How guilty should we truly feel about our guilty pleasures?

Judges and Jury of DUFT, I must plead guilty to a heinous crime. The evidence is stacked against me. The charges are great. My guilt is severe. I must come clean, I watch trash TV. Now, before you smite me with your Kurosawa, Tarkovsky, and Kubrick, may I plead my sorry case? My vice manifests in the form of my thorough and undying enjoyment of Come Dine With Me. It is excellent. Drama, relatability, iconic contestants, what more could you need for great entertainment? But that is exactly what it is. Entertainment.

Film and TV has such a wide variety of purposes. Shows and Films like: Come Dine With Me, Love Island, Gavin and Stacey, Twilight, Fast and Furious, and even the cavernous vein of films which are 'B-Movies', were all created to be enjoyed. They are straightforward entertainment, guilty pleasures, their predictability is calming.

On the other end of the spectrum is the very opposite. Films that are ‘deep’, supposed to brew in your mind over time and up your cinephile cred. Mind-brewing is great and all that, but when you’re an hour into Godard’s The Image Book, it’s difficult not to let your mind ponder the warm comforts of Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging.

Of course, neither are bad. They both have value. They are just different. To have a good appreciation of film you need to discard your preconceptions and appreciate all aspects of it. Nobody is obliged to enjoy trash TV of course, and I am biased in my championing of it, but you do have to acknowledge its significant place in the cultural sphere.

The subjectivity of what makes a film a guilty pleasure must also be recognised. When reviewing films that are commonly viewed as trashy, you will quickly notice that they are overwhelmingly chick flicks. I’m not arguing that a film like Notting Hill or Mean Girls should be regarded as a cinematic masterpiece. However, it does feel very telling of the cultural landscape of film criticism that films tailored towards a young female demographic are immediately written off as ‘trashy’. This subjectivity throws into question any superiority a person can feel for looking down on a specific genre of film.

In an interview with Greta Gerwig, she revealed that upon visiting Ingmar Bergman’s home she found a copy of Beverly Hills Cop, along with other films of that calibre, in his esteemed VHS room.

So in summary, don’t feel guilty about watching trash TV or films. Not even Ingmar Bergman can be Ingmar Bergman all of the time, and there is a place in film for a whole spectrum of genres. And, as the first step on your journey of Trash TV Enlightenment, may I recommend the Durham edition of Come Dine With Me which, dare I say tops even the infamous ‘reversing dumptruck’ episode.