ABSTRACT
There have been many attempts to theorize the role of pleasure in culture; they vary immensely, but all share the desire to divide pleasure into two broad categories, one of which they applaud, and the other they deplore. Sometimes this antithesis is seen as aesthetic (high, sublime pleasure versus low enjoyment), sometimes political (reactionary versus revolutionary pleasures), sometimes discursive (the pleasures of making meanings versus accepting ready-made ones), sometimes physiological (the pleasures of the spirit versus those of the body), sometimes disciplinary (the pleasures of exerting power versus those of evading it). I, too, wish to recognize that pleasures are multiple, and can take contradictory forms, but I wish to concentrate on popular pleasures as opposed to hegemonic ones, and thus to emphasize what is typically thought of as the more disreputable side of each antithesis.
