What is schlock?  The scourge of decent soci­ety?  The anti­dote to mass media bore­dom?  A way of life?  All of the above?  All these ques­tions and more are answered in the Schlockmania FAQ…

What is schlock?

That word has many mean­ings but here’s the short ver­sion – schlock is com­monly used to refer to enter­tain­ment that is cheaply pro­duced, cre­ated for artis­ti­cally shal­low rea­sons and usu­ally moti­vated by profit.  Of course, that def­i­n­i­tion only works if you’re a bluenose or Michael Medved.

For the pur­poses of Schlockmania, we con­sider schlock to be any pop cul­ture arti­fact that strays out­side socially/critically accept­able def­i­n­i­tions of art to deliver the goods in a uniquely per­sonal style.  In other words, the stuff you aren’t sup­posed to enjoy but still do.

What’s the pur­pose of this site?

Schlockmania offers a series of reviews and essays that explore schlock in its many per­mu­ta­tions.  It is all dri­ven by the belief that schlock is just as deserv­ing of study and intel­li­gent appre­ci­a­tion as high cul­ture.  You can and should enjoy it with­out hav­ing to feel guilty.  You can even use your brain – the best schlock has a lot going on beneath the sur­face of its cheap thrills.  Schlockmania is here to show you how this can all be done.

What exactly does the site cover?

It is our hope that this site will pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive guide to the schlock expe­ri­ence in its many forms.  If it brings the schlock, you’ll find it here:

- Schlock-Optic cov­ers schlock in its movie and tele­vi­sual formats

- Schlock-O-Phonic tack­les the schlock music world

- Schlockuments takes on schlock-related literature

- Schlockephemera offers essays on thought pieces that fall out­side the above categories

In addi­tion to these cat­e­gories, all entries have sev­eral tags for addi­tional cat­e­go­riza­tions.  Use the content-filtering sys­tem of your choice and go wher­ever your mind takes you.

Are you will­ing to sell or trade the items you dis­cuss on the site?

We do not sell, dis­trib­ute or trade any of the books, films and music dis­cussed on the site.  However, we do pro­vide links to Amazon for items that are cur­rently avail­able and sug­gest other ven­dors in the Schlock Links sec­tion on the right of the page.

Where else can I go for schlock information?

Click on Schlock Link on the right side of the screen and you will be redi­rected to a page with a com­pre­hen­sive list of Schlock Destinations (the big sites with schlock info and reviews) as well as sev­eral Schlock Blogs that offer a more per­sonal take on this mate­r­ial.  Between the two lists, you’ll find plenty of worth­while infor­ma­tion to fur­ther your schlock education.