In defense of bad taste

It is often said—by those who like to end arguments quickly—that “De gustibus non est disputandum.” In matters of taste, there can be no disputes. While it certainly makes for a good saying, how far does this notion actually extend? For answers, we look to a few of culture’s most stylish heretics.

It would be impossible to discuss matters of taste without invoking the self-styled “Pope of Trash,” Hairspray director John Waters. Known for films that are less watched than survived—Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, Desperate Living—Waters spent a career unearthing beauty in the grotesque and dignity in the deviant. As a queer filmmaker, Waters understands the inherent value in depicting the non-normative at its most extreme; in this way, he cleverly toys with the notion of “bad taste” to satirize the conventional.

Waters maintains that bad taste must be carefully deconstructed into two essential categories: “good” bad taste and “bad” bad taste. “To understand bad taste,” he states, “one must have very good taste. Good bad taste can be creatively nauseating but must, at the same time, appeal to the especially twisted sense of humor, which is anything but universal.”

Author Clarice Lispector also wrestled with notions of taste. Of her writing, more specifically her crônicas, or newspaper columns, she once said, “I can feel the charlatan in me, haunting me.” To Lispector, bad taste and bad writing were two sides of the same coin. As an author of primarily fiction, plain truth delivered plainly was its own form of failure.

“Just to amuse myself, I sometimes walk that thin line between the two,” she once admitted, “the two” being writing that is widely accepted as “good” versus that which is overly sincere. Clearly to Lispector as well as Waters, there was something exciting and even necessary about the interplay between the good and the bad, the highbrow and the lowbrow.

Taking a similar approach to the aforementioned artists, Serviette firmly believes that the magic of perfumery often occurs when mixing the conventional and the unexpected, subverting the wearer’s expectations. Sour Diesel, a cannabis-forward scent, smells more like a strange bouquet left behind by someone interesting. Geranium from Egypt, patchouli from Indonesia, and rhubarb—sharp, green, and not quite clean—dance together in a composition that’s both refined and faintly rude.

Andy Warhol would doubtless agree, could he have been alive to smell it. He said it best: “Bad taste makes the day go by faster.” With a few choice sprays of Sour Diesel, we can hardly disagree.