The Comfort of Kitsch. Why We Need “Bad” Art

What Defines Kitschy Movies? Grey, Pink, and Kitsch

Polish pop sensation Dawid Podsiadło’s hit “Grey and Pink” (2022) offers a wry commentary on this phenomenon:

“Disco polo love

From cradle to grave

A national treasure, hop on the table

Cabaret days till your belly aches

Two-toned dreams

In gray and pink.”

The song’s title, referencing Poland’s national colors, serves as a metaphor for the country’s cultural dichotomy. Grey represents the mundane reality of everyday life, while pink symbolizes the garish excesses of popular taste. Podsiadło’s lyrics, though tinged with self-deprecating humor, pinpoint the aesthetic preferences of many Poles: kitsch and exaggeration.

Podsiadło’s song, while playfully self-mocking, captures Polish tastes accurately. The singer, a Pole himself, neatly captures what many of his countrymen enjoy. Yet he also implies these preferences are kitsch and tawdry. The lyrics echo our collective conviction about the low value of certain media and cultural works. However, how can we be certain what constitutes kitsch and what qualifies as “high culture”? And why do we need such distinctions?

What is Kitsch, Kitschy Movies and Why is it Hard to Define?

Contemporary cultural scholars often argue that kitsch is not so much a descriptive category as an evaluative one. By employing it, we point out certain features of an object (book, film, performance) while simultaneously passing negative judgment on its artistic value. Although kitsch is a broad concept resistant to unambiguous definition, its main characteristics can be identified. In her article “Kitsch – A Review of Theoretical Concepts and a Proposed Definition for Research Purposes,” Gabriela Żochowska argues that kitsch is characterized by, among other things:

• Subordination of the produced object to public approval;
• Maximalism of beauty and admiration impressions, extremity of means of expression;
• Avoidance of extravagance;
• Mediocrity, universality, and immediacy of the effect produced.

This catalog shows that a kitschy work appeals primarily to our emotions, not our intellect. The main goal of such an artwork is to evoke in us a sense of experiencing beauty or – as Maria Janion argues in her book Vampire: A Symbolic Biography – sublimity and horror. Żochowska contends that kitsch stands in opposition to the Platonic ideal of beauty, which was meant to remain in the realm of unattainable ideal, while in the case of “tacky” cultural works, it is an end in itself. The researcher argues that kitsch is further characterized by seriousness and unconsciousness (undoubtedly, we all know films and books where pathos and sublimity produce an unintended comic effect).

Kitschy Movies

Kitsch should be distinguished from camp and postmodern irony, which use the language of “tackiness” consciously, often to deconstruct currently dominant social, cultural, and political discourses. Probably few of us would consider Quentin Tarantino’s films unequivocally kitschy. In the American director’s cult works, such as “Pulp Fiction” or “Kill Bill,” exaggerated brutality and clichéd dialogues signal irony and distance towards the depicted reality and the convention to which the filmmaker refers. Thus, the language of kitsch has penetrated the cultural mainstream.

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The Roots of Modern Kitsch

Referencing Hermann Broch’s classic monograph “Some Remarks on Kitsch and Other Essays,” Gabriela Żochowska traces the historical roots of kitsch to the development of Protestant bourgeois culture in the 18th century – distanced from the morality and “good taste” of libertine aristocracy – and the birth of Romanticism at the beginning of the following century. As the researcher writes:

“The exalted Romanticism, resulting in an unprecedented escalation of kitsch, was in this situation an attempt to reconcile the Reformation’s discovery of the absolute in every human soul, and thus the primacy of the individual, with the virtue and ideal of monogamy that distinguished the bourgeoisie from the receding aristocracy.”

Romantic sentimentality, which – contrary to the original complexity of this term – we most often associate with simplified plots of romantic comedies or melodramas, has become synonymous with kitsch and tackiness today. Many of us perceive exalted religiosity or patriotism in a similar way, expressed in parades, school ceremonies, or musical works referencing, for example, the epic of the Polish Legions. These examples show that kitsch is a historically variable category. What was an object of admiration for 19th and 20th-century audiences often appears tawdry and exaggerated to us now. Moreover, this recognition does not only apply to older folk or popular culture but also to works that gained recognition from professional audiences in the past (would anyone today be able to genuinely admire Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz’s “Historical Songs”?). However, if kitsch is a category that changes over time, can anything be considered “objectively kitschy”?

Nature versus Culture… and Economics

In his article “Why Do We Love Kitsch? Cultural and Evolutionary Theories,” Kamil Łuczaj juxtaposes two strategies for studying kitsch present in contemporary science. According to the first – derived from Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution – our taste is a distant echo of the nomadic lifestyle of primitive humans. As the researcher writes:

“To enable accurate decisions about where to move, settle, and what activities to undertake in specific circumstances, evolution developed special brain modules that influence settlement decisions through aesthetic preferences.”

According to evolutionary theory, the fondness for “kitschy views” – as illustrations or photographs of picturesque landscapes are often called – is a relic of our ancestors’ experiences.

Cultural theories, derived – as the researcher argues – from Pierre Bourdieu’s work, approach the issue of kitsch differently. According to these theories, taste is determined by class and economic factors. In this sense, our assessment of cultural and artistic works depends on the cultural capital we received through education and upbringing. Proponents of cultural theories argue that if we grew up surrounded by Proust’s books and our parents were university professors, there is a high probability that in adult life we will reach for so-called high culture and associate its mass counterpart with kitsch and tackiness.

Taste and Wealth

The division of culture into high and low is inextricably linked to the thickness of our wallets. According to Bourdieu, the lack of interest in art from lower social strata stems from the need to satisfy basic existential needs. The French sociologist posits that economic factors shaped a specific type of folk aesthetics, based on criteria of durability and universality, which higher classes equate with kitsch and tackiness.

The fact that the supposed elitism of art depends on financial issues is starkly indicated by the price differences between theater tickets and streaming service subscriptions. A theater performance is not always superior to an ambitious series. Nevertheless, many cultural participants maintain that we can only commune with “great art” in theaters or operas. This approach – colloquially termed high-brow – is increasingly being deconstructed today, and kitsch has become an element of our cultural everyday life.

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Kitschy Movies and Guilty Pleasure

Are we witnessing the dominance of kitsch in contemporary culture, a phenomenon of “bad money driving out good”? It seems that everything depends on what we consider kitsch and what value we assign to it. While it is hard to agree with a situation where disco polo or pseudo-documentaries completely replace works of art, despising “folk” aesthetics can lead to obscuring our view of cultural reality. Kitsch itself is not devoid of objective value. A fondness for “bad” films and series does not always indicate poor taste in viewers. It is often the result of guilty pleasure. Certainly, each of us has on our list a “favorite” work generally considered tawdry, which we enjoy for various reasons. Is a reasonable dose of therapeutic kitsch not, therefore, essential for maintaining psychological balance? Regardless of the thickness of our wallet, cultural capital, or class affiliation.

Translation: Klaudia Tarasiewicz

Read the text in Polish: Urok kiczu. Do czego są nam potrzebne słabe filmy i kiepskie książki?