Yo Adrian: It's About the Money, Not the Art

The long and winding road that the "Rocky" statue has taken back to the Philadelphia Museum of Art is a good example of how cultural institutions are being forced to acknowledge Joe Sixpack tastes in order to survive.

The statue, a 10-foot-high lump of kitch that few people would mistake for a Rodin, appeared as a prop in "Rocky III," a 1983 sequel in the popular movie series that starred Sylvester Stallone as boxer Rocky Balboa, Talia Shire as his long suffering girlfriend, Adrian, and Mr. T as Clubber Lang, who challenges Rocky for his world heavyweight boxing title. (I'm not gonna tell you who wins. You'll have to see to movie.)

First some background:

Independence Hall and other historic attractions notwithstanding, the Philadelphia tourist industry has done well from the the "Rocky" movies, and many visitors to the city take the "Rocky Run" up the Art Museum's front steps, mimicking the famous scene where Rocky sprints up the long staircase at the end of a training run, turns and triumphantly raises his arms as he looks down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at Center City.

Anyhow, the statue was placed at the top of the Art Museum steps for the filming of "Rocky III" and appears in a scene where Rocky is taunted by Lang, who accuses him of defending his title by beating pushovers in fixed fights. (True.)

Commonfolk wanted the statue to stay right where it was after filming was completed, and hilarious but deadly serious fight broke out between the Art Museum and city's Art Commission over what defined "art." Was the statue art or was it not art?

The museum balked at have the lump as a permanent guest and it was moved to the front of the Wachovia Spectrum, a South Philadelphia sports arena, although it was temporarily returned to the art museum for several other movies, including "Rocky V," "Mannequin" and "Philadelphia."

The huge Art Museum, which rises like an immense Roman temple from the banks of the Schuylkill, is one of the finest anywhere and a worthy tourist attraction in its own right. But it has fallen on hard times because it relies on public monies to make up the difference between paid admissions and bankruptcy, and Philadelphia has more pressing needs such as funding its chronically underperforming schools, prosecuting crooked politicians and hiring more cops in an effort to get down its murderous homicide rate.

So the bluebloods at the Art Museum have gone against the wishes of the Fairmount Park Commission, which provides those public monies, and invited the "Rocky" statue back home.

Sort of.

The statue will not be placed at the top of the steps, but in an outdoor area near "Charioteer of Delphi," a small bronze cast of a statue dated to the fifth century B.C.

Whatsamatter with these dunces? If they really want the statue to be an attraction, they oughta cart it right up the steps and into the Grand Stair Hall, a magnificent entryway where the graceful goddess Diana has stood on tiptoe since she was gifted to the Art Museum in 1932.

That statue, by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the preeminant American sculptor, is truly a work of art and I have spent many an hour studying it. But if the museum really wants to cash in, it needs to give Diana a rest and put Rocky in her place.

I have no doubt that people would gladly plunk down the $12 admission fee to see the statue inside the museum. And who knows, maybe some of them will stay long enough to tour the wonderful galleries upstairs where some "real" kelture might rub off on them.

E. Harris Baum, the city's park commissioner, expressed dismay at the museum's capitulation:

If a film about Donald Duck in Philadelphia comes out, do we put a Donald Duck statue in our park system? Rocky is fine. But other films have relevance, too. Where do we stop?

Oh, the horror!

Baum apparently is unaware that Diana's pedigree is not exactly blue blood. She stood in the original Madison Square Garden In New York City until it was torn down in 1925.