Fifty Shades of Black is a 2016 American slapstick romantic comedy directed by Michael Tiddes and starring Marlon Wayans, who also co-wrote and co-produced. It spoofs the 2015 erotic drama Fifty Shades of Grey, with Kali Hawk, Affion Crockett, Jane Seymour, Andrew Bachelor, Florence Henderson, Jenny Zigrino, Fred Willard, and Mike Epps in support. Released theatrically on 29 January 2016 to near-universal critical hatred, it still made about $22 million worldwide on a $5 million budget. It was Florence Henderson’s last film before her death on 24 November 2016, ten months after release. For anyone tracking BDSM pop culture, it is the broad parody that tried to milk the Grey boom with race jokes, sex jokes, and meticulously copied sets.
Plot
Christian Black introduces shy college student Hannah Steale to the world of “romance” after she interviews him for her school newspaper. Their kinky relationship stumbles forward despite Christian’s shortcomings as a lover and the antics of his racist adoptive mother Claire, his well-endowed brother Eli, and Hannah’s hyper-sexual roommate Kateesha. The structure mirrors the original film’s interview-to-Red-Room arc, then piles on slapstick and spoof set pieces.
Production and release
On 3 June 2015, Open Road Films acquired U.S. distribution rights to the yet-to-be-made film for $5 million. Principal photography began 11 August 2015 in Los Angeles. The movie opened in North America on 29 January 2016 alongside Kung Fu Panda 3, The Finest Hours, and Jane Got a Gun, projected to take $10–11 million from 2,075 theaters. It earned $275,000 from Thursday previews, $2.3 million on day one, and $5.9 million opening weekend, finishing tenth at the box office. DVD and Blu-ray followed on 19 April 2016.
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a 4% approval rating from 46 reviews, average about 2.79/10. The consensus calls it “wildly erratic even for a spoof movie” and says it offers “fewer laughs than the unintentionally funny film it’s trying to lampoon.” Metacritic scores it 28/100 from 11 critics (“generally unfavorable”). CinemaScore audiences gave it a “C.” Mark Kermode dismissed it as another lame parody in the line of Scary Movie, Epic Movie, and Vampires Suck, criticizing wallet-and-car-theft, fried-chicken, and Bill Cosby jokes plus limp riffs on Whiplash and Magic Mike. Austin critic Korey Coleman petitioned online to stop Wayans from making more parody films and ranked it among the worst movies of 2016 (tied with Yoga Hosers). J.R. Jones condemned “amplified racial stereotypes and misogynistic swipes,” including a running gag of male characters calling Hawk’s character “ugly” and rape jokes, though he praised “impressive attention to detail” in costumes and sets and said Hawk “nails her Dakota Johnson impression.” Henry Barnes found Cosby and Kanye jokes and “huge spaces where the laughs should be,” arguing the abuse gags left satire for “really unfunny gross-out and blaxploitation revenge.”
Place in Fifty Shades parody culture
Beside print spoofs and stage musicals, Fifty Shades of Black is the major studio-adjacent theatrical parody of the first film. It proves the Grey brand was big enough to support a $5 million spoof that critics loathed and audiences still paid for—while reminding kink viewers that mainstream comedy often treats BDSM as a costume for racial and sexual shock rather than as negotiated practice. Watch it only if you want the cultural exhaust of the 2015 phenomenon, not if you want accurate SM representation.
