Many Tufts students seem to be busy from morning to night. But what about those of us who aren't triple-majoring, training for a marathon or tutoring underprivileged children in Latin and just don't know what to do with our spare time?
With cable stations providing literally hundreds of channels worth of options, no student need ever look further than his or her television. Forget bettering the world or one's mind; there are constant supplies of awful-but-entertaining television programs to become addicted to and subsequently embarrassed by.
For some, the hour between calculus and English is dedicated to Maury Povich and his ceaseless supply of babies in need of paternity tests. ("This is Tiffany's fifteenth visit to 'The Maury Show,' and still no father for little baby Destiny!") For others, that time is spent watching "Next" or "Room Raiders" on MTV for a quick fix of absurd, scripted reality television. Whatever the preference, Tufts students are watching with heads lowered in shame.
First, it's important to define what constitutes a guilty pleasure television show. A guilty pleasure, while embarrassing to own up to, is at the very least entertaining; it's so bad, it's good. Guilty pleasures are not the same as television that is simply bad. Truly bad television has no redeeming qualities whatsoever; it's so bad, it's just bad.
But what makes us feel "guilty" for enjoying a program? Why should we feel remorse for watching something that we, however ruefully, admittedly find entertaining? Tufts students and professors bravely attempt to answer these sometimes embarrassing questions.
Find out what happens when students stop being polite and start getting real... comfortable
The most common fear among fans of programs that society deems inconsequential or ridiculous is that they will be judged as such. This fear is not wholly irrational. As sophomore Caroline Davit explains about her love of such shows as "Beauty and the Geek" and "Reunion" (before it was cancelled): "I really like them, but people seem to judge me when I watch them because, well, they're trashy."
That Davit acknowledges her guilty pleasures are of poor quality is important, and common among most people. Assistant Sociology Professor Sarah Sobieraj explains that when one "fully embraces [a program's] camp value, one distances himself from the devalued thing."
This need to distance oneself from the devalued program often results in viewers poking fun at the show they love. When asked about her and her friends' weekly viewings of "The OC," sophomore Jinah Kim said: "It's fun to make fun of."
So the "poorly scripted teenage antics with a great soundtrack" that junior Katie Clark mentions in her description of "The OC" become fodder for whole groups of people to mock. Trashy TV shows seem to be capable of bringing people together to laugh at the stupidity of what they are watching from a moral, intellectual high ground.
However, Sobieraj notes that there is more than one way for a red-faced "OC" junkie to assuage her embarrassment. "When people of the upper-class, intellectual elite, consume what's deemed as pop culture," said Sobieraj, "they tend to appropriate it in very particular ways."
Ridiculing one's favorite program as a means of distancing oneself from it isn't the only possible reconciliation. "One way that someone who is well educated would enjoy something like country music, or horror films or most reality programming - one way they are comfortable using it - is by intellectualizing it. So they talk about it in a way that lets people know that they know it's devalued."
Sobieraj used the hypothetical example of how members of intellectual circles versus less educated viewers might discuss the same horror film. The former would justify their viewing of the lowbrow film by discussing the implications it would have on the genre, while the latter might just talk about the particularly memorable slasher scenes.
Said Ex College Assistant Director Howard Woolf: "Among college students and educated Americans, there's also a level of irony to all of this. When we enjoy, it [unsophisticated fare], we're doing it ironically. This makes it OK for smarter people to enjoy it." In other words, said Woolf, we are "enjoying it in a knowing, winking way."
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But fear of others' judgment extends even to fans of legitimate, acclaimed programming. The stigma of a male liking what is commonly perceived to be a show for female audiences or a person enjoying a show that some might deem nerdy is the source of more viewer guilt.
Indeed, when asked about their favorite guilty pleasure, a group of freshman boys responded laughingly and in unison, "'The OC.'" And when further prodded about why "The OC" was a guilty pleasure and not just a pleasure, the response of one boy was, "Because it's for girls."
An older male student, otherwise seemingly self-confident, is so ashamed of his enjoyment of typically female-watched shows like "Oprah" and "Sex and the City" that he wished to remain anonymous in this article.
A braver soul, sophomore Amanda Farr, admits to privately watching "anything relating to medical history, such as a lovely program about the Black Plague that I watched... twice."
But though Farr tries to keep her History Channel viewing secret, word seems to have spread. Said Farr: "Even my parents mock me."
The mockery doesn't end there for die-hard fans of television shows that society deems inappropriate for their age or gender. Sophomore Julie Sloane, who enjoys all programs on The Food Network, a station whose main demographic is middle-aged women, notes that her 14-year-old sister often disdainfully questions, "What 19-year-old sits around watching The Food Network all day?"
You know what time it is
The final reason most people feel guilty for watching programs they enjoy is, well, some shows are just plain terrible. Among students, the words "trashy," "mindless" and "shameful" were thrown around with regularity when describing their guilty pleasures. But the fact remains, these shows are entertaining in one way or another. Flavor Flav might not be the most articulate or the most intelligent character on TV, but twenty trashy ladies throwing themselves at him on "The Flavor of Love" is fun just the same.
More than just fun, reality shows in which contestants are eliminated and ridiculed have a confidence-boosting effect on viewers. Woolf explains that this effect is derived from a long-standing "theme in American culture of making yourself feel better by looking down on other cultures."
After all, said Woolf, "vicious racial stereotypes" were the "bill of fare in American popular culture" dating back to the inception of that great phenomenon we now know as pop culture, an event Woolf places in the 1830s.
Woolf attributes the advent of pop culture to the expanded use of the printing press to mass produce books and flyers "on a scale that was unprecedented before that." And these materials were, according to Woolf, "what we [today] would consider pulp." In other words, they were little more than what Woolf described as "titillating, scintillating stories" that often promulgated racism amongst other unsavory ideologies. These "stories" would appeal to mainstream audiences by simultaneously debasing minorities and casting the white middle class in a contrastingly positive light.
Nowadays, viewers are still consuming pop media products for their own self-aggrandizement, but, despite Omarosa's best attempts to prove otherwise, it's no longer necessarily about racial inequality. However, the basic idea of watching a show that ridicules others in order to make oneself feel superior is still there.
That might explain why sophomore Steven Fatur cited the MTV dating show "Next" as one of his favorites. "I like it when people get 'next'-ed immediately. It makes me feel better about myself," said Fatur
Guilty pleasures can also have the reverse effect, as junior Jeff Bourgeois demonstrates with his self-criticism of his tastes for the "E! True Hollywood Story" series and The History Channel's programming. "One makes me feel like an idiot for watching, and the other makes me want to get a life," said Bourgeois.
In a similar respect, shows like "8th and Ocean," a supposed reality show on MTV about models in South Beach, and "America's Next Top Model" contain enough tall, beautiful, rail-thin models discussing how fat they are to give even the most secure girl a bevy of eating disorders.
Although no one reported getting bulimia from her guilty pleasure, several students said their addictions to their guilty pleasures have caused their grades to suffer.
A senior who wished to remain anonymous explains how "Smallville" has affected her schoolwork: "I'm ashamed, but I love it. If I miss a week, I find a way to download it, and it prevents me from finishing papers."
Auf Wiedersehen
Eating disorders, failed classes and scorn from friends and family aside, the guilty pleasure is a mostly enjoyable thing. So watch another episode of "Laguna Beach" and relish your momentary superiority; then you should probably go to class.
- Kate Drizos contributed reporting to this article
