As the summer TV drought really begins to hit, yet another friend succumbs to Gossip Girl. And so, I feel it is time that we must turn to the age old notion of the guilty pleasure.
A very attractive and talented person (ie. a jerk) once told me she didn't believe in the concept of the guilty pleasure. You just like what you like, and nuts to everyone else! I may be paraphrasing here, but in any case its something I very much agree with.
But then something like Gossip Girl comes along, and my faith in this credo gets a little strained. In my first post I wrote something about not sniping at other fan bases, and can't we all just get along and some other crap (I can't be bothered reading it again), but I think this is a very different thing.
It's one thing to watch a show with loyalty and believe it's a well made, engrossing series, even if people around you are bagging it. It's quite another to accept these criticisms (often made sight unseen), and then to watch it anyway, taking some joy in the feeling of indulging yourself in the show that even you don't think is very good.
Exactly where does the guilt come from? Perhaps there is some better way of spending our time, like getting off the proverbial couch and getting some actual fresh air (or whatever air is available in your local area). It does seem that the guilt is coming from some inner parental figure - the same one reminding you to finish your peas because of the starving kids in Africa. In other words, liberal guilt.
How dare I watch TV when wars are being fought around the world, both officially and subversively, when people go homeless in my own city, when the news is full of international disasters, and those starving kids in Africa remain starving. I should be working every moment of my waking life to do something about this, something real, something with measurable results. Every second I breathe in my private, privileged bourgeois air is an affront to the majority of the worlds population disadvantaged in this fucked up world. Not to mention the environment which will soon exact its revenge.
I don't really have the answer to that question, mind you. But we just do. Go on living I mean. Daring to watch TV and eating at McDonalds (some of us, anyway). And petting our cats. And getting drunk at the roller derby. And talking online about nothing for 10 hours.
But then, everything is a guilty pleasure. Exactly how is me examining Picasso's Guernica helping the world more than me watching Gossip Girl? How is me listening to Schoenberg's "revolutionary" twelve-tone technique helping end genocide better than the opening theme to The O.C.? How is me reading Ayn Rand going to feed the starving kids in Africa? Sure, it might help me get rid of some of that guilt, what with its whole doctrine of selfishness thing. But the point is, if we are going to subscribe to these standards, they're all indulgences. Even leisurely walks through the park! Even donating to charity! (Why not donate more!) Even sleeping longer than you have to! (You selfish bastard!)
So, then what, says the imaginary critic that I am invoking to make this article read smoother, are you saying if you can't fix it all, why not just give up and watch any old crap? If the whole world stinks, might as well get used to the smell and watch Two and a Half Men.
Well, no, you're still assuming that I agree with your hierarchy of culture. That if the world somehow wasn't all going to shit, that if all else were equal, our time would be best spent doing what you think is worthwhile.
I'm not saying that we can't make distinctions, and that some shows aren't better than others. But I do find it interesting, and often frustrating, that so many people believe they have some innate, almost mystical sense of this absolute distinction between good and bad. Beyond taste of course, beyond subjective likes and dislikes. And then they go on to assume everyone must agree with them. And that if I do take some joy in something they've deemed unacceptable, I must feel guilty?
Bah! Bah, I say! Guilty pleasures are a stupid concept. That jerk from the beginning of the post was right! Gossip Girl is... is... hmm. Well, I still don't like it very much. But I still think my point is valid.
"So why then, why are you talking about guilty pleasures in relation to Gossip Girl? Did you used to watch it or something?"
NO, SHUT UP, OF COURSE NOT.
-hobospaceman
oh crud
