It’s fifty shades of catfight!

I’m loving all the media reports about the scratch-your-eyes-out rows between Sam Taylor-Johnson, director of the tepidly reviewed but avidly attended Fifty Shades of Grey ($91 million in five days), and E.L. James, the author of the $100 million-selling S&M-for-your-mom trilogy whose first volume was the source for the film. James (aka Erika Mitchell) wrested creative control over the making of the movie (as well as co-producer status) as a condition of sale, and she and Taylor-Johnson bickered so bitterly that by apparent mutual agreement, Taylor-Johnson won’t be back in the director’s chair for the two sequels.

And I thought sisterhood was supposed to be powerful! Aren’t women supposed to be natural collaborators on projects, supporting each other’s needs, and just generally non-competitive and nice?

Not according to the UK Daily Mail:

'Her relationship with Erika has become absolutely toxic – they despise each other and blame each other for the problems with the film.'

The source also claimed that most of the rows between the two were due to the author's wishes for the film to be as explicit as the book.

'But Sam pushed back because she wanted the movie to be more than just a collection of S&M scenes,' they added. 

***

Sam has openly admitted she and E.L would 'often clash' while making the film and she recently revealed she was banned from using a jellyfish in a sex scene….

A jellyfish!

In a story titled “Fifty Shades of Cray,” the Hollywood Reporter reported:

It seems the battle between author and director climaxed over the ending of the movie. The first book ends after Steele asks Grey to hit her with his best shot. He obliges, and Steele recoils and leaves him. While Taylor-Johnson wanted to end the movie with the safe word "red," James insisted that the final word be "stop." The difference may seem insignificant, but sources associated with the project agree that the version favored by Taylor-Johnson was part of a smarter ending. ("Stop" is not the last word in the first book but nonetheless matched James' vision.) "Erika would not let go," says the rep

But James insists that she was only trying to do right by her readers, who wanted a movie that would match what they read in her book:

"I was thinking about the readers," James told the Detroit Free Press. "There are enough of them! I mean hopefully we'll bring other people to it as well, of course; there are people who don't read at all. But my readers are the people I've always had in my mind. I understand the disappointment when key scenes are forgotten, or missing, so I was an advocate for them."

Now I’m totally confused.

Isn’t it supposed to be a myth that women can’t stand each other? Hasn’t that archaic idea that a workplace full of women is a “fallopian jungle”been thoroughly discredited in this day and age?