Kitsch offers instantaneous emotional gratification without intellectual effort, without the requirement of distance, without sublimination. It usually presents no difficulties in interpretation and has absolutely nothing to do with an aesthetics of negativity. It is unadulterated beauty, a simple invitation to wallow in sentiment–in short a true antidote to any Adorno-type aesthetics of negativity.

Winfried Menninghaus

On the ‘Vital Significance’ of Kitsch: Walter Benjamin’s Politics of ‘Bad Taste’.

Winfried Menninghaus