I have gone on record saying that I do, in fact, enjoy some things: movies, books, even music. However, in my time of consuming media, I’ve heard a lot of words and phrases being tossed around.

People say things such as “best,” “worst,” “good movie,” “bad movie” and so on. While these seem innocuous, I’ve recently come to the realization that I fundamentally disagree with these terms being used to describe art. I believe that no piece of art is either good or bad. It is all a matter of opinion.

Art is too often described with objective terms. People talk about movies as being good, bad, mediocre and countless other descriptors that simply cannot encapsulate the scope of what art is. Art is not a science.

Of course there is music theory and so-called rules of storytelling, but those are very narrow-minded lenses through which to view these pieces of media. They can serve as guidelines, but are not capable of concretely defining the value of a work due to how one-dimensional they are.

There is still room for fact-based assessment of these mediums. Stories can be unsatisfying, acting can be amateurish, the composition of a picture can be sloppy. However, none of these aspects can truly measure the quality of something as complex as a movie or a painting. Art is, after all, about feeling. If a poorly acted, amateurishly made film fills a viewer with joy, can it really be called a “bad” movie?

Whenever somebody asks me what I think is the best Disney movie, Taylor Swift song, etc., I simply tell them I cannot answer that question. I can say which one is my favorite. I can say which one I think is the most well-made. I can not even attempt to claim that any one reigns supreme. Because everything can be the best, in its own special way.