“Jeez, why so down on Jackass 3D?,” a journalist friend wrote last night. “I love those Jackass movies, and obviously so do millions of other folks. They’re the modern version of the Three Stooges, and I laughed as hard at Jackass II as I did at Borat. We all know stupidity sells, especially self-aware stupidity, so why is Jackass any more deplorable than Meet the Fockers or the 40 Year Old Virgin or, dare I say it, Woody Allen films like Sleeper or Take the Money and Run?

“I think there’s too much of an elitist ‘holier than thou’ attitude among critics and blogger-critics who feel it necessary to hold their nose when discussing Jackass. But not me — I love Jackass and Wildboyz and Viva La Bam, and I’m not ashamed to say it. I also love Billy Wilder and Ernst Lubitsch and Jacques Tati and Peter Sellers and Animal House and the Marx Brothers and Chaplin, etc. So who has the more narrow-minded love of film?”

Wells to Journalist Pal: All I can say is that from this side of the divide, hating the Jackass franchise feels wonderful.