Don’t Feel Bad About ‘Guilty Pleasures’

By ROB PATTERSON

Do you have guilty pleasures? I have long said that I do have them in the artistic and cultural realm.

But then two fellow widely and longtime published art/culture critic peers separately asserted on Facebook that there is no such thing as a guilty pleasure. And that got me thinking … and thinking even more.

They have a quite powerful point. I may (almost) agree. Read on for the answer, dear reader, as I explore this notion.

In popular music, my original aesthetic addiction, I might have earlier classified my affection and admiration for Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and the occasional Katy Perry tune as a guilty pleasure. But they are truly talented artists and the pleasure is all mine, guilt free.

When younger I fell prey to the music snob infection, under which some acts were cool and others uncool. These days I’ve ascended above that. I cannot even think of a musical act I’d call a guilty pleasure.

Same almost goes with movies. I used to think my affection for “Spice World” – yes, the Spice Girls movie! – was a guilty pleasure. I didn’t expect to even like much less love it when, back in the late ‘90s, I was conferring with my film buff, then video store clerk friend Bob about what to rent. I pointed at “Spice World” on the rack and made a snarky comment about it.

“Oh no, it’s really good,” he told me. Rented it, loved it, later even bought my own VHS copy for a buck from the discount bin at Blockbuster.

For a while I justified my “Spice World” thing as a guilty pleasure. But I was able to make its justifiable cinematic case as a rich celebration of homage. Overall the movie draws from the great mid-1960s madcap English comedy romp tradition; think Peter Sellers or Terry Thomas. The rock singer Meat Loaf drives the double-decker London bus used as the Spicy lassies’ transport, a nod back to his starring role in the flick “Roadie” (which some people somewhere might like as a guilty pleasure or even seriously love on its own, um, merits, but I found to be merely lame).

In “Spice World” is also Roger Moore, cinema’s James Bond, 007 #3, as the group’s manager. Conferring via speakerphone, he pets a cat in his lap a la Bond villain Blofeld (double-homage flipped around!) Yes, one movie truly worthy of liking on its own merits.

Speaking of English spies, there’s the “Austin Powers” films starring Mike Myers that some like outright or as guilty pleasures. But, no, people, they’re just godawfully stupid and unfunny. However, the 1960s Dean Martin as Matt Helm spy parodies might be both guilty and pleasurable.

I think I can contend that any person with a modicum of taste who likes those big-eyed waif paintings by Margaret Keane that sold in Woolworth’s has a guilty pleasure. But then again, one of my favorite filmmakers, Tim Burton, has drawn from them.

I suspect that perhaps my guiltiest film pleasure might defend the concept. It is, after all, the near-universally-reviled “Howard the Duck,” that I got quite a kick out of. Time to watch it again and see how the theories play out.

Populist Picks

Music Documentary: “Colin Hay: Waiting For My Real Life” – You may or may not have been a fan of the 1980s Australian new wave band led by Hay, Men at Work. But if you don’t fall in love with Hay the human and his post-international stardom music he has made, well, you must not like music.

Film Documentary: “Children of Giant” – When Hollywood arrived in Marfa in West Texas in 1955 to film the now landmark Western movie “Giant” with Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean, the landscape in that small town was forever transformed. Watch how.

Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email orca@prismnet.com.

From The Progressive Populist, October 1, 2020

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