Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Guilty Pleasures?
Last night as I was trolling around the internet, I found an article that talked about Romance Novels as a "Guilty Pleasure." Now, I'm not a romance fan myself, but I have friends who are who have a mighty big chip on their shoulders about romance novels being considered somehow a lesser form of writing. I thought they were being hypersensitive, but when you see a headline telling you something you love is a guilty pleasure, it made me think they have a point. I'm coming to hate the term "guilty pleasure" - unless it's illegal or hurts someone else, why should anything that causes you joy make you feel guilty? Because someone else pooh-poohs it? So what. Who gave them the right to decide what you enjoy and what you don't like? It's implied in the title that you are somehow better than the thing you like - but who's the arbiter of taste? I guess when I think about it, it annoys me to think that anyone has the right to tell you what you should enjoy. Heck, I thought we left that behind in high school. Go ahead and like comic books if you like comic books. Go ahead and like horror or romance or anything else that someone tries to imply is inferior. Let them spend their time deciding what's "cool", I'd rather spend my time with my "guilty pleasures."
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1 comment:
I HEAR THIS!!! The other day, a new acquaintance (someone from church) asked me about what kind of music I like. My first response was to hesitate and say, "I don't want to tell you." He was sort of taken by surprise and asked me WHY and I told him it was because it made me look like a bad person; we then got into this huge discussion.
While I love all kinds of music (except for classical - and twangy country) I really have a passion for Hip/Hop and R&B (with some rap mixed in there). Historically, I've told people that and I've been given dirty looks. So, over time, I have avoided giving a lot of detail to strangers about my music preferences.
When talking with this acquaintance, he said, "Likes are individual... you like hip hop, and I like the Beatles (whom I don't care for). Does that make either of us 'bad people'?" He continued to say that I should never apologize for the things that interest me.
It was then that I realized that I have been letting people tell me what I should - or should not - enjoy. And if it doesn't fit with the "norm", then I have let people make me feel "wierd", "bad", or otherwise.
I agree with you... no one else has the right to decide what we enjoy. And no one else has the right to make value judgments on those things.
Thanks for posting this... =)
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