Yasmine Bleeth
Entertainment Weekly
Article 06

Forgive us, America, for we have sinned. Late at night, with the shades drawn, the doors bolted, the lights turned low, and no one in the house, we've done the dirty deed. We've watched Coach reruns. Listened to Anne Murray CDs. And, as painful as it is to admit, enjoyed the occasional Pauly Shore movie. Yes, we've sinned against the gods of good taste, reason, and hipness.

And darn, if it didn't feel good!

For the truth is, humans can stand edgy, highbrow entertainment for only so long. We can watch only so many thought-provoking Mike Leigh movies about family dynamics before coming home to what we crave: the Guilty Pleasure.

A true Guilty Pleasure shouldn't be mistaken for something that's kitschy (i.e., Generation X's love of Tony Bennett), nostalgic (seeing Star Wars again), or established cheese (any Jackie Collins novel), though GPs do have elements of all three. First and foremost, a GP must induce guilt. It must be something you confess only under extreme duress--something so uncool, it really is uncool. Secondly, it must be pleasurable--but not in that ironic, postmodern way that seems to have infected all of pop culture. You must love your Guilty Pleasure earnestly, purely, and unself-consciously. If you flip on Baywatch to snicker at the dialogue (or lack thereof), then it's not your Guilty Pleasure. But if you tune in to lose yourself in the slow-motion poetry of bouncing body parts, then join the club! Which brings us to our cover girl, Yasmine Bleeth, the show's brunet beach bunny and subject of that eye-popping milk ad, the one showing exactly how milk did her body good.

Now, granted, unlike some of the humanoids on Baywatch, Bleeth can actually act. Anyone who's seen her crack wise on Politically Incorrect also knows she's got a nice pair of frontal lobes. And yes, after three years of saving swimmers, she is hanging up her red one-piece to pursue a movie career (she'll play an ex-stripper in the romantic drama It Came From the Sky with Christopher Lloyd).

But in the past, a good part of the Bleeth oeuvre could be said to fall under the Guilty Pleasure awning. She's a veteran of two soap operas: Ryan's Hope and One Life to Live; gloriously lowbrow movies-of-the-week, including one about a wicked plastic surgeon; and, of course, that little show about L.A. lifeguards. The thing is, Bleeth doesn't buy this whole puritanical GP concept. She's got zero tolerance for closeted Baywatch fans. "Are they supposed to sit at home and watch PBS and CNN all the time? And like CNN doesn't have trash TV, covering murders and car chases?" Bleeth, instead, advocates a pang-free existence: "Don't feel guilty about anything that gives you pleasure. The people who watch Baywatch and feel guilty are probably the same people who have sex and feel guilty. Have sex, watch Baywatch, and eat a Big Mac! This is my ultimate fantasy: watching [QVC] with a credit card while making love and eating at the same time. With somebody else's card, of course!" Sadly, not all of us are that liberated. So here's a guide to our worst transgressions, plus their rating on our trademarked Guilt-O-Meter (the guiltier the pleasure, the higher the number). Just make sure the door is locked before reading what follows. --A.J. Jacobs

Charlton Heston TREASURED CHEST

"Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!" Every self-respecting Charlton Heston fan awaits that moment, midway through Planet of the Apes, for it is rich in Heston's particular brand of clench-toothed brio.

But can the words critical respect and Charlton Heston exist in the same sentence? Yes, damn it. To me, Heston is not a '50s symbol of biblical pulchritude or an actor so humorlessly macho he makes Arnold Schwarzenegger look like Carrot Top. Nor does Chuck's NRA-loving, Ice-T-bashing conservatism dim my appreciation. I don't care if snooty critics smirk at his mugging; I revel in his bodacious hamminess!

And for the record, Heston can act--well enough to win a Best Actor Oscar (for 1959's Ben-Hur), and earn the occasional critical rave (for the 1958 noir gem Touch of Evil). But it's those one-dimensional roles, complemented by some serious scenery chewing (the kind that would exist even on the barest stage), that keep Chuck lovers mesmerized. I'm speaking specifically of the "Get off my back!" years, when an edgy, middle-aged Heston rejuiced his career with three sci-fi flicks: 1968's Planet of the Apes, 1971's The Omega Man, and 1973's Soylent Green.

Apes, of course, is a bona fide classic, the Citizen Kane of Guilty Pleasures. But if you're ready for the harder stuff, try Soylent Green, a dorkier (though far more prescient) futuristic yarn that pushed Heston's latter-day misanthropic charm to high-camp heights: the glinty-eyed, impossibly toothy grimace used to express each and every emotion; the staccato delivery, no matter the sentiment conveyed; the curiously girlyman run; his continuing (and quite touching) proclivity for topless scenes, despite the hard-to-miss love handles.

What leading man today would dare stride the screen with such surly, he-man arrogance? To those who would mock Heston, I say, as he did in Apes, "Damn you...goddamn you all to hell!" --Mary Kaye Schilling

GUILT-O-METER 5

Major League PERFECT PITCH

It's Cooper in high noon. It's Reynolds in The Longest Yard. It's every movie cliche slapped together with every hackneyed sports convention. It's the glorious penultimate scene in Major League, where Charlie Sheen grimly strides to the mound to face his (pick one) nemesis/demons/worst nightmare. The primal "Wild Thing" sounds. The batter goes down one, two, three. And I get goose bumps every time. That the movie can charitably be described as Police Academy in cleats only sweetens the pot. Yes, the showdown is what puts the cheese in machismo. Still, Wild Thing...I think I love you. --Albert Kim

GUILT-O-METER 2

Jim Varney

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNEST

I can get away with worshiping Jim Carrey. Everyone knows Beavis and Butt-head are kinda cool. But confessing an appreciation for another Dean of Dumbness prompts only concerned looks from friends. I speak of Ernest, Jim Varney's Southern-fried moron, the star of five glorious feature films (Ernest Goes to Camp, Ernest Goes to Jail, Ernest Saves Christmas, Ernest Scared Stupid, and Ernest Rides Again). Critics sneer that he's beyond stupid, fit only for the Deliverance crowd. Yankee snobbery, I say. His face is as rubbery as Carrey's, his slapstick as pure as Buster Keaton's. Just rent Camp, where he sets his leg on fire, gets poison ivy, and is squashed by a Coke machine. That's irony-free fun you just won't get from your fancy Janeane Garofalos! Know what I mean? --AJJ

GUILT-O-METER 6

Cheesy Sequels ONCE IS NEVER ENOUGH

At a pivotal moment in Jaws 2 (1978), Roy Scheider, trying to convince his bosses that yet another man-munching shark has infested their waters, cries out, "You better do something about this one because I don't intend to go through that hell again!" Me, I'm happy to live through the hell of Jaws 2, and other tacky sequels, again and again. The reasons have nothing to do with art and everything to do with a cinematic minimalism so masterful it takes your breath, or maybe just your Raisinets, away.

A truly watchable follow-up flick knows what we loved about its predecessor and gives us more, with no pretense of artful filmmaking, gorgeous camera work, or even a coherent plot. If, like me, you worship The Omen for the devilish ways people are beheaded and impaled, Damien--Omen II (1978) is nothing but a string of maliciously imaginative killings, courtesy of Satan's scion. (Yes, that is Designing Women's Meshach Taylor getting sliced in half in the infamous elevator scene.) Forget Arnold. Predator 2 (1990) knows what fans of the first want to see: more slaughterhouse jive by a tentacle-faced Rastafarian alien. (Among its victims this time: Bill Paxton.) Empathized with Sylvester Stallone's tormented Vietnam vet John Rambo in First Blood but felt the movie needed less angst and a few more machine-gun blasts? Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) takes aim and fires. Like Steven Seagal's equally underrated Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995), the second Rambo is better than its predecessor: faster-paced, leaner (well, not Seagal), and bloodier.

Then there are those sequels so boldly misguided that some unseen force keeps you from grabbing the remote. Take the Stallone-directed, muscle-headed Saturday Night Fever follow-up, Staying Alive (1983). It's worth viewing for John Travolta's charisma in the face of doom--and for how Tony Manero's gauche Broadway debut, Satan's Alley, eerily foreshadowed Lord of the Dance.

Do these films constitute a golden era of sequels, before the form became so debased that we're instantly wary of anything with a II or 3 in its title? Absolutely. Will I eagerly hit the couch when Part 2, Walking Tall (1975) pops up on TNT? Where's the low-fat popcorn? --David Browne

GUILT-O-METER 6

Jay McInerney Novels YUP, HE'S GREAT

Growing up in the suburbs was mostly a G-rated snooze. That's why I'll always secretly give Jay McInerney props for his three sinfully delicious Go-Go Gotham dispatches Brightness Falls, Story of My Life, and the zeitgeist masterpiece Bright Lights, Big City. Yes, he could be smarmy and self-serving (the Literary Brat Pack?), but his novels about bleary-eyed coke whores stealing away to toilet stalls for hits of "Bolivian marching powder" were (and still are) my answer to Jackie Collins. The trio are as nutritionless as a giant wand of pink cotton candy, but darn, if they don't make your tummy happy on the way down.
--Chris Nashawaty

GUILT-O-METER 9

Hair Metal THE MOUSSE-KETEERS

Gravity-snubbing coifs. Fluorescent-splattered guitars. Tight, studded spandex. (Really tight, studded spandex.) And the music? Hell, almost as loud as the hair. The late-'80s pop-metal sound may be shamefully out of vogue today, but in a world filled with blank-staring softies (Jewel) and apocalypse-now doomsayers (Nine Inch Nails), is it really such a crime to pine for those devil-may-care days, when I pumped my fist to the whup-ass anthems of Motley Crue and Slaughter? Should I silently suffer a thousand glares because I want to sway wistfully once more in a Bic-lit arena to the glossy power ballads of Winger and White Lion? Let's take back those tape decks, disciples of glam! Give us Cinderella, not Sublime! After all, was it not Poison who reminded us: "Ain't lookin' for nuthin' but a good time, and it don't get better than this"?

In case you've forgotten, there's more to hair metal than meets the eye shadow. The chiseled lead singers, gyrating into bandanna-laced mic stands while pyrotechnics spelled out "Go Wild," turned big-top spectacle into a comedically competitive art form. (Can you picture Jakob Dylan riding around stage on a giant inflatable microphone? Discuss.) The guitar heroics--in all their fret-munching, dive-bombing excesses--stand as wretchedly impressive musicianship. Sure, the quasi-poetic choruses are laughable ("Every rose has its thorn/Just like every night has its dawn/Just like every cowboy sings a sad sad song" from Poison), yet I weep gently for my old summer squeeze and '76 Volare. Let me also pay homage to the virtues even William Bennett could embrace: compassion ("When the Children Cry," White Lion), hard work ("Livin' on a Prayer," Bon Jovi), and respectful love ("Cherry Pie," Warrant).

Merits and three-quarter-sleeve jerseys aside, pop metal boils down to the F-word: fun. You don't need a degree in poli-sci or a stash of downers to understand its meaning. (Although a can of Aqua Net wouldn't hurt.) Who cares if those Prodigy-worshipping masses strike us down in a fit of techno-rage? Remember: There's only one way to rock--so turn it up, wear it loud, and party 'til your parents wake you up for work the next morning. --Dan Snierson

GUILT-O-METER 7

America's Funniest Home Videos HURTS SO GOOD

Let's face it: Seeing a man collapse in agony after his son hits a Wiffle-ball line drive to his crotch is funny. It's not right to laugh at the misfortune of others, but God help me, it's my kind of comedy. For that reason, America's Funniest Home Videos--despite its gaudy packaging and scornfully lowbrow delivery--remains a wealth of exceptionally shameless amusement. It's so comforting to squeeze the last drop of freedom out of the weekend by curling up on Sunday night to watch people I'll never meet lead lives that are much more cursed by safety hazards and hideously embarrassing moments than mine.

While I feel dirty for taking casual pleasure in poorly recorded images of other people's pain, there is a real case for AFHV: It delivers on the very human need for slapstick, whether it's hefty Aunt Bessie showing the world her Underalls as she falls off her chair--twice (!)--at a wedding reception, or a helpless parrot tumbling off his perch with a Looney Tunes-ish plop. There's a more profound principle at work with poor, dear Bob Saget, AFHV's ex-host (Daisy Fuentes will take his place this season). Observing his palpable disdain for the achingly unfunny patter in his scripts and the dunderheads who send in tapes makes the sometimes-dreary aspects of my own job seem that much more endurable. Seeing Saget squirm makes me think, "Hey, whatever calamities I face, at least I'm not that guy." What more can you ask from TV? --Kristen Baldwin

GUILT-O-METER 9

The Shelley Long Oeuvre TO HAVE AND HAVE HAUGHT

It all began when I saw The Money Pit. As Shelley Long ran around her house from hell with a mad raccoon pinned to her chest, I had a revelation: Playing the egghead Diane on Cheers had never fully tapped her snippier-than-thou comedic talents. Only in movies, where her Miss Priss persona isn't quite so harsh, can Shelley's smug mugging send me into embarrassing fits of snorting laughter. Since then, I've howled at her Stepford-mom shenanigans in The Brady Bunch Movie and her pouting scout leader in Troop Beverly Hills. But nothing beats Outrageous Fortune, where Long plays a starched-up aspiring actress with an inflated sense of self. It's the perfect parody of every smug, overbearing dink I've ever known. Some may say Long's movies are entirely forgettable. But as long as she keeps puffing herself up with that annoyingly polite "Excuse me" look, I'll kneel at the altar of her peerless self-absorption. --Michael Small

GUILT-O-METER 4

Remington Steele HIP TO BE SQUARE

While other girls were sneaking their first cigarettes and going to Duran Duran concerts, I was crouched on the sofa in a state of deep longing, watching Remington Steele.

Never mind how bad Pierce Brosnan's hair looked in the '80s. This was, and is, embarrassing, because the NBC series was so square. Its hero was a gold-cuff-link-sporting, silk-shirt-wearing fop. He cracked cases by relying on his encyclopedic knowledge of classic Hollywood movies. His very name--invented, the story went, by PI Laura Holt (Stephanie Zimbalist) to lend masculine clout to her struggling agency--sounded like drugstore aftershave. (What on earth did Holt murmur to him when they finally consummated their five-season flirtation--oh, Remington?)

Never mind. Zimbalist's character was such a dandy role model for an adolescent girl: strong, feminist--never mixing business with pleasure (well, almost never); never letting us forget that she did the work, even if he took the bows. The show's plots, many plundered shamelessly from Agatha Christie novels (amnesia, art heists, And Then There Were None), were in fact immensely satisfying whodunits bundled into neat, hour-long packages. And then there was the most delicious mystery of all: the ongoing question of Steele's true identity. At times, nobody seemed to know who the hell he was--not the writers, not even the character himself. Which, along with his relationship with Holt, made him a sex symbol almost as dashingly enigmatic as...James Bond.

And don't forget, every title of every episode of the show was a pun on the word "Steele." Like "You're Steele the One for Me." What can I say? It's Steele true. --Alexandra Jacobs

Teen-Sex Romps BOYS TO MEN

The '80s were the single greatest time to be a horny teenage boy in America, hands down. As the country got wired for the impending Golden Age of cable TV, a generation of T&A-thirsting guys like myself were being transformed into drooling, hormone-addled shut-ins, thanks to the cheesy teen-sex romps that aired late at night on movie channels like Skin-a-max...I mean, Cinemax.

While some debated the dueling merits of MTV rocker chicks Nina Blackwood and Martha Quinn, I was knee-deep in the libidinal high jinks of Spring Break, Private School, and, of course, the Porky's trilogy. Too young to get into an R-rated movie but too old to require a babysitter, I sniffed out this particular soft-core Pandora's box like a crazed pig hunting truffles. Sure, everyone's seen the genre's respectable entries like Class, Risky Business, and The Sure Thing. But you truly haven't experienced the pent-up fear of coming of age unless you've been glued to Hardbodies or Hot Dog...The Movie with your finger on the remote, ready to flip to A&E in case the folks decided to call it a night early.

Never mind that all of these sun-drenched flesh cavalcades had essentially the same plot (sex-starved virgin on madcap quest to lose virginity), being an aficionado of the genre meant recognizing actors who would one day break out of their thong-bikinied ghetto. Anyone who saw the screwball south-of-the-border fiesta Losin' It could tell Tom Cruise would be a future marquee name. Ditto Matthew Modine in Private School, Johnny Depp in Private Resort, and Tim Robbins in Fraternity Vacation. Then again, I thought every single person in The Last American Virgin would go on to bigger and better things, so what do I know? Well, a couple of things actually. I know who directed Just One of the Guys, and I can tell you who played the leggy French teacher in My Tutor--and if that's being wrong then I don't want to be right. One last thing I definitely know from my years as a teenage sex freak: Any guy who says he would've rather attended the song-and-dance-filled hallways of Grease's Rydell High than hang with Pee Wee and the gang at Porky's Angel Beach High is lying through his teeth. --CN

GUILT-O-METER 10

It happens to the best of us: At various points in life and career, one suddenly feels bored, trapped, pinned down by ennui. One ponders the choices one has made and wonders if one has taken a wrong turn or two, and one is depressed. And when one is overtaken by such feelings, there is only one place to turn: Michael J. Fox's dark period.

It was the best of times, it was the most wisecracky of times--but deep inside, something gnawed at Fox in the mid-'80s, the peak of his Family Ties and Back to the Future fame. He looked deep into himself, into his very soul, and saw nothing but a sitcom actor who collected a massive paycheck for dispensing easy yuks. He craved respect, he craved artistic challenges. So this smooth, prime-time-born natural did the only thing he could--made films with characters as far removed as possible from his lovable, clean-cut, quippy, junior Republican character, Alex P. Keaton. He became a scruffy, working-class garage rocker (Light of Day, 1987), a coke-snorting yuppie (Bright Lights, Big City, 1988), and the world's least likely Nam private (Casualties of War, 1989).

It hardly matters that none of these films are especially brilliant, although each is more watchable than the ersatz Andy Hardy throwaways Fox made before and after his dark period. Nor does it matter, ultimately, that the movies flopped and Fox returned, gracefully, to TV. For a brief flicker, he proclaimed to the world: I'm not an animal, I'm an actor! He fought against the stereotypes of himself; he tried to break out of the sitcom conventions that made him a star; he tried to cuss and grow long hair! There's a lesson here for all of us--even if it's too late for Justine Bateman. --DB

GUILT-O-METER 8

Bread PROPOSING A TOAST

ABBA, disco, smiley faces--they're now all badges of hipster cool. But, damn, shouldn't Bread have been safe from that? Bread were never cool. Bread never will be cool. For years, all you had to do was play the tweedly opening strains of "If" to clear a room. Yet, suddenly, a Bread anthology is climbing the British charts; American rediscovery can't be far behind. And that's a little distressing for this closet fan, since the group's exquisitely spineless songs always worked best when enjoyed alone. Okay, I was too much the craven adolescent to buy Bread during their '70s heyday. The LPs would have looked weird next to Black Sabbath, and guys weren't supposed to like such soft rock. But inwardly I swooned when one of David Gates' tender come-on ballads came on the radio. "Make It With You," "Baby I'm-a Want You," "Everything I Own," and "The Guitar Man" were pure wimp-rock, with his gently insistent tenor floating above beds of saccharine but sharp arrangements. Ultimately, those ballads at the expense of band mates James Griffin and Robb Royer's up-tempo numbers foretold the group's split (Gates went on to sing the mellow wonder "The Goodbye Girl"). That's rough justice--the only rough thing about Bread, in fact. Listening to the 1996 Rhino Retrospective, it's clear that when Gates poured on the syrup, glory was attained. Sentimental? Oh yeah. But the kind of sentimentality that asks no quarter and offers no apologies. To paraphrase Gates, "I'd give everything I own/Just to have [that] back again." --Ty Burr

GUILT-O-METER 10

GUILT WRITTEN

We've confessed our guilty pleasures--now it's your turn. Tell us your deepest, darkest pop-culture secrets and we'll publish the most humiliating ones in an upcoming issue. Send your ideas to Entertainment Weekly, 1675 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10019. E-mail can be sent to letters@ew.com.

GUILT 2000

DEMI, THINGS ARE LOOKING UP! YOU'VE JUST MADE OUR LIST OF CURRENTLY SCORNED POP-CULTURE TARGETS SOON TO BE REBORN AS GUILTY PLEASURES.

"Achy Breaky Heart" Bryan Adams Jim Carrey's Dark Period Everything Guttenberg Lorenzo Lamas The Macarena Barry Manilow Demi Moore in Striptease Nelson Roseanne, the individual Sisters reruns Spin Doctors Sharon Stone Urkel Waterworld Wings Zima

LIST COMPILED BY ALLISON GAINES

STAR CONFESSIONS

"Beavis and Butt-head. That series makes me laugh like a drain. I watch it obsessively." --PATRICK STEWART

"Barry Manilow. He's so schmaltzy I could cry. I always watch Melrose Place. As far as movies go, I bought my wife [Tea Leoni] Dorf on Golf, and we didn't laugh once." --DAVID DUCHOVNY

"Jerry Springer. I get into that." --HARRY CONNICK JR.

"I like to watch Loveline because it's such a bizarre mixture of advice and derision towards the people who ask the questions." --JENNIFER TILLY

"I think I'm a pop-culture guilty pleasure." --JODIE FOSTER

"Chevy Chase in any of the Vacation films. One day we'll realize that Chevy is really underrated." --MATT DILLON

"Soap. It's just crazy to me. It's so bold. Especially for back then. It was just a twisted sense of humor. Maybe I'm twisted." --HEAVY D

"I am really into Knight Rider reruns. Something about KITT the car and David Hasselhoff. I can watch it for hours." --COURTNEY THORNE-SMITH

"I listen to the soundtrack for Grease every day. I dance around my house pretending to be Sandy." --TORI SPELLING

"I've seen The Way We Were probably 50 times, and I cry every damn time." --KEVIN SORBO

"I've always been into the Three Stooges, which I guess is a really juvenile thing, but most guys really never get over them." --MEL GIBSON

"The Spice Girls. I dance in front of the mirror to 'I'm giving you everything...' I like that." --TYRA BANKS

"Every time South Pacific is on cable I'm hooked. I know every single song by heart." --JIM CARREY

"Hideous Sun Demon is my guilty pleasure. It's a great '50s horror movie about nuclear radiation and mutations. It's about this guy who turns into a lizard if he goes out in the sun. And that was really neat. So there's this scene where the lizard man goes up on the roof of this sexy girl's apartment and finds a woman in a bikini sunbathing. She's talking to him with her eyes closed. Finally, she opens them and screams, 'What happened to your face?' It's a great moment." --TOM SELLECK

THE HALL OF FAME

The Jerry Lewis telethon: The true originator of the phrase "Show me the money," Jerry deserves an Emmy for choking up on cue every Labor Day.

The Carpenters: Loving the doomed duo is the equivalent of passing gas in an elevator--everyone does it, but no one wants to own up to it--except they're infinitely more hummable.

Everything David Hasselhoff: The King Midas of Cheese--whether he's emoting opposite a talking car on Knight Rider or playing macho lifeguard Mitch Buchannon on Baywatch, all he touches turns to grade-A Limburger.

The White Shadow: For no other reason than that the white surfer dude's name was "Salami."

St. Elmo's Fire: A definitive sign that there is indeed a higher order.

The Coreys: Granted, The Lost Boys may have been a mediocre vampire flick--but it was the opening siren of a historic convergence of teen steam between Haim and Feldman.

"Rerun": What's Happening's beret-wearin', parachute-pants-sportin', break-dancin' court jester (played by Fred Berry) single-handedly stole the show from Raj, Dwayne, Dee, and Mama--no easy feat, that.

Ernest Borgnine: It's Borgnine's gap-toothed, barrel-chested world--we just live in it. And before you sneer: He has an Oscar; you don't.

Kitty Kelley: The grande dame of hit-and-run bios. You can have our copy of His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra...when you pry it away from our cold dead hands.

Clint Eastwood's Orangutan Movies: Forget the spaghetti Westerns. Every Which Way But Loose and its sequel, Any Which Way You Can, managed to be the good, the bad, and the ugly, all at the same time.

Watching Scrambled Pay-Cable Porn: No one likes to fess up, but for that split second of softcore sex, we'll flick back and forth for hours.

The Crush: A.k.a. the movie that launched a generation of Nabokov sympathizers--even though the character was a freakin' nutjob.

The Spellings: The royal family of Velveeta cheese. The only rational explanation for how Tori could give us 90210's Donna, and Aaron could give us The Love Boat, is that cranking out guilty pleasures is genetic. --CN