Guilty Pleasures: Trashy Teen Flicks

Hi my name is UndieGirl and I love trashy teen flicks. I don’t just mean films about teenager or marketed to teenagers – I mean those embarrassingly cliché movies that are all about growing up, getting laid (or not) and negotiating the hormone fueled years between the ages of 13 to 20. Every little piece of drama is heightened to the point of ridiculousness, there is an oversupply of red cups and there is often a musical number of no apparent reason. They’re unoriginal, sexist and a little bit silly but I love them none the less – so let’s hear it for the trashy teen flick one of my many guilty pleasures.

Guilty Pleasures: Taking a bite out of Bait

So let’s add another layer to the already hefty set of contradictions that make up my tastes because not only do I love trash romances, wedding shows and pop music, I also love shark attack movies. I’m not just talking about Jaws either, because as awesome as that movie is, and it’s pretty awesome, I prefer Jaws II because of that one time the shark attacked a helicopter… and won.

Guilty Pleasures: The shame of pop music aka my 15 year love affair with Hanson.

At ten years old we’re all pretty impressionable. It’s when we finally take that step outside the culture given to by our parents and start creating our very own cultural identity. It’s also where we start getting lured into embarrassing fads that will haunt us for the rest of our lives. But really it’s an amazing time, we get our first celebrity crushes (even though we have no idea what to do with them), we start going to the movies with our friends rather than our parents and we purchase CD’s (iTunes downloads now I guess). These early tastes are important, they affect how we interact with culture from that moment on, so why is that we are so quick to dismiss our tween loves and childish. 

In honour of all our early introductions to popular culture today I am going to share with you one of the many loves I found at the age of ten that have stuck with me throughout the years. That is, of course my love for Hanson. Yes, that band of ridiculously young boys from Tulsa that wrote one of the best pop songs ever, “MMMBop”.  Don’t pretend you don’t remember that song, even if you weren’t at such an impressionable age as I was when it was released. It’s catchy as all hell and I love it, even if I am still trying to work out what exactly an MMMBop is (I think it’s a measurement of time). 

Guilty Pleasures: Don't tell the bride I love Wedding shows

Last week I presented a call to arms. Sick and tired of being ashamed of liking so called low culture I decided it was time to come clean. So sometimes I like things that are not considered cool but considering the fact that these things are usually referred to as “popular culture” it doesn’t seem right to be ashamed of it. In an effort to get more people to admit their guilty pleasures, and as such create a safer space to enjoy popular culture, I am going to be admitting one of mine every Sunday. Seeing as I already spend Sunday in a haze of shame and guilt from whatever happened on Saturday night it shouldn’t be that difficult. This week I have chosen to admit one of my darkest secrets: I love Wedding shows. 

Fangirl Confession: I actually kind of (really) like Twilight and other guilty pleasures.

I know I know, I’m not supposed to say it. I realise we are all supposed to pretend that a few years ago we weren’t entirely obsessed with an insipid teenage girl and her stalker vampire boyfriend. But I never was much good with social etiquette. Besides I have always advocated against hiding our pop culture shames because of that one time Hansen were awesome and then suddenly I wasn’t allowed to like them. I’m not ashamed to admit it, I liked Twilight when it first came out and I still like it now.