Not everyone's happy about "Fifty Shades of Grey" receiving an "R" rating.
Anti-pornography group Morality in Media is urging the Motion Picture Association of America to change the current rating of the highly anticipated film, which is based on a series of erotic novels by E L James, and is expected to include elements of sexual conduct.
Last week, the MPAA gave the film an R rating for "strong sexual content including dialogue, some unusual behavior and graphic nudity." The Morality in Media is angered by the phrase "unusual behavior" used to describe the racy film.
"What the term 'unusual' does not account for is the coercion, sexual violence, female inequality, and BDSM themes from which the entire 'Fifty Shades' plot is based," Morality in Media said in a statement, according to Entertainment Weekly. "Such a vague evaluation puts viewers at risk, sending the message that humiliation is pleasurable and that torture should be sexually gratifying.
"The new extended trailer for the film calls it a 'fairy tale' which just further misleads the public into thinking this is simply a love story. The MPAA ratings and 'fairy tale' label mask the true themes of humiliation, manipulation, abuse, and degradation of women. Sexual violence and sexual exploitation are at an all time high, permeating our culture by way of hardcore pornography and now praised by films like 'Fifty Shades of Grey.'
"We'd like to change the MPAA rating for 'Fifty Shades of Grey' to read: 'Promotes torture as sexually gratifying, graphic nudity, encourages stalking and abuse of power, promotes female inequality, glamorizes and legitimizes violence against women.'"
Executive director Dawn Hawkins also voiced her opinion on the rating.
"The hidden agenda is to legitimize and glamorize violence, and to make sexual torture appealing to women," Hawkins told E! News. "Now men don't have to entice women to engage in the violent acts that they regularly consume through pornography because 'Fifty Shades of Grey' is doing it for them."
"Fifty Shades of Grey," starring Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson, opens in U.S. theaters on February 13.
