Whether you want to admit to it or not, you have guilty entertainment pleasures. You watch movies that you mock other people for watching and you hum lame top-20 songs you hear on the radio. Sometimes we even grow an affinity for things we know are awful because they are blissfully bad and we can laugh and laugh while enjoying them.
For example, I spent the better part of my Sunday afternoon watching Spike TV's celebration of stupidity, Most Extreme Elimination Challenge. The part of me that is capable of any intelligent thought looks at this show and thinks that it is lowbrow, juvenile and damnably politically incorrect. Yet, I still found myself glued to the marathon for hours of painful eliminations and vulgarly dubbed voice-overs.
I'll also own up to the fact that I love watching Bob Ross' painting show. If you don't know, Bob Ross is the famous, Afro-adorning, bearded art instructor that you've probably seen on public access. Something about the way he describes clouds as happy appealed to me, I suppose.
Music is probably the most alluring medium for the pursuit of bad art, and the advent of online downloading has fed my need to listen to horrible singles
My newest fetish is Cypress Hill. They are able to supply a never-ending, hilarious, marijuana-centric brand of rap music that only rapper B-Real is capable of delivering. Neighbors in my dorm have probably built up a false image of me after hearing Hits From the Bong and Doctor Greenthumb resonating from my room an average of 15 times a day.
I'm also a proud owner of two Neil Diamond concerts on video. Judge me all you'd like, but Neil can rock out. If you've never seen Sweet Caroline performed live, you haven't lived, my friend.
Next year, when I have my own domicile, I plan on having a weekly gathering of friends that will, creatively, be known as Bad Movie Night. On these nights we'll screen fantastically awful movies and enjoy every moment of it. In my experience, I find that the more money that was spent on it, the more potential for ripping on it exists. Films like Congo
Independence Day and Battlefield Earth will be some of the highlights, though I'm increasingly excited about Kevin Cosner month.
One of my favorite movies is a priceless film known as The Crippled Masters. It's an epic tale of two kung-fu masters, one with no legs and the other lacking arms; both disfigured by an evil warlord, they seek revenge. It's horrible; I love it.
I can't help but ponder why in the world I actually enjoy these poor excuses for art. In some cases, I think it's the twisted joy. I enjoy envisioning people creating something utterly ridiculous. B-Real wrestling with his inner demons for hours and hours trying to find out the most expressive possible way he can rhyme allusions to smoking pot. Quietly sitting in a smoking jacket next to a fire thinking to himself Yes skunky
funky
smelly green (expletive deleted) does express my most intimate thoughts.
It could just be the fact that sometimes, despite all your best efforts and knowledge, you just seem to like things that by any standard are atrocious. I just have to suck it up and accept the fact that I thought Wings was clever.
We're only human and we're allowed our guilty pleasures. We just have to be careful not to abandon our good taste; I'd hate to see the day that Seann William Scott wins an Oscar.
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Eric Dryden
