Analysing Agency
Reader Responses to Fifty Shades of Grey
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v8i2.225Keywords:
Queer theory, representation, heteronormativity, desire, agencyAbstract
This article analyses online reader responses to the erotic fiction series Fifty Shades, and queries whether fans gain agency by talking about the books. Through the use of queer critical discourse analysis, we argue that fans of Fifty Shades typically acquiesce in the normative gender roles portrayed within the books, but that this facilitates their agency as sexual beings. In particular, we show how the readers in our sample do identity work around their own experiences as heterosexual women. Rather than focusing on representations of gender and sexuality in the novels, then, we argue that representation is best analysed not from a top-down perspective, but through an investigation of how discourses within texts are negotiated and put to use by their readers.
References
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Bosman, J. (2012) Discreetly digital, erotic novel sets American women abuzz. The New York Times, 9 March 2012. Retrieved on 6 February 2013 from www.nytimes.com/2012/03/10/business/media/an-erotic-novel-50-shades-of-grey-goes-viral-with-women
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Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London: Routledge.
Butler, J. (1997) Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. London: Routledge.
Cameron, D. (1998) Performing gender identity: Young men’s talk and the construction of heterosexual masculinity. In J. Coates (ed.) Language and Gender: A Reader 270–84. Oxford: Blackwell.
Christie, C. (1994) Theories of textual determination and audience agency: an empirical contribution to the debate. In S. Mills (ed.) Gendering the Reader 47–67. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Coates, J. (2003) Men Talk: Stories in the Making of Masculinities. Oxford: Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470755617
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Downing, L. (2013) Safewording! Kinkphobia and gender normativity in Fifty Shades of Grey. Psychology and Sexuality 4(1): 92–102. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19419899.2012.740067
Du Bois, J. W. (2007) The stance triangle. In R. Englebretson (ed.) Stancetaking in Discourse: Subjectivity, Evaluation, Interaction 139–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/pbns.164.07du
Eshghi, S. (2012) Female authorship and implicit power in women’s erotica: Japanese ‘ladies’ comics’ and Fifty Shades of Grey. Unpublished MA thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
Fairclough, N. (1989) Language and Power. New York: Longman.
Fairclough, N. (1992) Discourse and Social Change. London: Polity.
Fetterley, J. (1978) The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fiction. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Fowler, B. (1991) The Alienated Reader: Women and Popular Romantic Literature. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Gill, R. (2010) Gender and the Media. Cambridge: Polity.
Goudreau, J. (2012) Will Fifty Shades of Grey make ‘mommy porn’ the next big thing? Forbes Magazine, 19 March. Retrieved on 6 February 2013 from www.forbes.com/sites/jennagoudreau/2012/03/19/will-fifty-shades-of-grey-make-mommy-porn-the-next-big-thing
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Hall, S. (1973) Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse. Birmingham: Centre for Cultural Studies.
Holmes, J. (1995) Women, Men and Politeness. London: Longman.
Jaffe, A. (2009) Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195331646.001.0001
James, E. L. (2012a) Fifty Shades of Grey. London: Arrow Books.
James, E. L. (2012b) Fifty Shades Darker. London: Arrow Books.
James, E. L. (2012c) Fifty Shades Freed. London: Arrow Books.
Jones, L. (2012) Dyke/Girl: Language and Identities in a Lesbian Group. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9781137271341
Kiesling, S. (2002) Playing the straight man: displaying and maintaining male heterosexuality in discourse. In K. Campbell-Kibler, R. Podesva, S. Roberts and A. Wong (eds) Language and Sexuality: Contesting Meaning in Theory and Practice 249–66. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
Kiesling, S. (2007) Men, masculinities, and language. Language and Linguistics Compass 1(6): 653–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-818X.2007.00035.x
Lavie-Ajayi, M. and Joffe, H. (2009) Social representations of female orgasm. Journal of Health Psychology 14: 98–107. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1359105308097950
Lazar, M. (2005) Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mills, S. (2011) Gender Matters. London: Equinox.
Mills, S. and Pearce, L. (1996) Feminist Readings/Feminists Reading (2nd edn). Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall.
Modleski, T. (1984) Loving with a Vengeance. London: Methuen.
Page, R. (2011) Stories and Social Media. London: Routledge.
Peterson, D. (2010) The ‘basis for a just, free and stable society’: institutional homophobia and governance at the Family Research Council. Gender and Language 4(2): 257–86.
Provencher, D. (2010) ‘I dislike politicians and homosexuals’: language and homophobia in contemporary France. Gender and Language 4(2): 287–321.
Pujolar, J. (1997) Masculinities in a multilingual setting. In S. Johnson and U. H. Meinhof (eds) Language and Masculinity 86–106. Oxford: Blackwell.
Radway, J. (1987) Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature. London: Verso.
Sauntson, H. (2008) The contributions of queer theory to gender and language research. In K. Harrington, L. Litosseliti and H. Sauntson (eds) Gender and Language Research Methodologies 271–82. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Stacey, J. (1994) Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship. London: Routledge.
Thornborrow, J. (2002) Power Talk: Language and Interaction in Institutional Discourse. Harlow: Longman.
Thorne, L. (2013) ‘But I’m attracted to women’: sexuality and sexual identity performance in interactional discourse among bisexual students. Journal of Language and Sexuality 2(1): 70–100. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/jls.2.1.03tho
Unger, J. (2012) New tools for critical discourse studies in new media contexts. Paper presented at Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines, University of Minho, Portugal, 5 July.
Walsh, C. (2001) Gender and Discourse. Harlow: Pearson.
Wareing, S. (1994) And then he kissed her: the reclamation of female characters into submissive roles in contemporary fiction. In K. Wales (ed.) Feminist Linguistics in Literary Criticism 117–36. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer.
Whelehan, I. (2000) Overloaded: Popular Culture and the Future of Feminism. London: Women’s Press.
Baker, P. (2008) Sexed Texts: Language, Gender and Sexuality. London: Equinox.
Barrett, R. (1999) Indexing polyphonous identity in the speech of African American drag queens. In M. Bucholtz, A. C. Liang and L. Sutton (eds) Reinventing Identities: The Gendered Self in Discourse 313–31. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Benwell, B. and Stokoe, E. (2006) Discourse and Identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Berrill, A. (2012) Fifty Shades phenomenon gives Ann Summers a boost as ‘Mummy Porn’ trend sends sales of handcuffs and blindfolds soaring. Daily Mail, 10 December. Retrieved on 6 February 2013 from www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2245788/Fifty-Shades-phenomenon-gives-Ann-Summers-boost-Mummy-Porn-trend-sends-sales-handcuffs-blindfolds-soaring
Bosman, J. (2012) Discreetly digital, erotic novel sets American women abuzz. The New York Times, 9 March 2012. Retrieved on 6 February 2013 from www.nytimes.com/2012/03/10/business/media/an-erotic-novel-50-shades-of-grey-goes-viral-with-women
Burton, D. (1982) Through glass darkly, through dark glasses. In R. Carter (ed.) Language and Literature: An Introductory Reader 195–214. London: Allen & Unwin.
Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London: Routledge.
Butler, J. (1997) Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. London: Routledge.
Cameron, D. (1998) Performing gender identity: Young men’s talk and the construction of heterosexual masculinity. In J. Coates (ed.) Language and Gender: A Reader 270–84. Oxford: Blackwell.
Christie, C. (1994) Theories of textual determination and audience agency: an empirical contribution to the debate. In S. Mills (ed.) Gendering the Reader 47–67. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Coates, J. (2003) Men Talk: Stories in the Making of Masculinities. Oxford: Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470755617
Davidson, J. (2012) Mummy porn and a male model of sexual fulfilment. The Herald, 14 July. Retrieved on 6 February 2013 from www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/mummy-porn-and-a-male-model-of-sexual-fulfilment.18148693
Downing, L. (2013) Safewording! Kinkphobia and gender normativity in Fifty Shades of Grey. Psychology and Sexuality 4(1): 92–102. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19419899.2012.740067
Du Bois, J. W. (2007) The stance triangle. In R. Englebretson (ed.) Stancetaking in Discourse: Subjectivity, Evaluation, Interaction 139–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/pbns.164.07du
Eshghi, S. (2012) Female authorship and implicit power in women’s erotica: Japanese ‘ladies’ comics’ and Fifty Shades of Grey. Unpublished MA thesis, University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
Fairclough, N. (1989) Language and Power. New York: Longman.
Fairclough, N. (1992) Discourse and Social Change. London: Polity.
Fetterley, J. (1978) The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fiction. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Fowler, B. (1991) The Alienated Reader: Women and Popular Romantic Literature. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Gill, R. (2010) Gender and the Media. Cambridge: Polity.
Goudreau, J. (2012) Will Fifty Shades of Grey make ‘mommy porn’ the next big thing? Forbes Magazine, 19 March. Retrieved on 6 February 2013 from www.forbes.com/sites/jennagoudreau/2012/03/19/will-fifty-shades-of-grey-make-mommy-porn-the-next-big-thing
Hall, K. (2003) Exceptional speakers: contested and problematized gender identities. In J. Holmes and M. Meyerhoff (eds) The Handbook of Language and Gender 352–80. Oxford: Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470756942.ch15
Hall, S. (1973) Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse. Birmingham: Centre for Cultural Studies.
Holmes, J. (1995) Women, Men and Politeness. London: Longman.
Jaffe, A. (2009) Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195331646.001.0001
James, E. L. (2012a) Fifty Shades of Grey. London: Arrow Books.
James, E. L. (2012b) Fifty Shades Darker. London: Arrow Books.
James, E. L. (2012c) Fifty Shades Freed. London: Arrow Books.
Jones, L. (2012) Dyke/Girl: Language and Identities in a Lesbian Group. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9781137271341
Kiesling, S. (2002) Playing the straight man: displaying and maintaining male heterosexuality in discourse. In K. Campbell-Kibler, R. Podesva, S. Roberts and A. Wong (eds) Language and Sexuality: Contesting Meaning in Theory and Practice 249–66. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
Kiesling, S. (2007) Men, masculinities, and language. Language and Linguistics Compass 1(6): 653–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-818X.2007.00035.x
Lavie-Ajayi, M. and Joffe, H. (2009) Social representations of female orgasm. Journal of Health Psychology 14: 98–107. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1359105308097950
Lazar, M. (2005) Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mills, S. (2011) Gender Matters. London: Equinox.
Mills, S. and Pearce, L. (1996) Feminist Readings/Feminists Reading (2nd edn). Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall.
Modleski, T. (1984) Loving with a Vengeance. London: Methuen.
Page, R. (2011) Stories and Social Media. London: Routledge.
Peterson, D. (2010) The ‘basis for a just, free and stable society’: institutional homophobia and governance at the Family Research Council. Gender and Language 4(2): 257–86.
Provencher, D. (2010) ‘I dislike politicians and homosexuals’: language and homophobia in contemporary France. Gender and Language 4(2): 287–321.
Pujolar, J. (1997) Masculinities in a multilingual setting. In S. Johnson and U. H. Meinhof (eds) Language and Masculinity 86–106. Oxford: Blackwell.
Radway, J. (1987) Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature. London: Verso.
Sauntson, H. (2008) The contributions of queer theory to gender and language research. In K. Harrington, L. Litosseliti and H. Sauntson (eds) Gender and Language Research Methodologies 271–82. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Stacey, J. (1994) Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship. London: Routledge.
Thornborrow, J. (2002) Power Talk: Language and Interaction in Institutional Discourse. Harlow: Longman.
Thorne, L. (2013) ‘But I’m attracted to women’: sexuality and sexual identity performance in interactional discourse among bisexual students. Journal of Language and Sexuality 2(1): 70–100. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/jls.2.1.03tho
Unger, J. (2012) New tools for critical discourse studies in new media contexts. Paper presented at Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines, University of Minho, Portugal, 5 July.
Walsh, C. (2001) Gender and Discourse. Harlow: Pearson.
Wareing, S. (1994) And then he kissed her: the reclamation of female characters into submissive roles in contemporary fiction. In K. Wales (ed.) Feminist Linguistics in Literary Criticism 117–36. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer.
Whelehan, I. (2000) Overloaded: Popular Culture and the Future of Feminism. London: Women’s Press.
Published
2014-06-25
Issue
Section
Special Issue Articles
How to Cite
Mills, S., & Jones, L. (2014). Analysing Agency: Reader Responses to Fifty Shades of Grey. Gender and Language, 8(2), 225-244. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v8i2.225
