The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, February 15, 2017 — 5A

‘Fifty Shades Darker’ is 
disturbing and unsexy

Newest installment of book adaptation fails to arouse excitement

There’s a scene somewhere 

between the sixth and ninth 
hour of “Fifty Shades Darker” 
where a guy pushes Ana 
(Dakota Johnson, “How to Be 
Single”) against 
the wall, corners 
her, refuses to 
let her leave and 
begs her to have 
sex 
with 
him. 

Ana kicks him 
in 
the 
crotch, 

runs 
out 
and 

everyone 
in 
the 
audience 

cheers. Two scenes later, the 
exact same thing happens only 
it’s with Christian Grey (Jamie 
Dornan, “The 9th Life of Louis 
Drax”) instead of a random 
dude. Except this time, she 
doesn’t violently injure him, 
she just goes along with it and 
we’re all super happy because 
he loves her, I guess?

We know all this already, 

though, don’t we? We know 
how messed up and abusive 
this relationship is and how 
much it sucks that Hollywood 
and the world glorifies it. 
And yet, despite going in 
knowing how coercive and 
manipulative Christian Grey 
is, “Fifty Shades Darker” is 
still deeply upsetting.

The film picks up several 

weeks after the first one 
ended. The couple has been 
separated for a while because 
the 
last 
time 
they 
were 

together, Christian beat Ana 
with a belt and she promptly 
ran away. But it’s OK now 
because he’s changed, you see, 
and he’ll totally never do it 

again. So Ana happily reunites 
with Christian, whose favorite 
ways of showing his affection 
are by telling her what to wear, 
eat, who to speak to, what to 
do, how to think, and of course, 
by 
forbidding 
(forbidding!) 

her from going on important 
work trips. But it’s OK, see, 

because he loves 
her and buys her 
beautiful dresses 
and they have 
lots of sex.

There’s 

a 
subplot 

where 
one 
of 

Christian’s 
old 

sex partners stalks him and 
violently threatens Ana, and 
the way he subdues her — the 
sheer power he has over her — 
is maybe the creepiest thing 
about the movie. It leaves one 
thinking that this movie would 
maybe work better as a deeply 
disturbed 
psychological 

thriller, only it still wouldn’t 
be very good. This subplot is 
resolved in the first half of 
the movie, but it’s hard to say 
exactly what happens to fill the 
remaining hour, because the 
movie thuds gracelessly from 
scene to scene. After about 
20 minutes, the characters 
fall into a horribly depressing 
routine: get dressed up, go to 
a fancy party, have sex, fight, 
have sex, sort of talk about the 
cause of the fight but not really 
because there’s another party 
to get to. As you’d imagine, 
this gets old really fast, and, 
as a result, a two-hour movie 
feels like it’s 60 years long.

Even the parts that are 

supposed to be decent are 
miserable. The first “Fifty 
Shades” movie’s soundtrack 

received a lot of attention 
and acclaim, but its sequel’s 
selection 
of 
pop 
songs 

isn’t nearly as strong. The 
soundtrack does the movie 
a 
disservice 
because 
it 

makes the “plot” even more 
predictable. Happy scenes of 
Christian and Ana having sex 
go with pop songs, sad scenes 
go with forgettable scored 
music. It makes the whole 
enterprise feel even more rote 
and familiar than it already 
did.

The one saving grace is 

Dakota Johnson. Most of the 
cast seems like they really, 
really don’t want to be there, 
but Johnson, bless her heart, 
really does try. She has a 
subtle sense of comic timing 
that helps make her character 
far more likeable than she was 
in the first film, and gives her 
that much more agency. With 
Johnson’s help, the movie is 
actually kind of funny, but 
the kind of funny that sort of 
makes you wonder how the 
hell you ended up here and 
why bad things happen to 
good people.

Leaving the theater after 

seeing “Fifty Shades Darker” 
has the viewer feeling like 
a 
slightly 
worse 
person 

than they were before. It’s 
not so much that it’s an 
incompetently made movie, it’s 
more that, for a movie that’s 
marketed to women as a sexy 
night of excitement, it’s such a 
bummer. The issue I take with 
it isn’t just that it’s offensive 
(and it is deeply offensive), 
it’s that it’s boring. And for a 
movie that’s supposed to be 
all about provocation, I can’t 
imagine anything worse.

UNIVERSAL PICTURES

ASIF BECHER
Daily Arts Wrtier

Romanticizing party culture

Partying is something that will 

always be intrinsic to the college 
experience. For college students, 
a party represents an opportunity 
to be independent, and more 
importantly, it’s an excuse to be 
young, wild and free (yes, I am 
quoting 
that 
Wiz 

Khalifa & Snoop Dogg 
song). But while we 
should embrace certain 
aspects of a fun college 
party, we shouldn’t be 
ignoring the potential 
red flags that idealize 
the 
college 
party 

experience.

With 
the 

widespread 
growth 

of social media and 
advancement 
in 

technology, big party colleges 
have incorporated the “go hard or 
go home” mentality, prompting 
competition with other schools to 
throw large, crazy parties and have 
them go viral in some way. One 
of the most pervasive purveyors 
of this kind of unruly partying 
comes from “I’m Shmacked,” an 
online 
entertainment 
platform 

that has capitalized on the college 
party scene through entertaining, 
albeit provocative and problematic 
videos.

Created by Arya Toufanian 

and Jeffrie Ray, “I’m Shmacked” 
implemented itself as the premier 
platform 
for 
showcasing 
the 

“reality” of college parties when it 
debuted its first video in 2011, taken 
at a Temple University party. After 
their online presence proliferated, 
video crews from “I’m Shmacked” 
continued to visit universities all 
around the United States, where 
they would record the wildest of 
parties, usually held at fraternities, 
and edit them into highly stylized, 
five-minute clips, synced to a 
blaring, frenetic EDM soundtrack.

Now with 130,000+ likes on 

Facebook, 449,000 followers on 
Instagram and 37,000 subscribers 
on YouTube, “I’m Shmacked” 
has 
become 
a 
nationwide 

phenomenon. In order to expand 
its online empire, “I’m Shmacked” 
has developed subaccounts for 
different universities across the 
country, everything from Indiana 

University to USC to even here 
at the University of Michigan. In 
addition to parties, they promote 
everything 
from 
college 
fall 

festivals to spring break trips to 
sorority recruitment. Toufanian 
and Ray have also monetized the 

“I’m Shmacked” brand 
by 
booking 
venues 

near college campuses 
and 
throwing 

insane 
parties. 
“I’m 

Shmacked” 
has 
its 

own merchandise and 
it even spawned a few 
imitator 
platforms, 

including the similarly 
popular TotalFratMove 
and the unabashedly 
explicit Old Row. In 
2014, it was reportedly 

valued at $5 million.

What 
I 
find 
particularly 

dangerous about this platform is 
not just how it normalizes binge 
drinking and objectifies college 
girls, but how it romanticizes party 
culture. “I’m Shmacked” frames 
the culture of college parties as a 
free-for-fall extravaganza, filled 
with 
gorgeous 
girls, 
toxically 

masculine guys and a whole lot of 
alcohol.

Some might argue that one of 

“I’m Shmacked” ’s more beneficial 
quality is its ability to show 
prospective students what college 
parties are like, which can help 
them determine what school’s 
party scene suits them the most 
(note: “A new way to scout colleges” 
is written in their Instagram bio). 
However, I would counter that by 
saying that it promotes a negative, 
misleading and distorted portrait 
of college party life. A prospective 
student might watch an “I’m 
Shmacked” video and think these 
are what college parties are like — 
a place to shotgun beers, chugging 
Four Lokos, watch girls twerk on 
each other and do stupid shit with 
no consequences.

In particular, “I’m Shmacked” 

profits off distributing amateur 
videos sent by college students of 
people binge drinking and heavy 
drinking. However, these videos, 
which are littered on the platform’s 
Instagram account, neglect to 
showcase just how dangerous 

binge drinking can be. According 
to a 2015 article from the National 
Institute on Alcohol Abuse and 
Alcoholism, 37.9 percent of college 
students 
ages 
18–22 
reported 

binge drinking in the past month 
compared with 32.6 percent of 
other persons of the same age. 
Researchers also estimate that 
each year 1,825 college students 
between the ages of 18 and 24 die 
from alcohol-related unintentional 
injuries, including motor-vehicle 
crashes. “I’m Shmacked” may not 
be directly responsible for these 
deaths, but they are complicit in 
perpetuating and glorifying binge 
drinking as normal and celebratory 
rather than fatal.

As for objectifying women, 

“I’m Shmacked” uses college girls, 
most of whom are white, blonde 
and scantily clad, to promote their 
merchandise, spring break events 
and generally for entertainment.

This is nothing new, of course. 

Objectifying women and binge 
drinking have been portrayed 
in several films and TV shows 
about college, such as “Blue 
Mountain State,” “Animal House,” 
“American Pie,” “Road Trip” and 
“Old School.” But the important 
distinction to make here is that 
because our generation has become 
so 
acclimated 
to 
consuming 

information and content from 
social media, “I’m Shmacked” has 
taken advantage of the virality 
of social media by reinforcing 
the stereotypes of college parties 
through the pictures and videos 
they post.

Most people in our generation 

grew up obsessing over this idea 
that you have to throw the biggest, 
craziest and largest party in order 
to have fun. Parties can be fun, 
and they should be. People should 
feel like they can drink without 
having the compulsion to black 
out. Women should be able to dress 
in whatever they want at parties 
without being perceived through 
the male gaze of Instagram. If the 
kind of partying in “I’m Shmacked” 
videos is the “ideal” fun for college 
students, then maybe there should 
another platform that portrays 
college parties — and college life, 
for that matter — more accurately.

SAM

 ROSENBERG 

SOCIAL MEDIA COLUMN
FILM REVIEW

“Fifty Shades 

Darker”

Rave Cinemas

Universal Pictures

COURTESY OF I’M SHMACKED

NYFW REVIEW
Taoray stained by Trump

Apparently, Tiffany Trump 

was there.

When I arrived at the venue 

for fashion designer Taoray 
Wang’s Fall Winter 2017 show, 
I knew her work was a favorite 
of Ms. Trump’s. Heck, I’d 
even seen photos of her front 
row at the previous season’s 
production. But when I took 
my seat on Saturday morning, 
I felt entirely certain that the 
President’s daughter would not 
be making her first public debut 
since the Inauguration at such 
an openly liberal function. Few 
paparazzi were stationed in 
the venue. The usual huddled 
pockets of celebrity onlookers 

were nowhere to be found. No 
Trumps today, I assumed, and 
yet Tiffany remained the only 
thing on my mind.

As I watched models parade 

down the runway, all I could 
think about was whether she 
would wear that pantsuit, how 
she felt about jewel-tones, if 
that slit was too high for the 
President’s 
daughter. 
Once 

we hit the oversized tweed 
pieces, I pictured the grown 
woman’s father barring her 
from wearing something so 
“unflattering.” 
I 
imagined 

Donald Trump tweeting a photo 
of the risque lace tops captioned 
“Sad!” Though I would gladly 
wear nearly every look from 
the show’s second half, my 
brain instinctively eyed every 
outfit from a “build the wall” 
perspective.

Wang’s 
color 
choice 

was 
nearly 
flawless, 
her 

craftsmanship 
precise. 
Even 

her fabric choices, from a 
remarkably fine velvet to a 
crumpled 
tweed, 
appeared 

innovative. 
Unfortunately, 

my Trump-infested thoughts 
prevented me from viewing her 
collection in all of its strong-
meets-sexy-woman glory.

I would love to go back to 

that day, to view that show 
through the eyes of someone 
who is not scared for the fate of 
their country. Tiffany Trump’s 
choice of dress may not be the 
difference between war and 
peace, but the world to which 
she belongs is cruel enough 
to dull even the brightest of 
sparkles. Tiffany, I would have 
loved it if your dad wasn’t the 
President.

TESS GARCIA
Senior Arts Editor

COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW
Curtis’s A2 homecoming

Ann 
Arbor 
native 
and 

saxophonist 
Caleb 
Curtis 

brought a welcoming party to the 
Kerrytown Concert House this 
past Sunday. Returning this time 
to perform with pianist Marta 
Sanchez, the duo was embraced 
by the Ann Arbor community.

As I sat waiting for the 

performance 
to 
begin, 
talk 

over the latest changes to the 
local middle school and general 
catching-up 
filled 
the 
room. 

Socializing 
was 
a 
primary 

aspect to the atmosphere where 
everyone seemed to know each 
other. Largely community-based, 
the crowd was limited to an older 
generation, setting up a stark 
contrast to many jazz concerts I 
have attended here in Ann Arbor.

The feeling of community 

contributed 
to 
the 
intimate 

setting of the Kerrytown Concert 
House. A hybrid of a living room 
and art gallery, there are two 
main seating sections that stretch 
the lengths of two rooms. The 
piano and performance space are 
set on a platform in the center 
room with both seating sections 
facing the stage. As stated by 

Curtis, the venue provides a very 
“special experience” with “a lot 
of space for people to hear the 
instruments.”

While there may be a significant 

amount of audience space, I found 
that the two different rooms 
provided vastly different listening 
experiences. 
Initially, 
I 
sat 

directly facing Marta Sanchez on 
the piano and Curtis playing from 
the front. The sound was direct 
and the two were in balance, as 
though perfectly set to volumes 
in a recording. From the other 
room, the sound of the saxophone 
was much more striking. The 
complexities of Curtis’s sound 
came out from this vantage point 
while the piano melted into the 
background creating an entirely 
new 
landscape. 
Hearing 
the 

complexities added to the live 
aspect of performance and created 
a more provoking experience.

The Sanchez and Curtis duo 

concert was incredibly well put 
together. Playing from a range 
of jazz standards and original 
compositions of each of the 
musicians, the pieces kept a 
certain 
level 
of 
engagement 

from the audience. As musicians, 
their performance had unity 
and a deliberateness to each 
phrase. Despite being free of 
mistakes 
and 
an 
effortless 

performance, I craved more: more 
communication 
between 
the 

artists and more engagement with 
the audience. The performance 
felt too planned at times, which 
took away from the live aspect I 
am so drawn to. In such a familiar 
setting, I would have hoped for 
more risks and taking advantage 
of the space to have fun.

On stage, Curtis referred to the 

homecoming as a “relief from the 
stress of New York.” This came 
through in the performance; 
Curtis seemed to be taking a deep 
breath and focusing solely on 
playing. It was a familial affair as 
the crowd cheered on Curtis, and 
the duo took a step back from the 
pressures of the New York music 
scene.

As a musician, I realized that 

the technical and musical aspects 
alone are not enough to create 
an extraordinary performance 
— it is authenticity that drives 
excitement into a performance. 
When an audience can witness 
risks being taken and become a 
part of the performer’s musical 
exploration, a profound power 
surfaces. 
The 
perfection 
of 

technique and rhythm are not 
enough; it is the uniqueness 
and individuality of a musician 
that creates an enduring and 
compelling performance.

ISABEL FRYE

For the Daily

