Johnny Case in Wonderland . . . hopelessly adrift in popular culture

Mark Harris, in the latest installment of Oscarmetrics on Grantland.  While I agree with his point about Midnight, I’m nevertheless uncomfortable with the way so many critics, academic and otherwise, consider “sentimentality” pejoratively.  To whit: I once had a professor tell me The Great Gatsby was an inferior work because it was “too sentimental.”  Why sentimentality has come to be seen as in and of itself an inherent weakness is beyond me, especially in this day and age when so many of our narrative artists eschew sentiment in favor of a manufactured veracity that belies how emotional people really are and prevents audiences from connecting with characters.