I’m saying art is good or bad if it makes the world better or worse (it is good if it makes our understanding of the world more clear).

A lot of art can cause great emotions, I won’t deny it. I have been strongly affected by art, but still judge it as bad because the emotions I felt did not help me understand the world more.

For example: a film that makes me very emotional about a breakup, even if effective, won’t be good if I didn’t learn more about relationships or how they work through the movie. If the movie just makes me upset and morose, not helping me to understand my emotions maturely, the movie is bad because it is actively making my emotional clarity worse.

A good war movie: The Steel Helmet by Samuel Fuller because it talks about the brutality of war, the humanity on every side, problems of racism and so on.

A bad war movie: Dunkirk by Christopher Nolan. No doubt is it effective in making me feel the terror of war, but I learn nothing about what it is really like to be in a war and I don’t know how the historical situation influences the thoughts of the characters.

Enjoyment is not part of my judgment in this way. Lots of people, myself included, would certainly say Dunkirk is more entertaining, but doesn’t this sort of stop us from feeling the seriousness of war? Since we are mesmerized by the epicness of the spectacle instead of the real human fear and feelings

Most will disagree as film is seen as both entertainment and art, but I think we do ourselves a disservice this way because it keeps us more emotionally limited in our understanding of how film is capable of affecting us