Have you ever been made to feel guilty for spending your Saturday night watching Troll 2 or Karate Dog? Well, prepare to prove your cinema snob mates wrong…
In an age where so many of us take personal pride in watching high brow, intellectual fare, the joy of watching a so-bad-it’s-good film can often be mistaken for ignorance.
However a scholarly study has found a link between enjoying trashy movies and being highly intelligent.
Postdoctoral fellow Keyvan Sarkhosh from the Max Plank Institute for Empirical Aesthetics made the following assertion in the academic journal Poetics:
The majority of trash film fans appear to be well-educated cultural ‘omnivores’, and they conceive of their preference for trash films in terms of an ironic viewing stance.
But what marks a film out as being ‘trash’ in the first place? Subjectivity aside, Sarkhosh and his team found the most commonly cited characteristic to be ‘cheapness’. For example, low budget horror films with naff scripts and bargain basement special effects.
Researchers suggest that these ‘omnivore’ viewers enjoy the break trashy films can provide from mainstream, glossier content.
Modern trash film fans can often find kinship online, writing about and discussing their favourite rubbish movies through blogs and forums.
So this weekend, whack on The Room, grab some disgustingly delicious junk food and feel absolutely no shame…
Jules studied English Literature with Creative Writing at Lancaster University before earning her masters in International Relations at Leiden University in The Netherlands (Hoi!). She then trained as a journalist through News Associates in Manchester. Jules has previously worked as a mental health blogger, copywriter and freelancer for various publications.