Skip to main content

Guilty Pleasure: Can bad entertainment make us bad people?

Guilt is useful only if we act on it. Otherwise, it is either misguided or a poor excuse for the unethical to feign morality.

Broadly, if something you do makes you feel guilty, you should either stop it, or get over your sense of shame. You generally shouldn't feel guilty pleasure, unless that itself is the basis for your enjoyment.

Especially when it comes to entertainment, you probably shouldn't feel guilty about most things you like. You can enjoy Britney Spears' music, 'Grease', or 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' all you want. If you're not wasting your life away on these things, what does it matter?

Even if you think they're aesthetically bad, that's alright. Campy, schmaltzy ridiculous, or just dumb material can still be fun. Don't feel guilty for liking harmless garbage. It's harmless. --Please note this is not an excuse for subjecting others to your bad taste. That is unquestionably wrong.--

If your entertainment involves people actually being hurt, that's different, especially if that harm is intentional and integral to the endeavor. Encouraging or enabling the indisputable physical damage the NFL and WWE require is arguably immoral, and probably something you should feel guilty about.

Sadly, this leaves Jackie Chan's movies in a murky moral space. We are fortunate, however. There is an escape. You don't have to be uncomfortable when consuming other people's pain. You can even do this while engaging in the world with your eyes wide open, acknowledging what you see. No delusions necessary.

Why not simply accept you enjoy watching people get hurt? Some economies are based upon the physical and mental destruction of direct participants. You can be okay with this. You don't have to feel bad about being bad, if you accept that sometimes that is what you are.

Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous3/11/2017 4:14 PM

    It never would have even occurred to me that Grease should be considered a guilty pleasure..I only like 2 of the songs though.

    For the NFL, as long as the players have knowledge of the consequences of their decision to play, then they should be able to do that. Same for WWE. I haven't felt guilty about watching them either. I just feel like I'm wasting my time more than anything else because of the commercials/advertising.

    I feel guilty about watching certain movies and actually won't watch them because they make me feel like a bad person. Never Jackie Chan though, that wouldn't have occurred to me either. More like, movies like Hostel and that type of thing, where the main object is torture of people. I feel awful when I see them, even if they are fake. I guess that is kind of a contradiction huh? Real violence like in the NFL, doesn't bother me as much since a lot of the effects are hidden and are longer term injuries like brain damage.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

For Every Problem, a Solution (4)

God as depicted throughout the ages.  No Alanis Morissette, and, no, that isn't ironic.
9 comments
Read more

An introduction to a book that doesn't exist:

Prose and verse are generally accepted as distinct writing formats with their own rules, styles, and grammars.  Though their borders are somewhat vague, they have come to be seen as something of a dichotomy in the eyes of the general public.  There are, however, at least 3 other popular approaches to writing as exhibited in picture-books, comicbooks, and plays.  Though sometimes given short shrift, these styles are accepted as literature.  They are included in libraries, book stores, and academic study.  Most importantly, they are read. In the general case, there is clearly writing being done in the creation of any one of these.  But what of the wordless comic or silent play?  Should we consider scripts written, but fully realized plays, comics, and picture-books, to be performance, art, or some other kind of non-literature?  These worries of theory are kinks to be worked out, surely, but they are not of immediate practical concern to the writer...
12 comments
Read more

My room is a mess, my painting unfinished.

...and I still haven't found a good alternative to my scanner with its missing power-cord.  Almost finished with this painting, though.  I just need to put in a bus seat in front of and behind the passenger. Incidentally, the Seattle Metro buses have the ugliest upholstery I can remember seeing, and I spent five years working at a used furniture store.
10 comments
Read more