February 2018. 14 ‘Fifty Shades’, Box Office Mojo, <http://www.boxofficemojo.com/ franchises/chart/?id=fiftyshades.htm>, accessed 26 February 2018. 15 A term referring to sexual practices such as bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism. 16 See, for example, Emma Green, ‘Consent Isn’t Enough: The Troubling Sex of Fifty Shades’, The Atlantic, 10 February 2015, <https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/02/ consent-isnt-enough-in-fifty-shades-of-grey/385267/>; Charyn Pfeuffer, ‘Fifty Shades Versus BDSM: The Reality of Consent’, The Globe and Mail, 2 February 2017, <https://www.theglobeandmail. com/life/relationships/valentines-day/fifty-shades-versus-bdsm -the-reality-of-consent/article33876672/>; and Anna Smith, ‘Fifty Shades of Grey: What BDSM Enthusiasts Think’, The Guardian, 16 February 2015, <https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/ feb/15/fifty-shades-of-grey-bdsm -enthusiasts>, all accessed 26 February 2018. 17 Interesting articles about the gender split in fandoms surrounding the Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey franchises include Scott Mendelson, ‘Fifty Shades of Grey Doesn’t Need Boys at the Box Office’, Forbes, 9 October 2014, <https://www. forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2014/10/09/fifty-shades-of -grey-doesnt-need-boys-at-the-box-office/>; Graeme McMillan, ‘Introducing the New Face of Fandom: Women’, Time, 12 September 2012, <http://entertainment.time.com/2012/09/12/ introducing-the-new-face-of-fandom-women/>; and Liz Robbins, ‘Men Seeing Fifty Shades of Grey Have the Same Reason as Women: Curiosity’, The New York Times, 16 February 2015, <https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/17/nyregion/fifty-shades -of-grey-draws-in-the-curious-as-well-as-the-books-fans.html>, all accessed 26 February 2018. 18 ‘Fifty Shades Freed’, Box Office Mojo, <http://www.boxofficemojo. com/movies/?page=intl&country=AU&id=fiftyshadesfreed.htm>, accessed 16 April 2018. 19 ‘2017 Worldwide Grosses’, Box Office Mojo, <http://www. boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?view2=worldwide&yr=2017>, accessed 26 February 2018. 20 Reynolds, op. cit. 21 Emma Watson, quoted in Anthony Breznican, ‘Beauty and the Beast: Emma Watson Addresses Questions over Beast Relationship’, Entertainment Weekly, 16 February 2017, <http:// ew.com/movies/2017/02/16/beauty-and-the-beast-emma -watson-belle-beast-relationship/>, accessed 26 February 2018. 22 ‘2017 Worldwide Grosses’, op. cit. 23 Weissbourd et al., op. cit., p. 8. 12

Endnotes