What's wrong with sentimentalism?

So many people throw around the word "sentimental" as if it's some kind of an innate flaw, but I've never understood why sentimentalism is universally loathed by some people. To be fair, I'm sure there are numerous instances where a film dips into schmaltziness due to how thick the sentimentalism is layered on, in addition to instances where sentimentality doesn't suit the tone of a film or scene. As a whole though, I think sentimentalism is one of the many tools in a filmmaker's tool kit. It's neither innately good nor bad. It should instead be judged on a case-by-case basis. I often see people compare sentimentalism to dramatic realism to provide an unflattering comparison, but I honestly think these are just two sides of the stylistic coin and arguing between highs and lows here is a wormhole of a discussion. Like, does sentimentalism manipulate your emotions? Sure, but the same can be said for any comedy whose goal is to make you laugh, any horror film whose goal is to scare you, any tragedy whose goal is to depress you, or any other film whose goal is to elicit any other type of emotion. Films which elicit other emotions don't get the same backlash, so why is sentimentalism singled out?

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everyone is so irony-pilled now you can't just have a nice, sincere moment in a film without it being undercut by a joke. i want my emotions to be manipulated and i love when a film makes me go "awww 🥹"

My guess is, they don't want to be reminded of those feelings that they haven't experienced. If one lives in a negative filled world then it's likely one would seek out movies that reinforces that life point of view.

I don't think there is anything wrong with sentimentalism, provided it is done well. Some people just want to seem cool or edgy or dark, so they say they don't like sentimentalism.

I'm normally a pessimist in real life, but I don't watch movies just to reaffirm my worldviews. Given I'm stuck in my head all day, I appreciate being given a chance to step outside of it and experience different mind sets.

This is what The Sound of Music gets criticised for.
Sentimentalism and dictating the viewer's emotions.
I don't get it.
If you can't dictate the viewer's emotions then you can forget all about thrillers, horrors, forget about probably 80+% of movies and television....

I judge movies based on what I feel the filmmakers have set as their goal. If the intent appears to be to deliver a serious, artistic work, then it has to "stick the landing" and leave us with enough substance to either agree with any explicit message they're appearing to deliver or enough threads that we can use to weave together our own conclusions. Either is OK. If the intent appears to be to entertain and pull some heartstrings, that's OK too. Heck, I get all teary-eyed at the "puppy love" and "lost puppy" SuperBowl beer ads from a decade or so back. Manipulation and sentimentality that doesn't pretend to be anything else. Sleepless in Seattle, Little Miss Sunshine ... the list is endless. What bothers me though? When manipulation and sentimentality is a cop-out, when the filmmakers want to make you think they're doing heavy themes but then end with a cheery, sentimental ending, usually because the test audiences hated the original and they had to redo.

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Scarecrow: I haven't got a brain ... only straw. Dorothy: How can you talk if you haven't got a brain? Scarecrow: I don't know. But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they? Dorothy: Yes, I guess you're right.

It's an evaluative concept. The accusation is NOT that the artwork plays upon the sentiments, but rather that it goes too far in doing so.

If someone complains that something is "saccharine," they're saying that something is "too sweet," NOT that they object to "sweetness."

You're objecting to a complaint that people are NOT generally making (i.e., the vast majority of critics are NOT opposed to appealing to human sentiments). Thus, you're likely to "win" here, but you're attacking a strawman.

The better angle of attack when someone uses an evaluative pejorative term is simply to deny them the attempt to let a label do the heavy lifting. That is, ask for proof. "How has this gone too far?"

In my experiences, I've observed numerous people attacking sentimentality for going too far, but also the mere act of being sentimental. I don't have exact statistics on the percentages of those who subscribe to one viewpoint or the other, but I have observed numerous people throwing defense behind the latter, which is what I was critiquing. If your position is that sentimentality goes too far or feels tonally wrong and you have a legitimate defense for it, that's all fine and dandy with me.

The people in former camp should be pressed in a more subtle manner. The people in the latter camp are rather silly, no? There are billions of people on the planet, so some of those billions, however small a fraction, must truly categorically object to sentiment entirely. Very well.

When the objection is made, therefore, it perhaps might be best to ask a clarifying question to see which camp they fall into. Pejorative evaluators can then be asked how an artwork goes past the mark. Categorical objectors, on the other hand, can be offered the therapy you're developing here.

Such an initial move would prevent the "motte and bailey" argument strategy of claim the bold position ("All appeals to sentiment are bad") and then retreating trivial-but-true position when pressed ("Some appeals to sentiment are bad"), before snapping back to the bolder position when they're no longer on the defensive.

Aren't films supposed to make you feel emotions? Making people laugh or scaring people is making people feel emotions. Emotions are fine. That's why Spielberg is one of the greatest filmmakers ever; he helps us feel emotions. If you don't want to feel emotions when watching films, then I think you missed the point of watching films.

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Agreed, and I would say I did acknowledge that some critiques of sentimentality are legitimate when I wrote "To be fair, I'm sure there are numerous instances where a film dips into schmaltziness due to how thick the sentimentalism is layered on, in addition to instances where sentimentality doesn't suit the tone of a film or scene." With that, I was explaining that I was referring to categorical objectors of sentimentality, not case-by-case objectors.

There's definitely a difference between sentimentalism and schmaltziness. A film that's sincerely sentimental and is supported by a strong story and performances can be quite impactful. Schmaltziness is when they try to achieve the same effect, but something about the energy feels off and it's cringy/embarrassing instead. You're supposed to feel the moment as it occurs.

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I don't do schmaltz - it makes me cringe; it makes me curl up into a ball and ache / cloying or mawkish = nausea.

Little girl in Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla talking about Godzilla's feelings. GAAA! That's its kid, off to bed without your supper!

Now, I can actually be quite emotional, movie-wise I remember being sad when Spock died, and the ending to Million Dollar Baby, phew - I'm in the theater just losing it, trying not to wail and disturb anyone, but also not pretending I'm too manly to cry. But that emotion felt genuine, not wrung out of me in a manipulative way. Even if it was indeed manipulative... lets me put it this way, don't push me, guide me so I go along willingly, or don't guide me at all, just respect I'll get there.

It's the Keaton vs Chaplin approach - I don't like how Chaplin pulls at my heartstrings... check that, he doesn't pull, he's tied a chain around them, hooked the other end to a truck and is dragging them with such force that it actually has the opposite effect.... I draw back, pull away, I go "Oh come on Charley, seriously?" The guys an incredible talent, but I'd be lying if he doesn't make me roll my eyes sometimes.

I'm more in line with how Buster did it - he elected to present a situation, and if you cried or felt any kind of emotion, so be it, but he wasn't going to throw a rope around your heart and force it. Buster always had respect for an audience's intelligence, and their emotions.

And movies that elicited other emotions ARE scrutinized. Some filmmakers are masters of manipulation, while others are clumsy oafs who make me wince at how inept they are at trying to get me from point A to point Z. I go along happily with one, deride the other.

When I say I'm allergic to sentimentalism, in truth, it's more about how it's done. With anything, any emotion or whatnot, at some point an audience member makes choice, will I go along with this, is it too much, or just, right? Sing Sing for a recent example, I'm thinking, "Okay, this is getting a little close to the edge, but you know, it feels right, there's an honest humanity here and I'll go with it."

My point wasn't so much that movies which elicit other emotions aren't ever criticized for it. Merely that those emotions don't have the same stigma which sentimentality does. I might not have worded it the best, but that's what I meant with "Films which elicit other emotions don't get the same backlash..."

Didn't Roger Ebert say cinema was a machine for creating empathy or something similar?

You seem like a positive person to me, at least on MoFo. I guess one can be kind and considerate...and still be a pessimist. Or maybe a pessimist is just a different name for a realist. I think I'm a realist, most of the time anyway. Of course there's no 100% one way or another, so when I say negative feeling people don't want to watch romantic or sentimental movies it's not an all or nothing proposition. But I do think some negative energy people, seek out negative energy in life and in movies, that's their reality and their comfort zone.

Exactly. So it must be another avenue of human experience that causes some to dislike romantic or sentimental positive energy movies, yet still levitate towards watching thrillers and horror movies, which equally manipulate one's emotions. The difference is what kind of emotions the movies produce in a person and why people want to experience these emotions.

That bothers me too and I was thinking of that the other day. I came to the conclusion if you ask a test audience if they felt bad for the character's outcome at the end of the movie, it's human nature to say I wish they had lived happily ever after. So the movie makers do that happy type of ending. But had the film maker went with the bittersweet, tragic or otherwise more sad ending, people would've like the film better. Point being you can't trust a test audience to know what they actually like.

Something like that, yeah. Some filmmakers are good at eliciting emotions genuinely, and others aren't. I don't think it's necessarily that feeling emotions is bad so much as them being forced onto us is where the scorn originates. Emotions are a part of life and help us connect to various events and experiences.

I imagine there are lots of reasons. All of them bad.


I'm sure some say sentiment is too easy, when it's not.


Or maybe sentiment doesn't reflect the real world, when it absolutely can, and if it doesn't, so what?


Then there are those who believe serious art must be serious. As if sentiment can't be employed extremely seriously (Woman Under the Influence, for example, is not only a dose of harsh reality, it also peddles in the sentiment of a man's love of a woman to an extreme degree at times).


And there is the whole element of manipulation, as if that is somehow bad. But that is virtually the basic move of all art. Even art that is completely scrubbed clean of sentiment, manipulates in it's own ways. If it didn't, it wouldn't matter. You wouldn't even notice it.


Then there is also the possibility that those who might find themselves at the mercy of a sentimental movie experience, will ultimately reject the whole thing, feeling as if theyve fallen for some cheap movie parlor trick. And their complaints are just a front to prove they aren't soft. They're real men. And the less said about these people the better.


Basically it just boils down to this. People have crappy opinions for all kinds of crappy reasons. I'm sure there were even cavemen with bad taste. Probably most of them. And as a result there is probably all sorts of wonderful cave etchings that have been overlooked by time because some ****ing idiot Neanderthal couldn't grasp the value of basic sentiment.

What's with all the anti-sentimentalism I've been hearing about on college campuses? I don't get it!