Secret Sunday: My Guilty Pleasures

Today's Secret Sunday is brought to you by the letter M, for "My embarrassing, and entirely shameful, guilty pleasures."

I hope you all still like me by the end of it.

***DISCLAIMER: If, upon skimming this before reading it, you have found a. . . *certain picture*. . . and have decided you no longer want to be my friend, PLEASE NOTE that that is NOT one of the things on this list. Or any list of mine. Except perhaps "Most Fun To Phaeton-ize".***

10: America's Next Top Model

Now, I don't watch the new episodes when they're on, and I couldn't tell you what season they're up to now. But every day without fail, I sit down in front of the TV and check two different channels to see if one of the older cycles is replaying. Even if I've already seen it, even if I've only got ten minutes to relax and eat breakfast before school. . . I just need my fix of bitchy twenty-somethings, effeminate makeup artists, and of course, Tyra.

9: Memes

I like memes, even though sometimes I am really confused by them, because they make me feel included. I feel like I'm in on some big inside joke, complete with the weird looks from people because they don't understand what the hell I'm talking about and I sound like one of those big douches who spends all day trolling 4chan. Which, for the record, I don't. . . just the Cheezburger network. All of it. And not even all day! Just for a few hours. Most days.

8: Occasionally Wanting To Embody Really, and I Mean Really, Stupid "Scenes"

This actually started from Guilty Pleasure #9, when I discovered Scene Wolf, and unearthed an entire world I had never known existed. An entirely ridiculous and hostile world, filled with tight pink pants and plastic diamonds and girls with terribly over-processed hair. A world I shamefully, secretly, sort of wished I could be a part of.

I actually set out to make a scene kid costume right away. I bought cheap extensions and hair mascara, and found all my silly plastic jewelry.

Then I was reminded of terrible hipsters, and I put on all the thrift store clothes and hand-me-downs I've accumulated through the years and held a solo late-night photo shoot. Then I found cybergoths, and within that, "dread falls". (I decided to make my own out of yarn because they looked silly, and they turned out being way more cute than douchey but I'm still kind of embarrassed about it).

7: Downright Awful Chick Flicks and Hilariously Bad Horror Movies

There is something just so optimistic about watching awful chick flicks. . . but underneath that is something dark and desperate. I am painfully aware of both. I can honestly enjoy watching movies like The Perfect Man and Honey, while fully, and viscerally, appreciating my inevitable transformation into a fat, crazy spinster aunt with impossibly high standards and self-esteem so low as to be nonexistent. It is because of this Guilty Pleasure that The Holiday has remained one of my favorite movies to this day.

I love bad horror movies. I don't mean movies where the plot is bad but everything else is still scary; I'm talking movies like Killer Klowns from Outer Space (the tagline? "In space, no one can eat ice cream."), Event Horizon, which has really grown on me, and Evolver, which is a movie from the early 90's about a killer laser tag robot. I like bad horror movies because I scare really easily, and they don't scare me.

I do own a movie that perfectly combines the two. If you haven't seen Swimfan (a dark, provocative movie about a dark, provocative girl with a dark, provocative secret), please, please do. I'm not gonna say you won't regret it, because that is an outright lie, but it'll be one of those funny regrets you look back on years later and sort of secretly want to reenact.

6: Talking Like A Bro

(Huh. I just looked up "bro slang" on Google, and I learned that in Welsh, the plural of "bro" is "broydd". You learn something new every day.)
If you are around me after ten PM, immediately after watching an episode of Bad Girls Club, or during one of my Ambien fuzzes, you will notice two things.
1) My spelling is just awful, and
2) I am saying a lot of stupid things that you would normally hear being tossed around a frat bar in Ann Arbor.
There's a reason this only comes out of me at certain, shall we say, vulnerable times.

5: Fanfiction

I love fanfiction. There I said it. I love fanfiction. I love fanfiction. I love fanfiction. I am currently mentally writing a fanfiction about myself and a certain charming British reaper.

I would never write it down though. Because then somebody might see it.

In other news, I've started writing a romantic story about two characters named Pelli and Pason, who happen to be Prim Peapers.

4: Teen Fiction "Novels"

I should preface this by assuring you that my favorite authors are Stephen King and Christopher Moore. I can read Shakespeare with no trouble at all. I own a suitably worn copy of Pride and Prejudice. My favorite book is IT, which I've read 23 times and bought five times because it's gotten ruined or loaned to someone.

But I just can't stay away from the Teen Fiction section of Borders.

I've been following the Princess Diaries saga since eighth grade, and I keep rereading the last book because I just LOVEITSOMUCHOKAY. Unfortunately, because the series is over, I need to get my fix of prom-obsessed high-school girls somewhere else. I am fully (and also rightfully) ashamed to report that the search for that abhorrent fix led me to the Monster High ("where freaky is fabulous") series. . . which thankfully only just started, and therefore only has one book.

One terrible, horrible book. That I did not read twice.

Since then I've picked up the Pretty Little Liars series. . . and haven't been able to put it down. Fortunately, there is so much to it (eight books and an ongoing TV series) that I can just suck on that vodka-flavored teat for a while and just savor it without resorting to more. . . desperate measures.

We're all counting on you, Pretty Little Liars.

3: Trashy (and I Mean TRAAA-SHY) Reality Shows

I'm picky about my trashy reality shows. Your Real Housewives can go wife up someone else's house; I have no love for New York; I do not care to keep up with any Kardashians. That said, I'm an absolute sucker for shows like You're Cut Off and Bridezillas. Rock of Love and Real Chance of Love are the only exceptions to the "No Celebrity Dating Shows" rule, because come on, they're hilarious. Like you don't secretly watch those too. In your pajamas. Alone. With your cat. And post GIFs from them on Tumblr.

Like you don't.

2: Tabloid/Fashion Magazines

This only started recently, but awakened a big girly fire in me. A pink one, full of cotton candy and shirtless boys. In the break room at work, the tables are usually littered with (ahem) "juicy" tabloid rags and style magazines. So I usually peruse them while eating my hot pretzel, two flatbread sandwiches, chips, and hashbrowns all at the same time, because all those processed foods can't satiate my hunger for fashion tips and relationship advice from Wendy Williams.

If you should happen to note me looking conspicuously "on-trend" and "of-the-moment". . . well, that's why.



And now, a dramatic pause for the guiltiest Guilty Pleasure it is my guilty pleasure to possess. . .

1: Bad Girls Club

This trashy reality show is so awesome, so bad, so unabashedly, quintessentially Trash TV that it gets its own entry outside of the Trashy TV entry. If you don't know what Bad Girls Club is, here is a summary:

Seven "bad girls" get sent to LA to live in a house together. There's no goal. Nothing more to it. They don't try and lure you into watching a trashy show by covering it up with morals and group therapy. They just put a whole bunch of bitches in a house together, just to see what happens. Sure, they get sent on trips and stuff, and host events. But that's it. If you want a better summary, here you go, but there's literally nothing else to it.

And for some reason, I can't get enough of it.

It compels me. Every Monday, when I get home from school, you'd best believe I am right there in front of my TV, catching up on last week's drama and waiting for the new episode to come on. This is my third season in. I'm hooked. I've even drawn some of my friends in.

And you know what? I'm not sorry. Not one bit. As Muhammad Ali said, ROTATE AND/OR PLAY WIT IT.

My Disnertation.

So a few nights ago I watched The Little Mermaid. I was also feeling really guilty about not having updated very much, or drawn very many fantastic cartoons. That combination resulted in this:

Hello, fish. You're going to be sushi in about five minutes.

Have you watched that movie anytime recently? It actually holds up really well, and it's just FULL of delightful little treasures! For example, Rene Auberjonois (best known, to me anyway, as Paul Lewiston from Boston Legal) is the voice of the homicidal chef that flies into a rage when he realizes that he did not actually kill that crab.



Look how happy he is! It's a crying shame that the prince went off and married some bleeding-heart fish liberal and had his catering business shut down for good, leaving poor Chef Louis to invent robotic feet and shake his finger at Bill Shatner for the next twenty years.

LISTEN HERE, YOU. I CARED ABOUT THAT SAUTERNE.

I noticed something else, too. I know I'm hardly the first person to point it out, but. . . do people in the Disney world not know what dating is?

Let's take a look.

THE LITTLE MERMAID
Ariel rescues the handsome and vaguely ethnic Prince Eric from a flaming ship. She then sings to him and disappears. Fast forward to. . . a couple hours later, and she's shouting at her daddy that she loves this guy, and signing away her voice (and presumably her immortal soul, because really, just look at Ursula) so she can sprout legs and marry the prince.

Ursula must have also given her a great ass, because Eric, not having the foggiest idea that this little mute cutie has been going around telling all her gal-pals about her human boyfriend and writing MRS. PRINCE ERIC on all her notebooks, decides then and there that he is in love with her.

Some other stuff happens, like the ridiculous crab rampage seen above, and Ursula getting pissed off that her plan to extort Ariel's teenage naivete isn't exactly working out to her advantage and turning into Evil Brunette Ariel. . .

Who Prince Eric then decides he wants to marry.

Men.

Now, bear in mind that all of this takes place over about a week, maybe less. They don't actually know anything about each other.

Granted, Ariel is sixteen and a princess, and we can assume that her social life is, shall we say, hampered by the fact that her father is a NORSE GOD WITH A PITCHFORK THAT SHOOTS LIGHTNING. Any relationship idiocy on her part can be chalked up to the fact that she doesn't get out much, except to that weird little cave with the forks in it, and to hang out with a wimpy fish and a bird with Down's Syndrome.

Eric, on the other hand, is a human prince. He has women falling over him left and right, women with wealth and fame and a good deal of intelligence, and he decides to marry this mute chick who washed up naked on a beach. After five minutes.

While we're on Disney's idolization of questionable men, let's move on to. . .

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
Belle, daughter of the village weirdo (read: inventor), really doesn't want to settle down and marry the town meathead. She's deep, because she likes books, and the idea of rubbing hunter feet for the rest of her life doesn't exactly strike her fancy. Conveniently, on the way to the annual science festival, her daddy gets accosted by wolves and has to bunk down in a creepy old castle, which NO ONE IN FRANCE KNOWS IS THERE, for the night. He then is thrown into the dungeon by the film's titular romantic male lead.

How is he still single?!

When Dad doesn't shoot her a Facebook message upon his arrival (or maybe it was just his horse freaking out?), Belle gets worried and goes looking for him. She finds the creepy old castle and Dad's abandoned cart, and just kind of goes inside to get him.

Upon realizing there's a hot girl in his castle in addition the admittedly succulent fat guy in his dungeon, the Beast swoops downstairs in a suitably terrifying fashion and totally flips his shit on Belle, who decides that hanging out in the castle under the watchful eye of a cursed prince is totally more exciting than having her books knocked into mud puddles at home, and offers to stay in her father's place.

Following a similar train of thought, where:
hanging out in a castle under the watchful eye of a cursed prince=hot girl, and
having her books knocked into mud puddles=weird old fat guy,
the Beast takes her up on this offer. He runs upstairs, looks at his flower, and decides to try and make her fall in love with him. Which she does, over the course of about a week.

This is what's known as Stockholm Syndrome. Yeah, you know what's there that wasn't there before, Belle? Blind desperation. And as Jon pointed out, this isn't even romantic on the Beast's part; it's entirely a marriage of convenience.

Is this girl a girl?
Yes.
Okay, good. Could I potentially get her to make out with me?
Yes.
Then I get to not be hairy anymore?
Yes.
AWESOME.

The one thing they have in common is that they're both stuck in this dumb castle with all these dumb talking appliances, and they both agree that chicks should read. You know who else thinks girls should read, is this guy.

You want to marry him? He's hairy too! And the great news is, he's likely to stay that way.

The Beast hasn't even tried to make nice with other girls in the castle. In fact, it's implied that either there has been no one else there ever, or he killed them all. He decides to marry this girl within five minutes of knowing her, and THREATENING TO KILL HER, so that she can cure him of his terminal hairiness.

And Belle? She gets to not marry Gaston, and also be a princess. What a sweetheart deal.

And last but not least, we move on to. . .

HERCULES
Hercules is born in, and then consequently stolen from, Mount Olympus by the Lord of the Underworld's creepy sluglike companions, Pain and Panic (read: Bobcat Goldthwait), and made to drink a bottle full of tasty mortalizing juice. He doesn't drink every drop of it though, and for the next seventeen years or so he is a clumsy douchebag who ruins everything for everyone with his mutant strength.

On one particularly bad day, after destroying the entire city's livelihood with his stumbly shenanigans, his foster parents fess up to having found him in a mountain when he was a baby, and give him his god necklace. Hercules goes off to find the temple of Zeus, where the statue of Zeus comes to life in what has to be the most terrifying thing Hercules has ever seen.

(Unless you really want to watch him sing that Michael Bolton song, you can skip ahead to about 3:27.)



Yes, that is Rip Torn. And he appears to be hosting an intergalactic kegger!

Zeus tells him that if he wants to come back to Mount Olympus, he has to prove himself a hero. Herc goes off to find Danny Devito, who is supposed to be the best trainer in all of Greece, and over the course of the next musical number, Hercules goes from being a shrimpy, dorky man-child to being a big, shiny, buff (what can only be described as a) PALOOKA. All this from singing with a goat and rescuing rag dolls? Somebody let Jenny Craig in on that secret.

On his first assignment, Hercules goes to fight a river-god (that's what it's called, right? I haven't seen this in a while) monster-type thing, and meets Meg, its sultry, sarcastic prey. He saves her, she gives him a nickname and some terrible 90's hipster-talk and slinks off.

"WAZZAAAAAP."

(Just curious, did that river thing remind anyone else of King JellyJam, from the Goosebumps book The Horror at Camp JellyJam? Just curious.)

Oh, and here's something you might want to note: she's in league with Hades. He owns her soul. She has literally sold her soul to the devil. What a winner.

Over the course of the movie (read: the next couple weeks), Hercules beats down every monster in Thebes (read: the world?), much to Hades's dismay. He's on fire! He can't do anything wrong!

On a quest from Hades to find Hercules's weakness, Meg decides she's in love with him, and he decides she's in love with her, because they each have found what they wanted in another human being. Meg's found a big, stupid hero who likes kids and is part god, and Herc's found a soulless, sarcastic shrew who keeps him on his toes by being a magnet for every terrible beastie in the world. They don't know anything else about each other.

The rest of the movie takes place over the course of about a week. Here is the sped-up synopsis of events:
Hades gets, like, SO pissed that Herc and Meg are together.
He informs Herc that Meg is working for him, has no soul, and that he'll let her soul go if Herc can go 24 hours without being a, ahem, PALOOKA.
Herc is hurt but says, and i quote, "Durrr, okay."

Look at that face. That is the face of honesty.

All hell breaks out on Mount Olympus when Hades releases his horrible beasties.
Meg dies.
Hades shows Herc where Meg's soul is (SWIMMING IN A RIVER FULL OF OTHER SWIMMING DEAD PEOPLE) and tells him to go jump in and get her.
He does it.
He almost dies, but doesn't, because this is a heroic thing to do, and now he's not only a real hero, but part god again.

I'll reiterate:
Stupidly diving into a pool of death to save the only girl he has ever met, who has sold her soul to the devil over something really stupid, who has admitted to following him around trying to find out his weakness so her and her boss can KILL HIM, and who is, by the way, ALREADY DEAD, makes Hercules a hero.

Not saving children or helping old people cross the street. Saving this dumb broad is what gets him his ticket back into heaven.

After punching Hades into his own river of death-goo, Herc gets Meg's soul back to her body. They make out (gross, right?) and Herc goes to heaven, where he is now allowed to live out the rest of his crazy long life. He then tells Dad that he'd rather stay on Earth with his girlfriend.

His girlfriend who only started being his girlfriend five minutes ago.


Can you imagine the fights they have?
"Megara, I am exhausted. You're always talking about slices, is it really so much to ask for, I dunno, a meat pie or something when I get home from rescuing the world?"
"My feet hurt."
"Yeah, your feet always hurt. Which is hilarious, because all you do is sit on the couch all day".
"Look, I crossed the devil for you, okay? I got you back into the Pantheon of Gods. What more do you want?"
"No, I got me back into the Pantheon of Gods when I killed the devil and brought you back to life. And then I turned them down so I could live with SOME DUMB BROAD WHO DOESN'T EVEN MAKE ME DINNER. FOREVER. I CANNOT GO BACK THERE. THAT WAS A ONE-TIME OFFER. WHAT A GREAT BARGAIN."
". . . I'm going to stay at Phil's."
"YEAH, YOU'RE ALWAYS STAYING AT PHIL'S. You know he's half-GOAT, right? Your babies are gonna be an abomination which I will then be forced to kill."
"YOU'RE A MONSTER!"



Yeah. I hate Disney relationships.