Talk:E. L. James

I enjoy Wiki and use it all the time yet it goes very strange when anyone BRITISH is involved I cant give he dozens of instances it happens but coming acrossthis writer is a good example..We are told nothing about this person except she is apparently half Chilean and half Scottish not where she was born educated ,nothing.. In fact there is an interview with her on you tube and its clear she is a humourous livelt typical educated English woman executive style Wiki manages to always to keep the boot on the British neck..the articles about edward first etc and the wars between the Scots and the English (actually French speaking Normans)are virtually insane... Whoever is at the top of Wiki should know that this kind of lying and distortion damages Wiki Even if you hate the British ,in wiki you should try to learn to live with them... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.99.216.229 (talk) 23:45, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

• Can you give me a link to this interview? If it's by a reliable source (CNN, major news channel, etc) and the interview is posted legally (ie, via the news source doing the interview, the author, the publisher's channels, etc) then we can actually use this to flesh out the article. The main issue I had with writing this article was that there's just not that much verified information out there about James. She's been in the news lately, but overall James is a very private person and most of the news sources focus more on her books than on her. I'd absolutely love to be able to put more information on this page about her history, but the fact is that we don't have the reliable sources to back the claims up for what little we do know about her. It has nothing to do with any sort of grudge against the British or about anyone in general. It's all about us being able to find news articles that give us this information that are considered reliable per Wikipedia standards, and unfortunately there just aren't that many when it comes to authors. To be honest, if we really had a grudge against the British then I wouldn't have added James to the mainspace at all, nor would I have spent hours upon hours searching for articles that focus predominantly on her. Nor would I have spent hours trying to improve the Fifty Shades article. I understand that you're frustrated and I'm not saying that people don't indulge in silly arguments for whatever reasons (some just because it's raining outside), but that's not the case here.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 06:51, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I find your comment rather bizarre. You do realise it's E L James herself who described her ancestry as 'half-Chilean and half-Scottish', right? It's her parentage and that's apparently how she views herself, even if she was born in England or elsewhere. So let it be. 0zero9nine (talk) 13:18, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

There are many cites regarding her nationality, she is British but was asked on her parents origins and somehow that became her 'nationality' on here. Anyway I have added a cite from the Guardian

Establishing page

I've created this because with James's naming as one of Time's most influential people of 2012, I believe she's achieved individual notability enough to warrant her own article. If I'm wrong I'm willing to userfy the article and continue to work on it, but there's more than a few news stories that focus on James herself and with her book due to become a movie, she seems to meet many of the requirements for WP:AUTHOR. I'm open for debate, but the Time article really seemed to push it for me. On a side note, I'm a little confused as to how to label her info box. Do we label it with "E.L. James" because that's what the article is titled and what she's predominantly known as, or do we use her real name as the one at the top of the box? I've gone with her real name as E.L. James is her pseudonym, but I just thought I'd ask for a little advice on this. I'm more used to working on the book side of things rather than for author articles.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 07:18, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

In general, articles on authors are titled by the name they're known by rather than their real name (unless they've written under several pseudonyms). For example, JK Rowling is at that title even though it's not quite her real name. So, this one should be kept at E.L. James. Robofish (talk) 16:44, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Any idea when she was born?

Nemissimo (talk) 07:41, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

• Well, this article puts her at 48, although this is the DM. I haven't seen a birth date specified for her at all that I'm aware of.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 08:49, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Description as Pornographer

This is an accurate and non-pejorative description of one major aspect of this person's career. If anybody disagrees, I would ask that the issue is first discussed here. Media and anecdotal sources support the description and it balances the term erotica which could be considered euphemism by some (for example, this user). DMC (talk) 11:33, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

I have reverted the addition of "pornographer" based on WP:BRD. I believe the term to have a connotation that misrepresents James' work and that it may present a subjective bias. If you can show that the term has been used regularly by objective, independent, reliable sources to describe James, I expect I would drop my objection to using it here. Theoldsparkle (talk) 14:35, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not my personal mouthpiece so I have allowed your reversal of my edit. However, I refer you to the following online article. In my day-to-day conversation I will continue to spread the opinion EL James is a purveyor of pornography. She should have the courage to own up to the title if she is happy to take the royalty cheques.

Disagree (I agree with Theoldsparkle.) To be honest, I've not really seen anyone describe James as a pornographer. People have called the books "mommy porn", but they haven't actually called James a pornographer. The basis is that first they'd have to establish that erotica is in fact porn, which is something that has and still is the subject of heated debate. A lot of people feel that pornographic books are only written to "get off" and that erotica focuses on telling an actual story and involving feelings and emotions beyond the simple masturbatory tale, so it shouldn't be considered pornographic. They'll argue that it contains strong sexual content, but isn't explicitly pornographic because it's intention is not solely for sexual gratification. The arguments can get pretty detailed. This is one of the reasons I raised an eyebrow at the book being covered under the porn wikiproject, because I know how a lot of people feel about any book of erotica being under any label of "porn". To them it's two completely separate worlds, like how many would not begin to consider the romance section pornography. Just because some media pundits have taken to giving the books a cutesy label of "mommy porn" does not automatically make them pornography. If anything, the books are far from what I consider to be pornography. I'm not one of those who consider erotica completely separate from porn- some levels of erotica fit quite neatly inside of what I consider pornography, but the FSOG trilogy is not what I'd call porn. It's one of those books that run the very fine line of what porn might be, but despite the book being quite liberally laced with sexual content its primary purpose is not to present sexual material. Most of the book is actually story rather than sex. Not the best written story, but then we don't judge story-hood on whether a book is good or not. Tokyogirl79 (talk) 10:26, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

At least you've taken the time to think about it. I remain suspicious of the term erotica but what can you do.DMC (talk) 10:58, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

• Yeah... it is a dodgy term, isn't it? I agree that it's used to hand wave away some of the more seedy aspects of pornography in general and make it seem "different", but some of the differences are big enough that the "erotica is completely separate from porn" people do have an argument. In any case, the term does sort of misrepresent James's work. She's not really what I or the public at large would consider a pornographer per se, as we more picture Hugh Hefner (at best) or some creepy guy in the back of a rapemobile (at worst). Hopefully over time the negative images associated with pornography will not be so dominant that using the term "pornographer" will taint everyone it's applied to and the term can be openly applied to people who produce works that are less about instant gratification and more about intellectual/emotional stimulation. Until then it's a field of land mines and hair splitting that's not easily identified. We could call James a pornographer and not be too far off from the truth, but then we could also say that she simply writes in the field of romance, as it's fairly common for romance books to have this level of sexual activity in them and still be considered basic fiction or romance without the erotica label. They tend to just not be as publicly visible and it's because of this that the term is a little hard to apply evenly. (Wow, that sounds awfully long and hot winded of me.) In any case, you're right: what can you really do? It's not as simple as saying that the term should be applied because Wikipedia doesn't worry about hurting people's feelings and prefers to "tell it as it is". (sighs) It probably won't become any easier with time, as even nowadays the writings of the Marquis De Sade aren't seen as pornography by many, and some of his stuff was far more graphic at turns. (And better written, but I digress...)Tokyogirl79 (talk) 16:24, 6 July 2012 (UTC)