KH COMMENTARY: The Feel Good Stuff

Call it tacky, call it cliche, call it sugar-coated. I don't care. I'm all in favour of The Feel Good Stuff.

You know what I'm talking about. The Feel Good Stuff - the shameful, embarrassing things you don't really want anyone to know you're interested in but are interested in nonetheless because they make you feel good. They make life a little more bearable, they make men a little more tolerable and they fill you with that gooey, sappy feeling of happiness.

My list of Feel Good Stuff is pretty long and mostly conjested by movies and television shows made by the Disney Channel, with occassional injections of pop music listened to by thirteen-year-olds. They're not the kind of things I brag about to my work colleagues or use to impress on blind dates. These interests are nothing if not mortifying to admit to, but I maintain that everybody has a similar list. So in the interest of empowering the world to own up, I am going to share my humiliating list of Feel Good Stuff with the online world.

KH's Humiliating, Yet Satisfying List of Feel Good Stuff:

1. High School Musical - 1, 2 and 3.

Yes yes, I know that it is positively gag-worthy but watching Gabriella and Troy sing their sweet hearts out to each other just makes me melt. While High School Musical: The Original and it's sort-of-sad sequel weren't overly impressive, the real gold came in High School Musical: Senior Year which was positively chock-full of all-singing, all-dancing daggy PG goodness. Watching the movie and gushing over Zac Efron (see below) filled me with so much feel-good happiness that I went out and bought the soundtrack. I play it whenever I need a quick injection of HSM and the DVD isn't readily available.
"High...School....Musical, who says we have to let it go?"

2. Zac Efron
This underage sex-god (not that he's all that underage anymore) is so deploringly delicious he gets a rung on the Feel Good ladder all to himself. The man's a Ken Doll - that immaculately positioned fringe, that all-too-perfect jawline and he's a dancing, singing songbird to boot. It's just such a pity Vanessa Hudgen's swiped him off the market before anyone could start bidding.

3. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants

Before Blake Lively extradited herself to the glossy world of Gossip Girl, she was the blonde-bombshell known as Bridgette Vreeland in the sickeningly sweet movie-make of The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants. Originally a book by Annette Brasheres which then became a four part series (I own all of them), The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants tells the sugary story of four BFFs who find a pair of jeans which magically fit all of them despite their different body shapes. Each going their seperate ways over the summer, the girls share the pants to stay connected to each other and consequently, each get themselves into assorted trysts of teenage angst. Not Oscar-award winning material, but their tale of friendship overcoming all just moves me to mush.

4. The Babysitter's Club

Ah, The Babysitter's Club. This little treasure has it all - friendship, boyfriends, parents, inapproriate teenage behaviour and all in an easy-t0-read-in-the-bathtub size. The corner-stone being the Summer Specials which were about double the size and usually feature the girls going to summer camp or on a cruise. Author, Ann. M. Martin certainly stumbled across a good thing when she sent Kristy, Stacey, Mary-Anne and Claudia off to earn their own pocket money by starting a babysitting business. However, by the end of the series which finished printing in 2000, the club consisted of a total of 10 members including Dawn, Mallory and Jessi. It's funny though, over the 14 years the books were written, the girls never grew up past the age of 13.... ah, the joy of eternal youth. A product of the 80s and still living long and strong in my heart of hearts. If you can get your hands on the movie-make, even better.

5. ABBA
Tell me one person you know who can't have a good time dancing to Abba hits and I'll give you Bjorn's head on a silver platter. They were Eurovision-tastic and they took over the globe with their retro-pop songs and sequined pants. When I saw Mamma Mia: The Musical, I almost cried and when watching the movie-make, it took all my power to curb wetting my pants out of sheer enthusiasm. Without fail, Abba plunge me into happiness at the mere sound of the opening riff of Dancing Queen.

6. Clueless

"Do you prefer 'fashion victim' or 'ensembly challenged'?"

"- 'Excuse me Miss Dionne. Street slang is an increasingly valid form of expression. Most of the feminine pronouns do have mocking, but not necessarily in misogynistic undertones.'
- 'Wow, you guys talk like grown-ups.

"So okay, I don't want to be a traitor to my generation and all but I don't get how guys dress today. I mean, come on, it looks like they just fell out of bed and put on some baggy pants and take their greasy hair - ew - and cover it up with a backwards cap and like, we're expected to swoon? I don't think soooooo."

'nuff said.

7. Sex In The City
Anyone who knows two-cents about me knows that I have an unhealthy and unwavering addiction to Sex In The City. I will watch the whole series over and over again in constant rotation. I have psychoanalysed every one of Carrie's committment-restricted relationships and can quote the script on cue. It's unhealthy, but yet as satisfying as a Christmas feast.

8. Any Dance Movie ever made

No matter what the review, how bad the acting is or which down-on-their-luck celebrity has agreed to appear in the name of dance, if it's got choreography, exposed abs and a mix of ballet, hip hop and urban funk - I'll stick it in the DVD player. Hell, I'll even take the afternoon off to watch it crash and burn at the cinemas. Centre Stage, Centre Stage: Turn It Up, Honey, Step Up, Step Up: The Streets, Make It Happen, Take The Lead, Save The Last Dance, Save The Last Dance 2, Fame. I'll watch them all and then put on my token playlist of hiphop tunes and crump my way around the living room.

9. Reality TV

If you make it, I will watch it, especially if it involves rich, precious American teenagers driving around in BMWs and spending their parent's money. Watching society at it's most stupid gives me a certain level of perspective, hence why I over-indulge in the likes of Laguna Beach and The Hills. Throw in some prize many and the option of glossy-magazine global domination and I'm there. The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, The Farmer Wants A Wire, The Beauty and The Geek, Survivor and The Amazing Race. But if you really want to tickle my fancy, all you have to do is throw in the d-word. So You Think You Can Dance?

10. The 80s
It's no secret that I consider the 80s to be a highly under-valued era. All that big hair and those highwaisted outfits. I love everything about the 80s and any kind of reference to it makes me divinely happy. The films - The Breakfast Club, Some Kind of Wonderful, Sixteen Candles, Heathers, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, 9 to 5. The music - Wham, Blondie, Madonna, Michael Jackson. The TV - The Cosby Show, Full House, Family Ties. I love it. I love it all.

So there you go - my shameful list of things which condemn me in every sense of what is cool, okay and acceptable to be interested, but I don't care. Because these things make me happy, no matter how sugary-sweet or down-right ridiculous they are.

If you've got something embarrassingly Feel Good which you want to own up to, feel free to share with the class. xo