Nickelback. Dan Brown novels. Céline Dion. Call of Duty. Any household item with a picture of a cat on it. Dance Moms. Tattoos of pot leaves. Bedazzled phone cases. Transformers — the movies, not the cartoons. The Twilight series. The Black Eyed Peas. Nicholas Sparks. American Idol. People who use the word “bro” unironically. Pulpy detective novels. Disco music. Snow globes. The song “Ice Ice Baby.” Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Insane Clown Posse. Porn.
What do they all have in common? They’re widely considered hallmarks of bad taste — critically reviled and culturally frowned upon, yet popular and well-liked in their own right. Each one has a devoted and often diehard fanbase, though they’re often looked down upon as “low culture.” Somewhere, an invisible line is drawn between the acceptable and the unacceptable in pop culture, and these haven’t made the cut.
So, where’s that line? What does it mean to have good taste or bad — and can someone have both?
The discussion behind tastes has its roots in aesthetics, a category of philosophy which deals with the nature of beauty, art, and — you guessed it — taste. Greek philosophers tended to favour a reproducible set of characteristics which could be considered intrinsically beautiful, such as symmetry, harmony, and order.
Immanuel Kant, a 19th century Prussian philosopher, thought differently. He argued that our experience of beauty is subjective, and rejected the idea that there are features which everyone would agree upon as beautiful. He also connected the idea of “good taste” with that of a cultural and community consensus, saying that whatever was accepted by the majority would always prove tasteful.
One glance at the Top 40 or the highest grossing films of all time seems to undermine this position; what is popular, as it turns out, is not always in good taste. Films like Twilight, books like Fifty Shades of Grey, musical acts like 3OH!3 — not exactly the artistic high points of pop culture.
Categories like “good taste” and “bad taste” limit what art we’re able to enjoy and appreciate.
French philosopher Pierre Bourdieu argued that what’s really considered good taste is that which is the preference of the ruling class; that is, the rich, the famous, those in power and those with influence. This ties into the distinction between high and low art. In the Victorian era, entertainment and art forms were divided clearly along class lines: the poor went to vaudeville shows and listened to music in saloons, while the rich enjoyed operas and fine literature.
However, an interesting thing happened in the 20th century — the line between high culture and low culture began to blur. Film, literature, poetry, architecture, painting, and other media began to appeal to diverse classes and cultures, and the previously clear boundary between the taste of the higher and lower classes became more and more difficult to pin down. (Post-modernists were all about taking advantage of this trend.)
Today, our culture is so remixed and so fluid that it’s hard to distinguish what’s considered bad taste from what isn’t. Take Game of Thrones, for instance, a pulpy, violent, and shamelessly oversexed epic which draws enormous audiences every week, hungry for another hour of political intrigue and proudly corny dialogue. Is it bad taste? I don’t think so — I can find plenty to appreciate about the show on an artistic level if pressed, even though I primarily watch it for dumb fun.
Even pop culture that is almost uniformly considered bad or uncool is worthy of analysis. In his book Let’s Talk About Love, Carl Wilson, a former music critic for The Globe and Mail, examines why Céline Dion is so fervently disliked by so many, and yet has simultaneously amassed such a huge following. He discusses how, beyond the sap and the kitsch, millions of people are genuinely affected by Dion’s music, and asks why we reject certain artists or genres seemingly on nothing more than principle.
Think of it this way: have you ever listened to a whole Justin Bieber album, or read a whole Nicholas Sparks novel, or watched more than one episode of Honey Boo Boo? Did you ever think that, if you did, you might actually like it?
I had this experience with hip-hop. Almost singularly, hip-hop has always been a tough sell for many who consider it simply, uniformly bad without really listening to anything other than what’s on the radio. This perception has a sociocultural undertone to it — it’s no coincidence that hip-hop, which began as a way for poor black kids to express themselves in a world where they had to speak twice as loud just to be heard, is considered by many to be crass and improper.
But once I actually spent the time to explore a genre I had previously dismissed, I found a world of art which really spoke to me, that I fully connected with. My first thought was this: why had I dismissed hip-hop in the first place? Was it because I didn’t like it, or because I wasn’t supposed to?
We use taste to curate who we are, and the way we want the world to see us — it’s the reason we show off our favourite TV shows and movies and books on our Facebook pages. But categories like “good taste” and “bad taste” limit what art we’re able to enjoy and appreciate, and they keep us from experiencing a spectrum of different expressions. We all love a little trash TV or a rom com or a tawdry comic book now and again — the same way we all appreciate a good novel or a well made film.
So go ahead. Binge watch that new reality TV series. Listen to that new Taylor Swift single. Read that cheesy detective novel. Who’s stopping you?
