My Secret Shame

By Marissa Sammy
March 1, 2006

Sometimes things we remember fondly turn out to be embarrassingly bad when we see or read them again. But sometimes the reverse is true, and sometimes we still love things despite knowing in our heart of hearts that actually, everyone else will say it sucks. This month the Tarts 'fess up to their secret shames.

"Everybody has a Secret Shame; that comic book, television show, or movie that's just so bad that it comes back around to being good again. What are yours, and why?"

If you have a question you'd like the Tarts to answer, send it to riss@sequentialtart.com and we'll try to answer it in a future issue.

Corrina Lawson: All-Star Batman and Robin by Frank Miller and Jim Lee.

Because it's just so over-the-top, so past anything resembling good storytelling that it's incredible silly fun to read.

The question, of course, is whether Frank Miller has lost his mind or whether he's being deliberately funny. In the end, it doesn't matter because I haven't laughed at loud at a comic like this in ages. Lines like "I'm the GODDAM Batman!" or the overly long sequence inside the Batmobile, or a total unneeded diversion to Black Canary beating up a group of thugs because she apparently likes to do that, or Dick Grayson's picture being on a milk carton even though he's only been missing for about twenty-four hours ... they're all absurd and they're all a lot of fun.

Next issue promises the goddam Superman. Can't wait.

Katherine Keller: Oh dear jebus. So bad it's good?

In terms of movies that would be a 1980s masterwork called Beastmaster. A sword and sorcery epic about a man and his two ferrets bringing down the baddies. I loved this movie as a child. It was like the bestest movie, ever! I watch it now and chortle at the wooden acting and bad dialog and yet I still love the swash and buckle of it and get caught up in the dramatic ending of the movie.

Hell, somebody else loved it enough that in the late 1990s it spawned a short lived syndicated TV series, so I guess that shame is not so secret, or so shameful.

In terms of TV shows hands down I've got to go with The Sentinel. Brilliant, talented actors, fantastic premise, and so-so writing across the board. "A" plot? "B" plot? Who cares? Sign me up for the the DVD sets now!

When it comes to comics, I still dig, and will always dig, the first eight issues of Witchblade. Yes, it's T&A, yes, it's not great lit. Screw you — Ian Nottingham is hunktacular, and the story was better written than most people want to give it credit for.

Kim De Vries: Well, I had trouble thinking of something because all the comics and movies I like seem worthy to me ... I mean, I feel I can make a good case for why they deserve my and others' regard. But there is one TV show ... SciFi Channel's Mad Mad House. This "reality" series aired a couple of years ago and was the usual arrangement of a bunch of candidates gathered for a sort of ongoing contest with one weeded out every week. In this show though, the candidates were so-called "normal" people who came to live in a large house with five so-called "Alts" — and the latter quotes are actual, I mean these people were called the alts by everyone on the show. And what made them alternative? Well, let's see. One was a modern primitive — into tattoos and piercing in a big way; one was Wiccan and called herself a witch; one practiced Voodoun; one was a vegetarian naturist (like a nudist only even more earthy-crunchy); and finally, one was a vampire.

So the idea was that these underexposed, conservative types would undergo ordeals and participate in rituals and the Alts would judge who did best, who had to leave etc. There were complications to the system, but I don't remember them. So I won't go into all of it, suffice to say that my motives for watching were harder to explain than usual. Mainly, it was nostalgia.

In grad school, I knew so many people that were Wiccan, or into piercings, or most often, were serious vegetarians who, given the option would rather be naked. Maybe what most stirred memories was the earnestness of the Alts. With the exception of the vampire, who seemed a real drama queen, they seemed just so nice, and sincere. Sadly, a lot of the candidates did their best to manipulate the Alts, who (again, except for the vampire) never seemed to realize what was going on.

This brings me to my other reason for watching. I just wanted to see what happened, if the Alts would ever figure things out. In the end it wasn't clear they ever did and I often wonder what they think if they happened to watch the show later. Anyway, I watched it much more faithfully than most TV I watch, and since on the whole I despise reality TV, I felt like kind of a jerk every time!

On the other hand, the whole thing may have been (probably was) entirely staged and my real interest could have been in seeing how normal and alternative America were being defined. Yep. That's a good justification. I'll have to remember that one ....

Laura Martin: It's all about the hair bands! For so many years, I had to hide my embarrassing secret from my friends. To deflect suspicion, I kept my inhuman love for Queensrÿche loud and proud; at least Queensrÿche had some street cred, unlike Poison or Winger. But, when I was alone at home, I'd fluff out my hair and sing at the top of my lungs to Warrant's "Cherry Pie" or Ratt's "Way Cool Junior". Sure, they were the poster children for glam de fromage. Sure, their music was about as thought-provoking as a salt lick, but they were fun. They were Bad Boys. They somehow made spandex, makeup and lace look virile.

And you know what? They never really went away. They just all migrated to Japan for a couple of decades. But now ... now, The Hair Is Back. Everywhere you look there's a reunion tour or a best-of CD. Compilations like "Monster Madness" and "Monster Ballads," featuring such bands as Skid Row, Y&T, and Slaughter, pop up on late-night 1-800 commercials (yes, I own them both). Bands have escaped from "Where Are They Now?" into major headlining tours. Even more: New bands embracing the glam and fun-time lyrics have cropped up. The Darkness just released their second CD in the U.S. — one album might have been a parody; two is pure hair-band gold.

Now I have no more fear of ridicule when I listen to Dokken on my iPod Shuffle. Now I can afford the front-row seats, whereas before I was lucky just to have nosebleed tickets. Now I own all the acoustic albums, solo projects and rare imports that the band members have done in their long hiatus.

And now, sitting right here next to me, are two Winger CDs that I plan on ripping to MP3 tonight so I can play them in my car tomorrow.

Layla Lawlor: What, just ONE? There are an alarming number of Secret Shames in my entertainment closet. Having so many old TV shows coming out on DVD lately is not helping at all. In December, for example, I bought myself seasons 1 and 2 of Forever Knight on DVD, and I loved every cheesy vampire-laden minute of it. I've also been buying the MacGyver and Starsky & Hutch DVDs ... and will they ever release The Sentinel on DVD? Even if I beg and plead? Sigh.

As if the cheesy TV shows weren't bad enough, my bookshelves whimper beneath the likes of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, and their ilk. Did I mention I have a complete run of Ian Fleming's Bond books? How about the Dragonlance novels hiding down there on the left, right behind the (eek!) Anne McCaffrey! I actually bought a Piers Anthony paperback the other day! I have no literary shame, none at all.

Well, let's go and look at the comics ... no ... it's even worse over here. I'm woman enough to admit that I love Yu-Gi-Oh! and I'm not afraid to ... well, all right, I hide my Yu-Gi-Oh! GNs from my husband to avoid the merciless teasing that would no doubt ensue, but it doesn't stop me from buying them. And it's not my fault that the comic store keeps having sales on Marvel phonebooks, which means I just got my hands on Essential Iron Fist. I love Iron Fist! It's got all the literary value of a wiffle bat to the forehead! I don't care!

This is not to say that I don't appreciate quality entertainment, books and movies that challenge the brain and open your eyes to see the world in a different way. I enjoy that sort of thing too. As a general rule, though, I figure that the only requirement for entertainment is that it be entertaining, even if it requires that one's brain, suspension of disbelief, etc., to be checked at the door, and I seem to have a nearly unlimited ability to do that. Which reminds me: the, er, sixth sequel to the book Relic is coming out in June, and I need to go reserve my copy on Amazon.com. No, seriously. It's called Book of the Dead and I'm really looking forward to it. See, the main character has this evil twin brother who's supposedly dead but is actually a master of disguise who's been impersonating various characters throughout the books and just framed him for murder at the end of the last book ... and yes, it really is that bad, and I'm buying it anyway. Just move along, folks, nothing to see here. :)

Leigh Dragoon: Everyone has a secret guilty pleasure, and my blackest one would have to be my addiction to Mercedes Lackey's Last Herald-Mage trilogy. For those who don't know, Lackey is the queen of the Incredibly Melodramatic Fantasy Novel, and these 3 little books are a sterling example.

The trilogy follows the misadventures of Vanyel Ashkevron, the angstiest boy you ever did meet. At the beginning of the first book he is an incredibly beautiful, effeminate 15-year-old noble, with major Daddy issues. Not only does he have raven black hair, perfect skin, and a slender, tightly muscled little caboose, he also has silver eyes — not gray — silver! Female characters turn green with jealousy over Vanyel's thick lashes and delicate features. Lackey never tires of reminding us just how damn beautiful Vanyel really is. While I do think Lackey deserves credit for writing a trilogy centered around a gay character, it must be said that her gay characters are rather stereotyped. Hint: it's always the insanely beautiful, slender young man with the Technicolor hair and eyes. Fans of shojo or shonen-ai manga should take special notice — Vanyel gives even the most beautiful,tragically self-centered manga hero a run for their money.

No one can compete with Vanyel when it comes to angst! The angst, my Goddess, the angst! Not only is he an aspiring musician (of course against his overbearing father's wishes) but he has his arm broken by a cruel weapons instructor, is packed off to live with his old battle-axe of an aunt (who, despite her initial prickly appearance, has a Heart of Solid Gold), has his dreams of becoming a Bard crushed, discovers he is gay, and falls in love with his aunt's star pupil, whom he can't bring himself to trust enough to open up to. The only way things could become more melodramatic would be for Vanyel to get cancer, a la A Walk to Remember. And that's just the first 5 or 6 chapters! I've barely touched the tip of the angst-berg — there's 2 and 1/2 books full of angsting yet before you, gentle reader! This is a series for people who like their melodrama poured on thick with a side order of flapjacks. And, I will admit, I do love melodrama. And flapjacks! I find these books utterly addictive. I reread them on an average of 2 times a year. I should join a support group! And now, after all this yakking about them, I feel the need to run off and read them again! I can't help myself! Stop me, please!

Margaret O'Connell: Old Silver Age (i.e., 1960's — not the "anything pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths" definition some people have started using lately) Lois Lane stories from her own title, Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane. Many of these are so ridiculous that when my friends and I used to sit around comparing notes on them, we usually wound up laughing so hard that our faces started to hurt. Discussing the Dazzler's mercifully short-lived 1980's series had a somewhat similar effect, but the absurdities in that series were so forgettable that I can't recall a single incident from it now. Even at the time, it wasn't so much that the Dazzler stories themselves were so bad that they were inadvertently entertaining as that the writing and plotting were awful enough that although the comics were basically a tedious waste of time to read, they were easily rendered hilarious when reduced to sarcastic plot summaries.

In the Lois Lane stories, on the other hand, the essential silliness stemmed not from inherently poor writing or an inherently lame character, but from the pre-feminist middle-aged male scripters' total cluelessness about how to write a female character who was supposed to be an intelligent, successful career woman. (At one point before John Byrne rebooted the Superman mythos in the wake of 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths, Lois had supposedly won two Pulitzer Prizes for journalism to Clark Kent's one.) This failure to grasp that female psychology is not fundamentally that incomprehensibly different from male psychology was even more unpalatably apparent in the depiction of some of the other Silver Age DC heroes' "career girl" love interests, such as Hal Jordan/Green Lantern's girlfriend Carol Ferris, the owner and CEO of the aircraft company for which Hal worked as a test pilot, and Ray (Atom) Palmer's now-notorious girlfriend/eventual wife Jean Loring, an ambitious high-powered attorney. Both of these characters tended to come across as such nasty, un-nuancedly unfeeling bitches that in retrospect it seems perversely logical that they both ended up spending time as villains: Carol Ferris as the super-powered villainess Star Sapphire and Jean Loring as the criminally insane killer at the center of Identity Crisis — and, after morphing into the latest human host of the malevolent immortal entity Eclipso, as the instigator of the Spectre's genocidal anti-magic campaign in Day of Vengeance.

Lois Lane, by contrast, was just an often amusingly monomaniacal pest, willing to go to literally any lengths to get Superman's attention. On one occasion Lois deliberately jumped off the roof of a tall building in an attempt to summon Superman. In response, the Man of Steel exasperatedly attempted to break her of such potentially fatal habits by conspicuously not showing up, instead saving her by using his super-breath to surreptitiously blow her onto an awning which broke her fall.

Stunts like this were typical behavior for Lois. Judging by the stories in her self-titled comic, the alleged ace reporter spent practically all her time chasing after Superman, usually in an attempt to either get him to marry her or to expose his secret identity. Although her Silver Age handlers seemed virtually incapable of coming up with plots in which Lois behaved in a sane, professional, non-Superman-obsessed manner for more than a page or two at a time, they did at least pay her the backhanded compliment of portraying her as genuinely intelligent enough to guess that the most likely candidate for Superman's civilian alter ego was none other than Clark Kent. This was more than could be said for any of the male regulars in Superman's supporting cast, or virtually any character in the supporting cast of any other DC hero until Silver St. Cloud put two and two together decades later regarding Batman and Bruce Wayne in Steve Englehart's acclaimed arc of Detective Comics. Later still, Tim Drake earned the right to become the new Robin by doing the same thing, albeit by more conventionally deductive-reasoning-based investigative methods.

Lois' inconvenient perspicacity in figuring out his secret identity repeatedly forced the Man of Steel to engage in all sorts of convoluted stratagems in order to disprove his obsessive girlfriend's totally justified suspicions. In one early 1960's story he actually resorted to getting President Kennedy to impersonate him with the aid of a hyper-realistic mask in order to confound Lois by confronting her with Superman and Clark Kent in the same room at the same time. Undaunted, Lois continued to come up with endless I Love Lucy-esque harebrained schemes to get Superman to either propose marriage or confess his secret identity, not infrequently getting turned into a teenager, a toddler, or some funhouse-mirror version of her usual self by some magical artifact or mad scientist's gadget in the process. Fed up with having to rescue his would-be wife from the consequences of her own recklessness every five minutes, Superman repeatedly resorted to staging elaborate scams designed to "teach Lois a lesson" by apparently forcing her to marry someone else, or to meet some even more unpalatable fate. Once these cruel charades were exposed, the allegedly morally upright Man of Might routinely self-righteously justified his circuitously deceptive actions by claiming that they were ultimately for Lois' own good.

On the rare occasions when Lois' news story du jour was not deliberately designed to revolve around Superman, she tended to display such poor judgment of which events were newsworthy that readers would have been quite justified in wondering how she managed to become a star reporter before Superman came to town. In one Silver Age story from her self-titled comic book, Lois happily announced her intention of writing an article about her own fan club, a gaggle of high school girls whose admiration for their role model was sufficiently fervent to prompt some of them to go so far as to emulate her habit of wearing pillbox hats. Only a direct order from an irate Perry White was enough to induce Lois, complaining all the way, to instead accompany Clark Kent to the Metropolis observatory to cover an important scientific announcement which proved to involve comets on a collision course with Earth — a situation which, of course, was promptly rectified by Superman.

Although the Silver Age Lois Lane was a pushy pain in the neck whose priorities were obviously way out of whack, her hidebound Silver Age handlers' tendency to semi-advertently trivialize her and turn her into a figure of fun paradoxically made her come across as more human and sympathetic than other, more one-dimensional "career girl" superhero love interests such as Carol Ferris and Jean Loring. Rather than being monolithically short-sighted, shrewish, and uncompromising, like these more humorlessly self-absorbed heroes' girlfriends, Lois was observant enough to guess her super-powered boyfriend's true identity. She was also capable of sufficient perspective and sense of humor to deal with the often bizarre — or Bizarro — vicissitudes of life on the more comedic end of the superheroic spectrum without throwing endless temper tantrums or having a nervous breakdown, as Carol or Jean might have done. Lois' behavior was frequently ridiculous. But her own inappropriate and intrusive actions toward Superman were somewhat balanced by the fact that for all the plots she perpetrated, she was almost as often the victim of the Man of Steel's equally unedifying practical joke-like schemes to teach her a lesson — and by her own occasional rueful acknowledgment that her comeuppance was not entirely undeserved.

The Lois in these over the top old Silver Age stories was frequently silly. But she was silly in a relatively complex and nuanced way which exhibited the seeds of many of the more impressive qualities she demonstrates today as a more seriously-portrayed competent, independent character who is quite capable of functioning as the protagonist of storylines connected to Superman only tangentially, if at all. In retrospect, it's as if the strong, smart, genuinely heroic Lois Lane as she is usually depicted in comics today was there underneath all along. Arguably, the campily humorous quality of those old Silver Age stories derives from their creators' comically distorted blind-men-and-the-elephant misinterpretation of the core character as refracted through the culture-bound sexist expectations of their time.

Marissa Sammy: Frankly, it's hard to cut my secret shames down to a manageable size; I'm one of those people who insists on watching or reading or listening to really, really awful things just for the pure joy of the ridiculousness of it all.

In the comic-book realm, mine was The New Warriors. Made up entirely of second-stringers like Namorita, Rage, Nova, and (heaven help us) Speedball, the team basically had lots of interpersonal strife, dating, and pointless fights with villains. Basically, it was your average "teen heroes" book without any of the interesting qualities, like Generation X's quirkiness and oddness or Young Justice's sense of location within a bigger world of superheroes. I had an inordinate amount of issues of the series, and yet I can't remember a single storyline. Oh, no, wait — there was the time Speedball became evil! And they called him "Darkball"! Or when Namorita turned into a blue mermaidy-looking thing! Those are highlights, folks.

When it comes to television shows, it's even worse. Watching Queer as Folk came close to being a secret shame, because (compared to the British original, which I adore) it was so campy and heavy-handed. But I liked the characters enough and the plots, although largely contrived, still had heart and a sort of unabashed
ballsiness, and so it escapes the "shame" category. What I have absolutely no excuse for watching is the indescribably execrable 7th Heaven, the horribly long-running show about a reverend raising his large brood, taking in numerous strays, and preaching to everybody who comes across his path despite having a dreadful family himself. The dialogue is corny and unrealistic, the situations they find themselves in are hyperbolic and stupid, and the characters are unlikeable and inconsistent. But the thing is, the first episode I really watched all the way through? The musical episode. You have not experienced the drunken fun of seriously bad television until you've seen Ruthie Camden wiggle down the halls of her school performing "Nice Work if You Can Get It" in a perturbing sort of cat-growl. It's also one of those shows where every episode is guaranteed to have an "issue" so ineptly handled that it will make you scream obscenities at your TV. Good times, good times.

As for movies, I actually made an effort to tape the Russ Meyer parody flick Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and the Vanilla Ice offering Cool as Ice and I re-watch them regularly, much to the dismay of everyone around me. There's a certain type of person who gleans great enjoyment from both the crappiness and weirdness of these films and inflicting them on others, and I must confess that I know that brand of schadenfreude well. I suspect that secretly my friends like them too; they just don't want to come out and admit it. But once I get my hands on a copy of the Fairuza Balk and Tim Curry movie-version of The Worst Witch, that might all change!

Rebecca Salek: Being poor, I'm very very picky as to what I spend my money on. A comic book or movie would have to be really really bad in a really really good way for me to buy it; or, in the case of a TV show, watch it.

Sad to say, some of the old '50s Batman comics qualify. The lame dialogue, the horrible plots, the sexist attitudes. Money well-spent. (Of course, the same cannot be said of the Batman films from the 90s. *shudder* Those are just bad.)

There's also some film from the '70s. Darned if I can remember the title; but it was about a group of explorers who enter a cave in the Amazon and find a savage, cannibalistic, subterranean albino society. Even as a little kid, I knew it was awful. I just wish I could locate it, and see if it's really as horribly good as I remember. ;)

Suzette Chan: I'm pretty good at justifying my enjoyment of any comic or movie, but since the Winter Olympics (TM) are on TV as I write this, I have to admit it's hard for me to completely avert my eyes from them. I'd get more into it when I was younger, and I was a bit of a figure skating fan (I saw Torvil and Dean on tour!), but after not having a TV for period of about 10 years, I lost the taste for it. Falling out of the habit was fatal. Now the Winter Olympics is just a collection of sports I hear about only once every four years (except ice hockey and figure skating, which are reported on as frequently as the weather in Canada): I don't know the names of the players, I don't remember the terminology, I don't even recognize some of the new sports (though I discovered this year that snowboard cross is fun to watch). And yet I just can't resist watching handsome, fit people in snug superhero-like costumes engaging in curious ritual competition in the snow.