But don't you dare laugh at their collections.

[reddragdiva]

"Bad taste will always ultimately triumph over good taste, because bad taste has more financial backing. There is far more profit to be made from selling cheap and nasty products, at a big mark-up, than selling quality items at a small mark-up. And you can always produce far more cheap and nasty items far more quickly than you can produce quality items. Far more." — Robert Rankin, The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse

Discuss.

Comments

[angharad.livejournal.com]

I just want to say, representing the US contingent, how refreshing it is to see awareness of Robert Rankin. You Commonwealth types are probably quite accustomed to seeing Rankin on New Release shelves everywhere, right next to Pratchett. Cheap and tatty it may be, but at least you're not reading it at three times the original price.

[lproven.livejournal.com]

Lovely chap, Robert. Fascinating and highly entertaining. I'm even in the dedication of /The Witches of Chiswick./ I really enjoyed the Brentford books, but not the others I've tried, though...

[nils.livejournal.com]

I misread the first bit as Bad Taste...

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too on that one. I have to admit to a certain amount of weird rewriting inside my head that somehow managed to wind in Meet the Feebles and Braindead for good measure...

I think it is relevant, though. Even though LOTR is a staggering cinematic achievement, the Lawnmower Scene, and the bit where I Got a Chunky Bit are more memorable by far.

I'm a sucker for splatter, sorry.

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

Trivially obvious, I'm afraid.

[reddragdiva]

I've read two: this one which isn't too bad, and The Garden Of Unearthly Delights, which is crap in a "the author really couldn't give a shit" way. I'll probably read more; these are from the library.

[kitty-goth.livejournal.com]

Incorrect. The two are not in opposition.

Bad taste *requires* good taste to exist. Bad taste is just well-trodden and passe good taste recycled.

Therefore, bad taste will continue to subsidise good taste, out of necessity.

[reddragdiva]

Just because it needs it to live doesn't mean it'll do a damn thing for it except by accident. I learnt that one in the Australian music industry in the '80s.

[deeply-spurious.livejournal.com]

Isn't it good taste that requires bad taste to exist... i.e. because otherwise there'd be nothing distinctive about it. OR something...

More generally Rankin is entirely right of course, and there's nothing new about what he's saying... see Adorno and Horkheimer in the 1940s...

(though given the global mass circulation of his own work, i wonder whether Rankin would place himself within the picture... don't know enough about him to know whether he's trying to be 'ironic')

[reddragdiva]

Popular is not the same as bad taste; though the two correlate a bit for the reasons given, they should not be conflated.

[deeply-spurious.livejournal.com]

They correlate to a more significant degree than most people realise... depends whether you regard 'quality' or 'good taste' as an objective quality or a means of cultural differentiation... (being a sociologist type I not surprisingly drift towards the latter). In any case, Rankin's statement is what prompted my comment - he himself is arguing, effectively, that bad taste is cheaper to mass produce and ergo, more popular.... which inevitably prompts questions as to the expense (or lack thereof) involved with mass producing his own work...

[reddragdiva]

The bad taste mechanism described I would have thought was describing stuff for the mass market. Rankin or Pratchett may pump out the books, but the books appeal to their fan base. (Pratchett's is just really quite large as these things go.) I can't see anyone not in Rankin's fan base putting up with The Garden Of Unearthly Delights.