Bad, man. Wicked.

28 August 2000
As like many bygone jive-talking sophists, James tells us why bad things are good.

Post-modernism is old hat. We now feel free to scoff at the self-righteous omni-activist, determined to obliterate all unfairness, hunger, repression, and all other bad things. They somehow seem SO last season. Now, before I get hunted down by vile hordes of do-gooders, I quickly state my caveat (like all forward-thinking deliverers of possible unpleasantness, I carry a juicy steak to waylay the hungry pit-bull-rottweiler cross-breed, and give me time to shove my package through the letterslot and escape). Clearly, I do not mean we must tolerate all bad things. Some can, nay - must, be fought against with all the might of the undefeatable legions of justice and morality. There you go, Good Boy. Nice juicy slab of steak. You like that don't you. Now, I must swiftly state my case and depart...

Stop, while I pinch myself to make sure I'm actually awake. Various and convoluted Cartesian arguments aside (such as that I may be dreaming about me pinching myself. Well, if that's all I dream about, I might as well be fucking asleep.), this old-world metaphor is the core of my gist. And what is it about the pinch that reassures us that we are awake? Why, the badness, of course, you fool. Again, I hear a chorus of shouts heralding an end to my tirade chanting, "But what about nightmares, eh, baldie? They're bad, aren't they?" And to them I reply that No, nightmares are not bad. They are good. And please allow me some paragraphs to explain, before breaking down my frail and hastily erected barricades, rending me limb from limb, and discarding my entrails to the seagulls.

Dragging back my flock of analogy to the waking world, I present you with the example of shit TV. This, I am confident, is a universal phenomenon, suffered by (although I will show, enjoyed, if not even profiting) practically all of humanity. By shit, I refer to simple poor quality, low interest television, what the pompous BBC would refer to as being 'dumbed-down'. And yet they do not realise the service they are doing. Imagine, if you will, that all television, all the time, was Olivier's Hamlet. By the second week I for one would have thrown the box out of the window, not able to take another perfectly poised pause, or one more gut-munching conceptualisation of ultimate suffering.

Shit TV has a purpose. And that is to remind us what 'good' is. What would Humpy and Ingrid be, if there were not battalions of Beau and Hopes, Ben and Megs, Terry and Irenes. This does not come as a huge revelation, and nor is it one. Without the rough, there would be no diamonds, only slightly more sparkly bits. No, shit TV has a much deeper role, and please pardon me if I don a sociologist's hat for a part.

No, shit TV, especially of the soap variety, exists to raise our awareness of the 'diamonds' of everyday existence, not just the sparkle of televisual or cinematic genius. Here, I must re-use the example, I'm afraid, of the soap. These, I would split into two types, broadly geographically separate, in my limited experience. First, and most simply, you have the typical British soap. Here, you have a depiction of urban or sub-urban almost-squalor, where people go through their daily lives, riddled with petty jealousies, money problems, and occasional family feuds. Who can not leave their brief sortie de voyeur in Albert Square, and not look around them and feel utterly content with their own, simple, little existence.

More significant is the role of the soaps at the other end of the spectrum, the American glamour soap. Picture the scene: A group of Brazilian single mothers, collectively grieving the loss of another teen son to the rampant gang violence, seated on boxes in a friend's living room, watching The Bold and the Beautiful. The initial instinct is that, for that half an hour, punctuated with all-too-frequent mindless and colourful adverts, those grief-stricken mothers are removed from their own terrible existence. But whoever thinks that are only scraping the surface of the importance of this, the badness of it all. The moment the credits roll, each one of those people who watched the images of perfect faces perched on perfect bodies blandly pondering what are immensely complicated love tetrahedrons invariably featuring amnesia caused by a freak submarine accident, each one of those people suddenly re-immersed in reality see everything for what it is, shit coloured brown, gold coloured, well, gold I suppose.

My example is extreme. It would be interesting to see what would happen if South America were suddenly swamped with our glorious commie Brit soaps. Simultaneous uprising, most likely (note to the Party - why have you not tried this yet, comrades?). But the overall point is nevertheless made, bad things are good. "Bad food" inevitably tastes good. Food that parents insist is 'good for you' is always the stuff you avoid like you avoid plague-ridden rats. Once you realise this, you realise it is universal.

The early eighties brown-gold Ford Capri. Pure beauty, you will now realise.

You may wonder what happens now. Well, I'll tell you. When something bad happens in your life, whether it be jamming your fingers in the door, or being stuck for an hour in a traffic jam, you will see, it is not bad, but good. And when you see the Mona Lisa, hear a Clapton solo, or read a Shakespeare sonnet, run like fucking mad.