Sentimentality and Art
Ok, this is a bit of a departure from design, but is loosely related. I went and saw the third X-Men movie last night and was terribly disappointed. In a discussion with my wife, I realized that what upset me was not only the poorly written story, but the overt sentimentality of it. She did not really know what I meant and I wasn’t sure how to explain.
I have given it some thought, and I now know what I mean, which is this: The movie relies on the viewer to bring his or her positive sentiments about the characters to the film. If someone had written that script without using any characters known from any other story it would never have been made into a movie. The situation is further worsened by the fact that the characters were not particularly true to themselves, as they had developed through the previous two movies (I won’t even compare them to the ones in the comic books).
Art demands truth. And some sort of revelation through truth. Sentimentality comes about because of laziness, and because it is genuinely difficult to be truthful. It doesn’t really matter if it is a movie like X-Men 3, or a cheesy painting of a lighthouse, or some fluffy music. If the work requires the viewer to bring his or her happy sentiments about the subject for the thing to have any value at all, then it is sentimental.
Sentimentality is less of an issue in design, I think because design is generally focused on accomplishing something specific, such as communicating a particular idea. There is no room for sentimentality.