The crucial thing is this: Is the romanticization distilling out the essential goodness of a basically good thing? Or is it putting lipstick on a pig. In other words, is it simplifying something basically true, or is it promoting a lie?
I approve of romanticizing “Romance,” i.e. “The Sacred Space of Lovers.” There’s something wonderful there, worthy of distilling to its ideal.
And I approve of romanticizing the England that rallied to defeat the Nazis (like in Mrs. Miniver). Something truly heroic was accomplished, worth celebrating with a beautified simplification.
But I disapprove of romanticizing the Nazis, like Lili Riefenstahl did in her brilliant propaganda film, “Triumph of the Will.” The film was beautiful. The regime it romanticized was ugly.
And I oppose the romanticization of the Confederacy, which was formed to advance an inhumane economic system based on the idea that black people had no rights that white people were obliged to respect (in the words of the Dred Scott decision). That whole false “Lost Cause” mythology has plagued the South for a century and a half with its false picture, since immediately after the South made its catastrophic and lawless decision to secede for reasons not at all noble.
It ultimately boils down to “Truth, yes!” and “Lie, no!”