I recently had a mildly heated phone discussion with a friend regarding guilty pleasures (he took issue with my listing some here Actually, all that nonsense is gone... so i guess this post is pretty much worthless now. Still keeping it up though!). It was late at night and I had a cold, so I didn’t necessarily acquit myself well, but I swore to him that I would regain the upper hand with a brilliant and well-reasoned blog post on the subject.
Hi, friend! If I may paraphrase your point, you believe that the term “guilty pleasure” should be removed from cultural discourse because a) if you like something, you should own and publicly defend that something from its critics, not save face for yourself by ghettoising that loved something as a guilty pleasure, b) the use of “guilt” is problematic, because you shouldn’t feel guilty for liking what you like OR c) you should stop liking anything that is so bad it makes you feel guilty.
Pause while I assume that I am correct.
Part of the problem here is that calling something a guilty pleasure can mean several different things; you like it even though everyone else thinks it sucks or you like it but you don’t want to be associated with the sort of people who like That Kind of Thing (I’d call that an Embarrassing Pleasure), you like something despite readily acknowledging its lack of artistic merit/redeeming value (an Escapist Pleasure) or you are interested in that thing as a cultural phenomenon or artifact (an Ironic Pleasure*), and finally, you like something despite knowing that it is bad for you (a real Guilty Pleasure).
I’ll own up and admit that, having just come up with this breakdown of the sketchy end of the Pleasure spectrum, the “guilty pleasures” on my profile page don’t all fall into that category as I just defined it (though I could argue that pretty much all of them are bad for me... except Phish. Phish never hurt anyone).
So, regarding point (a), I fully agree that we should own up to our Embarrassing and/or Escapist pleasures, though the latter is much easier to admit to than the former, I think.
For example, Grey’s Anatomy is an Escapist Pleasure of mine. It is silly and melodramatic (but, I’ll argue to the death, no more stupid than a number of less-singled-out-for-mockery shows aimed at men) and, while I acknowledge that, it doesn’t detract from my enjoyment. Therefore, in “coming out” as a fan of Grey’s Anatomy, I’m not putting myself in the awkward position of having to argue the the show’s artistic merit, I’m merely saying that I am entertained by it.
So if I were to say “Ah, Grey’s Anatomy, what a guilty pleasure you are!” (not that that’s something I’m likely to say), I wouldn’t feel like I was being disingenuous about my tastes or not giving the show the spirited defence it’s due. And probably most people who talk about their trashy pop culture guilty pleasures mean the same thing, not “I’m ashamed to admit I think this is good,” but “I like this despite realistically assessing it’s quality.”
On the other hand, I enjoy the band Death Cab for Cutie, and I have a number of hipster/music geek friends who would greet that revelation with horror (guess we’ll see how many of them read this blog). It would be easy to say I like DCfC inspire of their lameness, but I don’t actually think that they are lame. In fact, I think they’re pretty great. So now, I’m stuck in a discussion about what makes a band good (in which the phrase “emo” is probably going to be tossed around with unpleasant frequency). Not that its bad to defend what you like, and not that I don’t like a spirited argument with my PBR (duh), but some times it is easier to just say “Yeah, it’s not great, but I like it anyway.”
And, yeah, that wouldn’t be cool, because then these judgemental elitists could go on thinking that no one worthwhile likes Death Cab for Cutie. But it also wouldn’t be some huge betrayal, as your tone on the phone seemed to imply, dude-friend, because I don’t really feel I owe Ben Gibbard anything beyond the price of an album.
As to point (b), it may be the Catholic upbringing talking, but is a little guilt really such a bad thing? I think guilt is a useful counterbalance to self-indulgence (which is also underrated). Example: a year or so before Liz Lemon made it popular, back when I was in grad school, I was wildly in love with the mysterious off-brand cheese puffs sold at the corner store near our rehearsal space. They were super cheap, they melted in ones mouth, and they could be easily obtained in the five minutes between class, rehearsal, meeting,s etc. The fact that they were a genuinely Guilty Pleasure in that I knew they were bad, so much so that I was mildly ashamed to be seen purchasing or eating them, meant that they were a rare treat, often a reward for a crappy day or an incentive not to stab fellow scholars in the eye. Consuming them felt vaguely illicit and rebellious.
Had I not felt guilty about my shady snack choices, I probably would have eaten them a lot more often in lieu of other, more-difficult-to-obtain food that contained actual nutrients. They also probably would not have tasted as good.
Now, as to point (c), guilt could have stopped me eating fake Cheetos altogether (which would have been sad), but it could never stop me liking them. Guilt, in my experience, has much more power to make you regret something than to prevent your doing it in the first place.
Well. This argument has gone on longer than I intended, so let me sum up:
Sometimes people say something is a guilty pleasure because they like it despite it being mostly meritless, and that’s cool (but they should really call those things “Escapist Pleasures”)
Sometimes people say something is a guilty pleasure because they don’t want to admit to thinking something that most of their friends and acquaintances revile is actually pretty good. If these people would own up to their Embarrassing Pleasures, they might open closed minds, but they’re under no obligation to do so.
Sometimes people like things they know are bad for them. These are genuine Guilty Pleasures, and as long as the guilt and pleasure balance out, it’s all good.
So, there you go, friend. Start using my new terminology immediately!
*I didn’t talk about Ironic Pleasures so much, since I don’t think anyone born after the mid-seventies can be unfamiliar with the concept of appreciating something ironically.
**This, then, would be NewBlog, which I am totally willing to take off the market if the consumers demand it.
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