Whether it is a garden gnome, the sound of Bing Crosby launching

Host: The antique shop was dim and crowded — a maze of nostalgia arranged in glass cabinets and dusty shelves. The air was thick with the scent of old wood, perfume, and regret. Porcelain angels leaned beside vinyl records, plastic Santas grinned beside faded postcards of Paris, and the faint hum of a gramophone played a tune too sentimental to name.

Outside, rain licked the windows, blurring the neon sign that read: Yesterday’s Treasures.

Jack stood by a display of ceramic figurines, his expression half amused, half pained. Jeeny wandered nearby, running her fingers across a line of snow globes, each one shaking its tiny world of eternal wonder.

Jack: “Roger Scruton said, ‘Whether it is a garden gnome, the sound of Bing Crosby launching into “White Christmas,” the blinking innocent eyes of Bambi or the words of Patience Strong, the kitsch phenomenon is there as strong and recognisable as your mother’s face. You seldom if ever have the question, whether this is kitsch or not. If you think it might be, then it is.’”

He picked up a tiny plaster angel with a cracked halo, holding it up to the light. “So this,” he said, smirking, “is proof that sincerity is tacky.”

Jeeny: “No,” she said softly, still looking at the snow globe. “It’s proof that comfort always walks a fine line with cliché.”

Host: The music from the gramophone crackled, and somewhere between static and melody, Bing Crosby’s voice ghosted through the air — warm, hollow, eternal.

Jack: “You think Scruton was mocking kitsch or mourning it?”

Jeeny: “Both. That’s the tragedy of kitsch — it’s born from beauty, but repeated until it loses truth.”

Host: The light above them flickered, catching the shine of the porcelain figures — an army of perfect smiles and frozen innocence.

Jack: “You know, sometimes I think kitsch is just emotion we’re too embarrassed to feel honestly. So we outsource it to objects. Plastic roses, sentimental songs — they do the crying for us.”

Jeeny: “Exactly,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “Kitsch is nostalgia without risk. It gives you the illusion of feeling without the danger of depth.”

Host: She shook one of the snow globes, watching the glitter swirl around the tiny cottage inside. “See this? It’s the human condition in miniature — beauty trapped behind glass, endlessly replaying the same snowfall.”

Jack: “You’re making it sound poetic.”

Jeeny: “Because it is. Even our bad taste comes from longing.”

Host: He laughed softly, setting the angel down beside a velvet Elvis. “So, what? You’re defending kitsch now?”

Jeeny: “I’m defending the ache behind it. People buy kitsch when they’re lonely for innocence — for something pure, unthreatening, safe. Scruton didn’t hate kitsch. He pitied it.”

Jack: “You think pity’s better than disdain?”

Jeeny: “Always. At least pity means you recognize the wound.”

Host: The gramophone clicked as the record ended. The silence that followed felt thick, sticky, like syrup. Outside, thunder rolled faintly, making the glass ornaments tremble.

Jack: “You know, sometimes I envy people who can still love kitsch without irony. The ones who cry during Hallmark movies, who hang those awful smiling snowmen without shame.”

Jeeny: “Because they’re unarmored.”

Jack: “Exactly. The rest of us hide behind cynicism — afraid to feel too much, too simply.”

Jeeny: “Because simplicity feels childish to us now. We’ve grown allergic to innocence.”

Host: She turned, picking up a porcelain Bambi, its painted eyes too wide, too trusting. “Scruton was right — you always know when something’s kitsch. The heart recognizes the counterfeit instantly.”

Jack: “But it’s a counterfeit of what?”

Jeeny: “Of beauty that once meant something. Real art challenges you. Kitsch flatters you.”

Jack: “So, kitsch is beauty without truth.”

Jeeny: “And truth without pain.”

Host: The rain outside intensified, streaking the window with thin silver veins. Jeeny set Bambi down gently, as though it might break from the weight of being understood.

Jack: “You ever think maybe kitsch keeps us sane? The world’s brutal enough. Maybe we need fake sweetness just to breathe.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But the danger is when fake sweetness starts tasting real. When comfort becomes ideology.”

Jack: “You mean politics, religion, culture?”

Jeeny: “All of it. Every empire has its kitsch — patriotic posters, moral slogans, smiling lies. Kitsch is how the powerful disguise cruelty in warmth.”

Host: Her words hit the air like quiet thunder. He didn’t answer at first. The shopkeeper in the back was humming softly, rearranging a display of toy soldiers in glass cases. The hum felt innocent — dangerously innocent.

Jack: “So kitsch isn’t harmless.”

Jeeny: “Nothing sentimental ever is.”

Host: She looked at him then, her eyes steady. “Because sentimentality is emotion without accountability. It’s feeling without consequence.”

Jack: “Then what’s the cure?”

Jeeny: “Beauty. Real beauty. The kind that wounds before it heals.”

Host: He nodded slowly, eyes drifting across the cluttered shelves — ballerinas, crucifixes, golden cherubs — a museum of emotional shortcuts.

Jack: “You know, I used to mock this stuff. Now I just see it as evidence of how desperate we are to hold on to something soft in a world that keeps hardening.”

Jeeny: “That’s the paradox. Kitsch is both the symptom and the scream. It shows that we still want tenderness, even when we’ve forgotten how to earn it.”

Host: She picked up a small photo frame — inside, a sepia print of a smiling couple under a fake sunset. The glass was cracked, but the smile wasn’t.

Jeeny: “You see? Even here, inside the fakery, there’s truth trying to survive.”

Jack: “So you think Scruton was wrong?”

Jeeny: “No. I think he was warning us — not against kitsch, but against our comfort in recognizing it. Once you start calling everything kitsch, you stop allowing anything to move you.”

Host: The lights flickered again, dimming to the low amber of closing time. The shopkeeper flipped the sign on the door: FERMÉ.

Jack: “You know, Jeeny… maybe we all live surrounded by kitsch — smiling, safe illusions. The real question is whether we ever dare to feel past them.”

Jeeny: “And whether we can still tell the difference.”

Host: She smiled faintly — the kind of smile that hides both tenderness and truth. “If you think it might be kitsch,” she whispered, “then it probably is. But if it moves you in spite of that, maybe it’s something else.”

Jack: “What?”

Jeeny: “Human.”

Host: The camera drifted back slowly — the two of them framed by shelves of imitation beauty, glowing faintly in the rain-filtered light.

The gramophone crackled back to life on its own, replaying the soft ghost of Bing Crosby: “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas…”

And in that fragile melody, Roger Scruton’s words hung suspended — not as condemnation, but as mirror:

“You seldom if ever have the question, whether this is kitsch or not. If you think it might be, then it is.”

Because kitsch, like love,
is the shadow of our longing —
proof that we still ache for beauty,
even when all we can afford
is its imitation.