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Guilty Pleasures Revisited.
- Source :
-
Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism . Spring2022, Vol. 80 Issue 2, p189-200. 12p. - Publication Year :
- 2022
-
Abstract
- In 2007, Song-Ming Ang initiated Guilty Pleasures , a series of listening parties dedicated to sharing beloved "bad songs" and facilitating critical discussions about complex desires and hierarchies of taste. In this article, I extend on these discussions and offer a theory of guilty pleasures. Informed by queer and critical approaches to affect and minor aesthetic categories, I argue that guilty pleasures are characterized not by a specific medium or style, but rather by their ability to evoke pleasure interrupted by a meta-response of guilt. This experience is activated by the outmoded, saccharine, or naff qualities of an object. I contrast guilty pleasures with good-bad art, painful art, and objects that foster akrasia , and provide an extended examination of naff, another minor aesthetic category with roots in Polari (a once-secret queer dialect) that intersects aspects of camp, heteronormativity, and Lauren Berlant's notion of "cruel optimism." I ultimately argue that guilty pleasures are far from a simplistic category of low art enjoyed with indifference. Instead, I perceive guilty pleasures as always enjoyed with a degree of criticality or skepticism that is tethered to the beholder's taste, life experiences, and values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- *PLEASURE
*AESTHETICS
*GUILT (Psychology)
*AKRASIA
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00218529
- Volume :
- 80
- Issue :
- 2
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 160377101
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1093/jaac/kpac002