Point / Counterpoint is a platform in which two parties discuss pertinent cultural issues from opposing sides. It’s a real debate, and like any honest fight, there are winners and losers. This is the result.
Ryan:
Let me start this debate by saying that this clash of Bacons is something that’s been brewing for years. Academics and scholars alike have spent many sleepless nights banging their heads against the wall in effort to determine which of the Bacons is the greatest Bacon. Declaring the King of the Bacons is not a task we at “Point / Counterpoint” take lightly, but we will do our absolute best to preserve the integrity of the great Bacon men and women who’ve trod the boards, split the atom, and defended our great nation time and time again.
Maria:
Kevin Bacon is attractive and dreamy. His chin is like carved marble; his hair is as lustrous as the shining sea.
Ryan:
That’s all well and good but did you know that Francis Bacon was a knight? Not many people have been knighted you know. Actually, not many people hold the title of scientist, philosopher, author, pioneer, lawyer and statesman all at once, either. Francis Bacon was all of those — and more!
Maria:
Kevin Bacon is not only attractive, but musical, as a member of the band the Bacon Brothers with his brother Michael. Kevin Bacon is married to Kyra Sedgwick, star of TV’s The Closer.
Ryan:
Kevin Bacon is married to TNT The Closer star Kyra Sedgwick?! Well, never mind that, Sir Francis Bacon was one of the fathers of empiricism! I’ll bet Kevin Bacon doesn’t have as much street cred as Sir Francis — charged with 23 separate counts of corruption and sentenced to a stay at the Tower of London.
Maria:
Kevin Bacon can be a bad boy too. In Footloose he plays Ren, a teenager who stands up to a small town’s narrow-minded authorities, played such stars as John Lithgow, who have banned dancing and rock and roll! It may not have won over the critics, but it did win the heart of America. And what’s “empiricism”? Bacon has two children, Travis and Sosie.
Ryan:
Those are all good arguments but I’ll tell you what, Francis Bacon holds what I consider to be the ultimate in cool trump cards. Always man of science, Bacon holds the unique distinction of being one of the only people to have been killed by one of his own experiments. In 1626, Bacon decided to test the possible uses of snow in preserving meat when he fell ill from pneumonia and died. At his death Bacon left more than the equivalent of $3 million worth of debt to his name. That’s so wreckless it definitely counts for badass points.
Maria:
Kevin Bacon is the star of such science-y films as Apollo 13. He played an astronaut.
Ryan:
Francis Bacon may not have been a pretend astronaut but he is the subject of a conspiracy theory called the Baconian Theory, which holds that he was the actual author of many plays traditionally attributed to William Shakespeare. What did Kevin Bacon ever write? Nothing for nobody, that’s what.
Maria:
Shakespeare, eh? Joseph Fiennes played Shakespeare in Shakespeare in Love with Gwyneth Paltrow, who was in Running with Scissors with Jill Clayburgh, who was in Starting Over with . . . guess who? Kevin Bacon. It always comes back to Kevin Norwood Bacon.
Ryan:
There’s no doubt in my mind Francis Bacon is the king of the Bacons. He wrote a utopian novel called New Atlantis where he outlined a future in which human discovery and knowledge were always held in high regard, a future where generosity and enlightenment, dignity and splendour, piety and public spirit are among the most important of virtues.
Maria:
Kevin Bacon won a Blockbuster Entertainment Award.
Winner: Francis Bacon.
