Art and the Common Man

I was thinking about it, and I believe that the single element that has to have drawn the most common men to Art must be boobies.

I was trying to figure out what movies I have seen Clive Owen in. He tends to do artsy type flicks, but I knew that I was familiar with his work somehow. So I IMDb-ed him and discovered that I had seen him in 5 flicks: SIN CITY, ARTHUR, a tiny, uncredited cameo in the new PINK PANTHER movie, GROSSFORD PARK (artsy, but GOOD!) and THE BOURNE IDENTITY.

My friend/co-worker Pete had not seen SIN CITY yet and asked me how it was. I struggled to describe it -- very Frank Miller-ish, ultra violent, gritty in a comic-book kind of way, tons of stars -- and then I remembered another detail which I felt was very important to Pete understanding the virtues of this flick: "You get to see Carla Gugino's boobies in it."

I mentioned how I have been crushing on her since SON-IN-LAW, and had to wait until SIN CITY to finally see her boobies. But then I recalled that I had seen her boobies before when I caught a bit of a more arsty flick she was in (I am SO NOT telling you the name because you would hate me for being such a pig), and that got me thinking...

How many arsty movies have I partially watched because I was looking for boobies?

I mean, there are the Skinemax flicks with TONS of boobies in them, but when you watch artsy flicks you get to see the boobies of actresses you've been crushing on from their roles in some of your favorite movies! Famous boobies or generic boobies? If I have a choice, I prefer famous boobies. (Don't know why exactly... I guess it's because it's like seeing the boobies of someone you actually know. More "naughty".)

I fast-forwarded through that Nicolas Cage movie I'M SO DEPRESSED I'M GONNA COMMIT SUICIDE IN LAS VEGAS. (I believe that was the name of it.) I was all "DUDE! That's the Karate Kid's girlfriend's naked boobies!"

There was that drug-addicted-fashion-model-dies flick where you get to see tons of Laura Croft's naked boobies!

There was FEMME FATALE where you get to see Rebecca Romijn's naked boobies... And you may argue with me about how "artistic" this flick is, but Romijn and Banderas... all nakies... I mean, 2 of the most supreme specimens of their respective genders on screen together... That HAS to be Art!

Anyway, that lead me to the thought of all the Art books, or simply pictures of works of art that I have stopped and stared at for a while because they had boobies.

I mean, even today I can be doing research about some obscure 18th or 19th Century political cartoonist, and I'll see cartoon boobies and stop and really examine his work for a while. Or look up a museum or a specific sculptor, and pause when I see sculpted naked boobies.

When I think about human nature -- particularly MALE human nature -- I think that surely boobies must be the main reason the common man has had ANY exposure to Art.

Think about it: Either he's looking at a work of art because it has naked boobies, or he's taking a date to a museum in hopes that afterward he can see his date's naked boobies.

Either way, boobies MUST be the single element, throughout the ages, that has drawn the common man to Art.


You know I'm right. ;)