Create Everyday: Thinking and Writing Assignment

Cultural guilt and pleasure has become very entwined. We watch/read/listen to something, we like it and then we feel bad about that. The television show Glee is one of the things that has given me the most pleasure and entertainment over the last few years. Yet society makes me feel guilty for enjoying it because it is a musical for girls that had a lot of original mass popularity. Like everyone, I have internalized social norms about who I should be and what I should like and if I do not something is wrong with me. I should love Guardians of The Galaxy, The Dark Knight Trilogy and Tarantino films but I do not. I should not love Glee, Titanic and The original Spider-man Trilogy but I do. This makes me question my worth and makes me feel insecure about what I like.

At one time or another, every aspect of our culture has been condemned as unworthy, spiritually harmful or even morally detrimental, yet the all survive. That shows everything has their good aspects. A lot of the media that is considered a “guilty pleasure” are things that young girls would enjoy. Pop music, young adult novels, chick-flicks. Our culture demeans women, especially young ones, and their likes, which needs to change. Often, “guilty pleasures” have mass appeal and many deem things with mass appeal as less cool.

Glee was popular and critically acclaimed at the beginning. Sure, Glee is not the most well made show on television but it had made a difference in people. One fan said, “It would completely devastate me if Glee were cancelled anytime soon. It’s given me a lot. It’s given me friends that care about me and gotten me through a lot of hard things the last few years… at the end of the day, it’s changed my life more than most people have.” It had millions viewers at the beginning, chart-topping albums, sold out tours, dozens of Emmy nomination, two Emmy wins for best television series but most important, it also makes people happy and teaches them good messages.

We are told what we should like. If we do not, people will think we are not as sophisticated or cool. I was looking at a magazine with best and worst lists of 2014 and for the most part I agreed but there was an album on the worst list that I loved. It made me feel Insecure about liking it.

In Glee there is an episode that talks about “guilty pleasures”. The characters felt ashamed for liking things ranging from The Spice Girls to Facts Of Life to Mamma Mia. Throughout the episode, the characters realized that they had the same “guilty pleasures”. They all become more honest with each other and their feelings. Instead of hiding them back away, they decide to enjoy them proudly. I think we should do the same.

Shonda Rhimes said that calling something a guilty pleasure is “like saying the show is a piece of crap but I can’t stop watching it. To me, that’s what a guilty pleasure is... I think it’s a very insulting thing to say about someone’s show. Calling a show a ‘guilty pleasure’ is like saying ‘I’m embarrassed to say I watch it but I can’t stop.’ That’s not a compliment.” You can probably still say that some media is “guilty pleasure”. For example many reality shows. But if it is entertaining and people are enjoying it they must be doing something right.

The title “guilty pleasure” does not just assign worth to movies, music, etc. but also to the person who likes them without guilt. It is essentially saying there is something inherently wrong about liking it. It creates “hierarchy of who and what is important. It puts our own preferences above others as more worthwhile and categorizes those who genuinely enjoy things we think should be guilt-worthy as less-than.” We should not feel guilty about what we love because someone told us it is not sophisticated, smart, cool or well done. Why not stop the idea that some media is more enlightening than others? We should “acknowledge the wide spectrum of pleasures that media can offer us and do not immediately insist that these pleasures must also be sorted into a moral hierarchy.“ We all deserve to feel good and to enjoy the things we like without regret or feeling less about ourselves. Glee, or anything else, is not something anyone should feel guilty about liking.
“The next time you feel you have to defend something about yourself, ask yourself, why am I feeling I must defend this?... Do not feel you must say anything. Be who you are.” -Orin