Who's afraid of bad taste?

Welcome to Back of the Napkin, musings from Serviette for the cultured world.

“Bad” taste unites us all. In fact, the pursuit of bad taste can often be deliciously good—a belief that is shared amongst many of our prevailing inspirations. Accordingly, this week we present you with a handful of musings and manifestos on bad taste, thoughtful reminders that a little garishness never hurt anybody.

Susan Sontag’s Notes on Camp is one of the most iconic, comprehensive explorations of bad taste—required reading for any committed Serviette scholar. For Sontag, discovering the good taste within bad taste could be liberating: a refusal to let seriousness or received standards narrow the range of pleasures available to us. Camp, in her formulation, embraces the “so awful it’s good” mindset—Tom Hooper’s revival of Cats, perhaps, as a contemporary case study.

Filmmaker John Waters, the self-styled “king of trash,” built an entire career out of bad taste. His characters wield their trashiness like a weapon, exuding a confidence that is at once horrifying and awe-inspiring. Waters has long encouraged audiences to trust their own bad taste and seek out work that unsettles rather than merely affirms them. Consider this your permission to watch Serial Mom, guilt free. Or Cats, even.

“A little bad taste is like a nice splash of paprika,” according to the late dictatrice of taste, Diana Vreeland. What Vreeland demands, essentially, is a point of view. (Though if she measured bad taste in ‘splashes,’ Waters’ works would probably be more easily measured in buckets). Serviette is certainly aligned with Vreeland’s ethos, which may explain our affinity for notes like diesel exhaust (Byronic Hero) and marijuana (Sour Diesel). Anyone can smell good; it takes a true individual to smell interesting.

As Robert Hughes once observed, “Bad taste is real taste, of course, and good taste is the residue of someone else’s privilege.” The Australian-born art critic and longtime cultural commentator for Time exposed how what we call “good” taste is often just taste that has been stabilized, laundered, and endorsed by institutions with the power to make their preferences feel natural. Bad taste, on the other hand, is unruly and personal—unapproved and still dangerous. Makes one think about the stretch of time when normcore was treated as an intellectual position.

As always, we thank you for taking the time to read this week’s newsletter. Consider the above a reminder to explore your personal taste outside the confines of convention—like the deliriously addicting combination of velvety rose and industrial engine exhaust, the results may just surprise you.