"Jackass" and the eternal question: Is it art?

LOS ANGELES — There is a genuinely beautiful scene near the beginning of "Jackass: Number Two" in which Dave England hangs from a fire hose that is furiously blowing water.

It's like that moment in "American Beauty" where the bag floats wondrously in the air. Except this stunt, dubbed "Firehose Rodeo," involves a guy in his underwear being tossed about at random. Still, it's visually fascinating.

Then England falls, and Johnny Knoxville rapidly pulls us back into the crassness of the whole thing: "We have rectal bleeding. Another first for 'Jackass.' "

"Jackass" and its ilk — the animal-focused "Wildboyz," UK's "Dirty Sanchez," etc. — can be described as pain porn. Guys doing harmful/gross things: Getting tossed in the air by a charging yak, bitten by snakes, pushing items into orifices.

Is this exhibitionism? Simply "footage," as Knoxville puts it at one point? Or — dare we say it — art of some kind?

"Hell yeah, it's art," Steve-O says. The former cruise ship circus performer (real name: Stephen Glover) defends "Jackass: Number Two" as art for four reasons. We examine and judge each argument below:

IT'S ENTERTAINMENT

"For me, art is something that can take a person who has cancer away from cancer for an hour and a half," Steve-O says. "I consider myself a distraction therapist. I'm just trying to take away cancer for an hour and a half. And ... yeah, that's art."

"Jackass" leader Johnny Knoxville (real name: PJ Clapp) doesn't think so. He wears a shirt in the movie that reads (and we paraphrase): Muck Art. Let's Dance.

Verdict: No, mere distraction doth not art make.

Several of the most visually arresting images from "Jackass: Number Two" are ripped straight from cartoons, including Knoxville's "Tom & Jerry"-inspired yak attack and his Wile E. Coyote impersonation — in which he hangs onto a big red rocket as it's launched over a lake. Imagine the Orange County tradition "Pageant of the Masters" — in which people pose in costumes and makeup to re-create famous still paintings — amped up on Red Bull and obsessed with Saturday-morning cartoons.

Verdict: Even if the spectacle is derivative, it's framed, shot and edited in an intriguing new way. Yes, there is art in "Jackass" visuals.

IT'S INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

"People are always asking how do you come up with the ideas. Whoever you see doing something, either they're doing that because it was their idea or because they got permission from the guy who thought of it," Steve-O says. "However little respect we have for ourselves and each other, we do respect intellectual property."

Indeed, the concepts that become "Jackass: Number Two" stunts are undeniably clever. One involves four guys dodging a circling, hot-headed bull by rising above it on two crossing teeter-totters. But is being clever, or being the first to harm yourself in a unique way, really very artful?

Verdict: A good try, but many of the stunts are more feats of engineering or human endurance than artistic intellectual property.

IT HAS A MESSAGE

Steve-O's father is famously homophobic, and so the son went out of his way this time to, well, violate himself on camera. One of the film's most memorable sequences involves a beer bong, and we won't say much more. But Steve-O says it's a statement: "I hate racists and I hate homophobes. That's why I say 'Sorry, Dad' in the movie."

Not that they actually discuss bigotry of any kind, but "Jackass: Number Two" does feature more full-frontal male nudity than you'll see in perhaps any other film this year.

Verdict: As "Borat" shows, breaking down barriers and confronting stereotypes — even with bad taste and no on-screen analysis — can make for compelling art. We'll grudgingly concede the point.