By Leo Milmet

Have you ever seen a film or television show, or read a book, or listened to a song, that you really, really like (or maybe even…LOVE) that you know is just awful? Or maybe you hate something for many reasons, but love to analyze just why you hate it, or you genuinely like a film, book, show, or song that everyone else hates? These various types of films are often called guilty pleasures, and I must say that I have many of them. I used to think of guilty pleasures as embarrassing, but not anymore. I actually really embrace my enjoyment of many truly bad (or badly reviewed) film and shows, like Maris Curran’s drama Five Nights in Maine, the new Burt Reynolds film The Last Movie Star (the rare film that I truly, honestly love that still has terrible reviews), almost any M. Night Shyamalan film (with the exception of Lady in the Water and the god-awful The Last Airbender) or, especially, the CW-produced coming-of-age show Gossip Girl. I really, honestly like that show. It’s awful, yes, and I despise nine out of ten shows of its type, but for some reason, I enjoy Gossip Girl. All art is subjective, so subjective that, in fact, you could easily argue that there should be no such thing as a “guilty pleasure,” but no matter. There is value to these artistic works.

Now, you may ask, “Where on earth is the value in Gossip Girl, or The Village, or even in Five Nights in Maine?” For myself, I find the value in “bad” films or shows by analyzing them, just to understand why they are bad. I can safely say that Gossip Girl is bad. The dialogue is sometimes ridiculously unrealistic, and the plotting can be very lazy. But, it’s incredibly fun for me to watch, and I love to analyze just why it is, in fact, a bad show. It’s simply a bad show that I watch all the time. And, doing exactly that, with whatever guilty pleasure you may have, is what I recommend to you today. If you’ve always had a couple of guilty pleasures that you’ve been embarrassed about for a while, maybe go through them again one day and try to figure out just why they are bad, good, or some mixture of the two. Trust me, it can be a lot of fun.

Editor: Makena Behnke