In Defense of the Mediocre, Crass, and Shitty

Last week, I had the fortune to see X-Men: First Class. This is not a good movie. In fact, it was a very bad movie. It didn't make sense, was kind of sexist, and had January Jones in it. But, you know what? I loved every fucking second of it. I would see it again. Shit fuck. I'd see it again in theaters. It was silly, funny, and sexy. Case in point: Michael Fassbender. This gentleman knows how to wear a wetsuit and how to dramatically mime moving, like, a bunch of missiles through grand gesticulations.

Fassbender tangent:


That is not from the movie, but who cares? It is awesome for reasons other than pure handsomeness: single tear, eyeliner, neck tattoo, blouse.

Anyway, my point of my blog post is this: Sometimes things that are stupid and poorly executed can bring you an immense amount of joy. I wanted to explore this idea so, I invited some of my favorite people to share their stupid shit that they love. These are all very attractive, intelligent ladies who excel in their fields of choice, but for whatever reasons have terrible taste when it comes to certain things.

Caitlin: Terrible Taste in Music

There comes a time in your adulthood when you decide to stop trying to be cool. Yeah, you could still mark in your calendar when the Typhoon LP comes out or you can be honest with yourself and be like, I just be like, "Nope. I just want to listen to the same Katy Perry song on repeat." Caitlin ascribes to the latter ideology and I think her life is better because of it.

Caitlin hosts the best karaoke night in all of Brooklyn and I think this might dictate her taste in music. It's more fun to sing TLC than Leonard Cohen. Here are her favorite bad songs right now:

1. Britney Spears "Hold It Against Me"



What Caitlin has to say about this: "This song is SO CLOSE to being BRILLIANT. I'm serious. It's a dancehall trashy pop song about cheesy pick-up lines. Unfortunately she only uses two lines, and I wish the song had like, 47, but whatever." Yeah, it's not even one of Britney's good songs. If you don't believe Britney ever had a good song shut your mouth and stop being such a snob.

2. Shots by LMFAO featuring Lil' Jon



Sigh. This song is the bane of my existence. Ever since it was introduced to my group of friends (as an example of a terribly executed, fucked up non-nonsensical misogynistic song), they sing a version of this song to explain every situation we are in. For example, if say the G train finally shows up, someone will sing "Train train train train train..." It is horrible. This is why Caitlin likes it, "The best part of this song is hearing Lil' John give a shout out to 'Lemon Drops.' Dude, that is not street at all."

Also this clean version is hilarious because instead of "fuck" they say "butts." So if you got no money get the butts out the club. But for some reason saying that if you give a woman some shots her panties will hit the ground is perfectly acceptable to be heard by all ages. Blerg.

3. A Tie Between "Peacock" by Katy Perry and "S&M" by Rihanna



This song is what I call a single entendre. So Katy really wants to see this guys weiner. I put up the lyrics video because the lyrics are really the best part. My favorite line is "I was so unprepared." Caitlin has this to say about this song, "I've never heard anything so stupid. I guess I can't really defend this one."



I'll let Caitlin explain this one: "It is only song where I have ever heard Rihanna sing with any emotion. Also, if the goal of this song is to make you feel dirty, they have accomplished it with Brittney's vocals. 'If I'm bad tie me down/Shut me up gag and bound.... me' Eeewwww." Indeed.

Irina: Terrible Taste in Movies

Irina grew up in Almaty, Kazakhstan and moved to the US as a teenager. Her experience of American pop culture is very different from mine. She says things like, "Every time I watch Catwoman with Halle Berry..." and I respond, "Stop. What? You do that habitually?" and she says, "Yes, of course!" She has also seen every movie with Keanu Reeves in it. Since I have not seen any of these movies (none of them have Michael Fassbender in them), I'll let Irina explain why she likes them in her own words.

1. Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead



This is an excellent terrible movie. The awful babysitter dies and the kids dump her body but it's a comedy, see and Christina Applegate who is 17 has to get a job so she FAKES her resume and become an executive assistant. Because that can happen in real life. And she doesn't get sued for anything just GROUNDED. Ah, this is good stuff. The fugliest male love interest is in it though. As if.

2. Catwoman

YouTube won't let me embed this video, but here is the clip.

Catwoman-This movie was hailed the worst Catwoman rendition ever and the least sexiest that Halle Berry has ever been. Uh, the former is definitely right, the latter come on??? When she orders a white Russian on the rocks sans vodka and the bartender is like "milk, straight up" and it looks the coolest thing ever and you get the urge to go to a bar and do the same but common sense holds you back. She looks fine as fuck. The trouble is that every time I see it I give myself a haircut. Once again the plot is idiotic. A fucking cat breathes into her mouth and she comes back to life. She saves the world from cream that maintains you looking young but is actually fucking killing you. The scene where she escapes out of jail, LIKE A CAT, by just squeezing through the rungs? It's soo bad. Listen I tried that shit okay, not only will neither of my ass checks squeeze through, our skulls are not malleable! Anyways, I love this movie. I love a girl in leather, who drinks milk, has commitment problems and eats tuna. Because at the end Halle Berry leaves Benjamin Bratt all alone. Bam. Like a fucking cat.

3. The Sweetest Thing

This video is NSFW sort of, mostly it is just dumb.



Okay, if you have taste or like cinema there is no reason why you should enjoy this movie unless you are me. This is probably Christina Applegate's and Cameron Diaz's worst movie EVER. The tasteless humor, awful styling, i don't even know what to say it's just god awful but you gotta watch it.

Rebecca: Terrible Taste in Television

Rebecca and I are BFFs, but our friendship is built on a foundation of our mutual interest in dumb things. We became friends in college because we would breaks from the library together to eat a lot of bad candy (Idaho Spud, anyone?) and talk about the holocaust. Anyway, one of the things we both love is really really bad TV. She can stomach worse stuff than me. These are her "favorites."

1. Seventh Heaven



How the crap was this show on for 11 seasons and (I am fully aware of how insufferable I must sound) Firefly got canceled after only 13 episodes? Joss Whedon must cry himself to sleep every night in a huge pile of money, just at the thought of it.

Also, they have like 10 kids, but none of them look alike.

2. Any Show with Shonda Rimes as Producer



Shonda Rimes is the woman responsible for a certain genre of television for women: ethically-questionable doctors who just have sex in supply closets and have terrible things happen to them. She created such tours de force as Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice (Grey's Anatomy in LA), and Off the Map (Grey's Anatomy in South America). It is very obvious that the actors, producers and writers for these shows actively hate these characters, as, I must assume, do most of the viewers. I chose the clip because it was from the not-well-thought-out musical episode that came out this season. They were right to have chosen to sing Snow Patrol because Grey's Anatomy is totally the Snow Patrol of television. Both are insufferable, melodramatic, nonsensical, and appear deep to dumb people.

3. The Mentalist




I have never seen this show. But it is nice to see that Robin Tunney has a job.