UPDATED at 1:31 p.m. Tuesday, January 13, 2015: A representative for Morality in Media says no one at the group has actually seen the film. See more about that at the bottom.

Morality in Media, an organization that has made a minor movement out of trying to connect pornography to sex crime and other societal ills, has some real problems with a mass market film that's not even out yet.

The Washington, D.C.-based group this week decried the R rating bestowed upon the forthcoming Fifty Shades of Grey movie because of the “coercion, sexual violence, female inequality, and BDSM themes from which the entire Fifty Shades plot is based,” according to a statement.

Hey Morality in Media, naughty girls need movies too.

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The much-anticipated film is based on E L James' blockbuster novel about an erotic, BDSM-influenced relationship between an accidental college journalist, Anastasia Steele, and a young business magnate, Christian Grey.

Freaky sex ensues, and it's hard for us to imagine a world in which Morality in Media would approve of any version of a movie based on this soccer-marm's guilty pleasure, unless maybe Disney made it.

In any case, Morality in Media calls the Motion Picture Association of America's rating “unusual” and says it betrays the film's “humiliation, manipulation, abuse, and degradation of women.”


Here's Morality in Media's money shot of a statement:

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.” Is this the description of a movie you’d promote to your son or daughter? What about yourself?

The organization's move to generate headlines this week, whether rooted in reality or not, will only serve to put more bums in theater seats.

Maybe Universal, the studio releasing the movie, should pay Morality in Media a marketing fee. The film hits theaters on Valentine's Day.

UPDATED at 1:31 p.m. Tuesday, January 13, 2015: A representative for Morality in Media told us no one at the organization had seen the movie. She even asked if L.A. Weekly might help the group get a screening.

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