Camille Paglia is one of those people who, it seems, has coasted by in the public eye for a long time without ever having done anything very remarkable. Take a look at her Wikipedia entry. If you’re like me, you know the name Camille Paglia somehow, but you can’t quite place her … did she write The Feminine Mystique? Answer: she did not. She wrote Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson . It sounds vaguely familiar, right? I mean, not the Nefertiti part, the Sexual Personae part. I think I’ve read those two words back to back before, anyway.

Somehow she bypassed the usual step of doing something notable and went straight to fame as an intellectual, um, person. Now she writes a column on Salon in which she routinely says dumb things in the hopes that someone will get outraged and give her the chance to defend herself. Here is today’s bit of wisdom:

On the culture front, fabled film directors Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni dying on the same day was certainly a cold douche for my narcissistic generation of the 1960s. We who revered those great artists, we who sat stunned and spellbound before their masterpieces — what have we achieved? Aside from Francis Ford Coppola’s “Godfather” series, with its deft flashbacks and gritty social realism, is there a single film produced over the past 35 years that is arguably of equal philosophical weight or virtuosity of execution to Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal” or “Persona”? Perhaps only George Lucas’ multilayered, six-film “Star Wars” epic can genuinely claim classic status, and it descends not from Bergman or Antonioni but from Stanley Kubrick and his pop antecedents in Hollywood science fiction.

What she doesn’t mention is that she has seen every film produced over the past 35 years. Because that would just be bragging.

Also, please note that one of the credits on Paglia’s resume is doing the commentary on Basic Instinct, which she says is one of her favorite movies. It must suck to be so deeply immersed in the academic world view that you are no longer able to actually watch what you’re watching.

Update: I am slowly making my way through this article as the day goes on, so I may have more to say about it. Here’s another pearl of wisdom:

Tragically, very few young people today, teethed on dazzling special effects and a hyperactive visual style, seem to have patience for the long, slow take that deep-think European directors once specialized in.

First of all, it’s a very telling sign that Paglia thinks the majority of viewers have ever been into watching “long, slow takes”. Granted, movies are a lot more visually hyperactive than they were in the 60s and 70s. But she has nothing backing this comment up other than her opinion, which is basically, “anyone younger than me is stupid.” Which is contradicted on the next page, when she says:

When Antonioni’s plotless “L’Avventura” was shown at Harpur, the entire theater emptied within a half-hour — except for the front row of me and my friends, transfixed by the aquiline profile of a very anxious Monica Vitti, her blond locks tossed this way and that, as she searched a desolate Italian island for her capriciously absent friend.

So now it isn’t just kids of today who are too stupid to understand the genius of the slow movie, it is everyone except Paglia and her friends, who were so into that kind of movie that they sat in the front row. If I have to sit in the front row, I ask for my money back. I guess it’s because I don’t appreciate movies as much as Camille Paglia.

Finally, for a little perspective, I will leave you with her take on quality music.

In contrast, I’ve been deeply impressed with the visceral intensity and exquisite poetic shadings of Kelly Clarkson’s moody “Irvine,” which Matt Drudge has been playing on his Sunday night radio show. Clarkson claims to have composed the song in 20 minutes while lying in despair on a bathroom floor after a concert. The spare live production, with its ascending changes and haunting ornamental guitar slides, is gorgeous. As long as music of this quality is being made, the American fine arts will revive.

I haven’t heard the song, so I shouldn’t judge. But … I will. It’s Kelly Clarkson. No matter how good a Kelly Clarkson song gets (”Since You’ve Been Gone” is catchy, I won’t deny it), it’s still Kelly Clarkson. What is most infuriating about people like Paglia is that if I told her that, she would probably have some theory as to why Kelly Clarkson is a more important artist than anyone I listen to. She would never admit that she just shouldn’t be reviewing music.