I don’t like movies that are predictable, like the typical romantic comedy where the couple who despises each other falls in love or the true-crime thriller where we know the killer’s identity from scene one. Scriptwriters may try to pull the wool over our eyes, but the American public is not stupid. We might be disinterested. We might be overweight. But we know what we like. Entertain us. Just don’t lie, cheat and mislead.

Take Mark McGwire, for example. Is there a baseball fan in America that for one second doubted he was on steroids? His announcement was followed by a collective, sarcastic “Oh, really.”

McGwire was a string bean when he came into the league. Tall and lanky, a power-hitter for sure but not a 70-home run a year guy. Nobody was, at least not until the needle entered the locker room.

Even the most ardent McGwire fan couldn’t look you straight in the face and tell you Mac wasn’t juicing. Like your average predictable movie, everyone in the audience knew what was coming. But we watched anyway. After all, what’s a Big Mac without the special sauce?

This article appears in Jan 13-19, 2010.