Ask the Writers - Secret

It is time for our writers to defend the honour of someone or something that is routinely given the business in everyday conversation. This month, we asked the writers:

What reviled cultural icon do you secretly respect?

April Yorke

At first I wasn't sure what my answer to this might be since it sounds suspiciously like a guilty pleasure. If you know me, you know I find no reason to feel guilty about being entertained by entertainment. Heck, I take the shows others might consider a guilty pleasure and shout about it from the rooftops. But then I realized the truth: soap operas. They entertain millions, and they do it 365 days a year (or nearly that), with no repeats or summer hiatuses in sight. They have to constantly find new plots because some of those actors/characters are on those shows for decades. Sometimes people act like those are the dregs of the acting world, but I'll tell you what: those are some mad memorizing skills. Page after page after page of dialogue; soaps are all talk. And all of this is to say nothing of soap actors who have gone on to bigger and better things: Morgan Freeman, Julianne Moore, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nathan Fillion, Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, James Earl Jones, the list goes on and on. They're not all perfect. Not every one's going to be into a plot about a psychiatrist possessed by Satan or Sonny's mob business at odds with his bi-polar disorder or a giant floating head that gives advice. That's cool. But as far as I'm concerned, there's no shame in their game.

Shawn Roske

Not too long ago Dungeon's and Dragons, comic books, and all the geeky things I've loved (yes, my friend's and I often gamed in basements) would fall into this category. Does it still? Is geek chic now a mainstream thing? It is difficult for me to tell. Perhaps it is still a thing on the edge, and what is mainstream about it is the voyeurism-á la Big Bang Theory, Community, Supers movies, most of the Internet I suppose. Well, I've partaken of this subculture since the mid-80s. I never felt a need to hide it, necessarily...although I can say I have never used to it to pick up chicks. Everything I say about this is a cliche!

I don't game much these days, although I stay current with the genre and am still a consumer of the products. Recently I've been nostalgic and have been exploring how people play table-top RPGs online. It even looks like I'm going to be able to play. There are Play-by-Post websites, where one can game through forums-- posting once a day. It is like cooperative storytelling. I'm looking forward to it.

Will Parker

It didn't take me more than a moment of reflection to reach my answer: ketchup. Yes, given the various options available to me, I arrived almost immediately at this often-maligned condiment. I have friends who look at me with horror when I ask for ketchup for my eggs and grilled sandwiches. My partner feigns vomiting when I apply liberal amounts to my homemade macaroni and cheese. "It's so trashy, why would you ruin a perfectly good dish with that junk?" he rhetorically asks. My answer, as I ignore the rhetorical nature of his question and order a side of the thick red sauce in even the fanciest of restaurants?  Because it is delicious!  The tangy sweet tomato flavour of a premium brand of ketchup can compliment a meal like no other accompaniment.  Sure it's cheap, sure it's enjoyed by the masses, but shouldn't those things work in its favour?  Ketchup is the unsung hero behind so many delicious dishes like chili, cabbage rolls, jerk chicken, Aussie meat pies, and lentil soup. While ketchup may not be the most lavish food enhancement available, it still succeeds in doing just that: enhancing the food.  Therefore, in spite of the epicures and gourmets who may turn up their noses in disgust, I will continue to proudly dip my frites in the wonderful and often reviled ketchup.

Emily Goodacre

Not-so-secret-shame time: I cannot stop watching Jersey Shore.  I decreed it as garbage when it first premiered, but then one lazy Sunday afternoon I was flipping channels, came across it and thought "what the hell".  And from that moment on, I was well and truly screwed.  I understand that they are all terrible people and the rampant misogyny really gets to me too.  And yet, I would rather watch and yell insults at the TV screen than not watch.  The way I see it, it's much like watching animal planet.  Can you really get mad at the meerkat for eating her own young?  Of course not.  You can't ascribe human values to a lesser species.  So how can you get mad when Ronnie throws his girlfriend's bed out the window in a fit of 'roid rage, or J-Wow squats to pee behind the bar of a club because the bathroom is down too many stairs?  Besides, as Nicole 'Snooki' Polizzi rather intelligently pointed out in an interview earlier this year, these people are put in a house together with no television, Internet, books, magazines, or cell phones for months at a time.  All they have is copious amounts of alcohol and production assistants that encourage them to fight and screw.  So fight and screw they do.  Think about what most of us would look like if filmed 24 hours a day in those circumstances.  Ok, fine, most of us would probably still not look that bad.

Mike Cullen

I actually have a lot of respect for Paris Hilton.

I'll wait until you're all done judging me.

She is a woman who has carved her own niche, reinvented herself when necessary, and is the first person to actually not take herself seriously. Yes, she may be the blond ditz who can't decide if she's a fashion model, a singer or a porn star depending on the day of the week, but secretly, there's a sharp woman underneath it all. But the thing I respect about her the most: she's a self-made woman. She has publicly spoken about never touching her trust fund and her desire to make it on her own. That's a lot more than most people in her position at her age can say, and for that, she's got my respect.

Joe Lipsett

Although I'm not entirely certain just how "reviled" it is anymore, I probably have more respect for pornography than the vast majority of people. Stepping away from the potential criticisms launched at it in the past concerning feminism and coercion, pornography as a sexual conduit in and of itself absolutely fascinates me. Capitalistically speaking it's the biggest industry in the world (take that Walmart!), but more importantly, it's an equal opportunity player with a vested interested in pleasing everyone: if you've got a fetish, type that sucker into Google and you're off like a rocket on a ride towards ecstasy. I'm in awe that something so taboo is so accessible, so prevalent and so diverse, but no one wants to talk about it. I recently did a presentation at a pop culture conference on my favourite faux-male performer, The Black Spark, and literally overhead people urging each other to get out of the room because "the porn session [was] next." The simple fact is that pornography exists (especially on the internet!), that we're all accessing it (some more than others), and that last year it was a 10-14 billion dollar industry. And while any of those statements may disgust some people, I am not-so secretly fascinated by them. Strictly for academic purposes, of course...

Brendan Blom

Nicolas Sarkozy. Is he reviled? Yes. He is conservative - intolerant - reactionary. He currently has a pathetic 35% approval rating in France. That's AFTER taking a 5% jump this month, following both his quasi-statesmanlike handling of the Greek debt crisis, and the revelation that his most likely opponent in next year's presidential election is, if not a certifiable rapist, at the very least a despicably brutish, misogynist reptile. Sarkozy is seen in France as hopelessly inconsistent and volatile in his policy decisions, and overseas as an absurdly pepped-up little fellow, engaged in a "whose slightly saggy middle-aged pecs are the biggest" contest with Vladimir Putin. Charles de Gaulle had more charisma in his prominent gallic nose as Sarkozy has in his entire being.

And so, is Sarkozy to be respected? Also yes. Why? Because he married Carla Bruni. Ms. Bruni is an Italian tire heiress, a former fashion model, and now a singer-songwriter, with three quite respectable albums released to date. She does indeed write most of her own songs, and they are charmingly poetic, romantic, and as cool as a pack of Gauloises. She has also put poems by William Butler Yeats, Emily Dickinson, Dorothy Parker, and W.H. Auden to music, on her album No Promises. She has a low-key cameo in Woody Allen's latest film, Midnight in Paris, with Owen Wilson. She is a UN ambassador for women and children suffering from HIV. (Her brother, Virginio Bruni Tedeschi, died of complications from HIV/AIDS in 2006.) She has had affairs with both Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger; she has had her share of tabloid controversy and come through it relatively unscathed; and she seems as if she would be brilliantly entertaining company at a dinner party-or, more importantly, at a dance party. On top of all that, Michelle Obama seems to like her, which is a pretty awesome recommendation for anyone.

So, while Le Petit Nicolas may not have all that much going for him (and—just to be clear—I would never vote for him as a politician and don't think I would like him as a person), he at least made a killer choice in the marriage department. And for that he deserves respect.

Taryn Cheal

I was at first tempted to say something like The Wicked Witch of the West, but I know this would have been too easy. After reflecting on my media consumption, I realized what it is: Teen Mom. Yes, I said it. I love Teen Mom and the accompanying myriad of MTV shows (16 and Pregnant, Teen Mom 2). There is something of a morbid fascination to it for me. Watching these teenage girls be forced to grow up in an instant and face decisions about their lives when most girls their age are picking out what lipstick goes with their prom dress is tragic and fascinating. The show can stress me out quite a bit and I get really frustrated watching them make horrendous decisions, but at the end of the day I tune in to see how the teen moms deal with their lives. I am not completely sure what makes me watch week after week, season after season and show after show but I am there. When you see what these girls are put through and how easily their lives are derailed you can see that it is a cautionary tale and a rude awakening for teen girls. That being said, I am not in it for the moral. I really just want to see what happens (and let's face it, some of those kids are damn cute).

Lauren Cheal

I secretly respect the television show The Bachelor. I have only seen one full season (the first) of this ridiculous show, and only then because it aired after my beloved Gilmore Girls on the embarrassing network, CosmoTV. The Bachelor is one of those reality-show staples that cropped up in the early days of the genre (or the current version of the genre), and has managed to stick around for over 9 years. The premise is ridiculous-a man can find his wife in a group of 25 women after a quick series of dates (group and otherwise). The rate of success is 0-over the 15 seasons of the show, not a single couple has stayed together for the long term (I believe the spinoff, The Bachelorette, has produced one long-term couple). So why do I have any respect for this train-wreck? Because the show manages to produce fascinating drama that sucks viewers in every single season. Watch an episode and tell me that you are not on the edge of your damn seat during the stupid rose ceremony. Even though the jig is surely up, and these people will not end up together, people still buy the premise and get caught in the drama. Whatever else the show may be guilty of, it certainly deserves respect for that feat of storytelling.

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