Opinions may be equal, but art is not

In a post below , I took on one of my favorite topics: critics, criticism and the populist notion that those who judge art are out of touch with the mainstream public. Meh.

In the same who-cares vein, I offer the following quote:

“A lot of the people who read a bestselling novel, for example, do not read much other fiction. By contrast, the audience for an obscure novel is largely composed of people who read a lot. That means the least popular books are judged by people who have the highest standards, while the most popular are judged by people who literally do not know any better. An American who read just one book this year was disproportionately likely to have read ‘The Lost Symbol,’ by Dan Brown. He almost certainly liked it.”

Fighting words, right?

Actually … no. Sounds like pretty smart commentary to me. In a movie sense, it also explains the box-office success of “Angels & Demons” ($402 million), “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” ($133 million) and “2012” ($164 million).

Wanna read the entire article? Click here .