Argentine Novias

It appears that yet another Hollywood bigshot is attached to an Argentine woman.

Perfil newspaper reports that "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening is dating a 31-year-old Argentine artist named Agustina Picasso (great name for an artist!) and that they were seen snogging together recently at a London art gallery (see photo above).

Who knows how much truth there is to this rumor, but Groening now joins a distinguished list of American celebrities who have been entranced by the charms of Argentine women.

They include Robert Duvall, married to Luciana Pedraza, 41 years his junior (atta boy, Bobby).

Matt Damon, who is married to Luciana Barroso, with whom he has two daughters.


And Al Pacino, who's reportedly been dating actress Lucila Sola for the past two years.

In the big picture, this really isn't a big deal, but here in Argentina IT IS. This is the kind of stuff that makes the front page of the papers, and sparks countless hours of discussion and debate on daytime television.

You see, Argentines love to talk about themselves. To their credit, though, they do so in both a positive and negative manner. An Argentine will spend hours telling you what is wrong with their country, leaders, family, soccer team and body shape, but do so in a way that almost makes you envy their situation (and I've been here long enough to learn that this is by design, not coincidence). It's like their pain is a privilege.

So when Argentine women "conquer" powerful American men -- despite all the aforementioned problems -- well, then, that's cause for celebration in some circles here.

As a man who has also been "conquered" (seriously, that's the word they use here) by an Argentine women, I can only concur with an expression heard commonly in Buenos Aires (and apparently in Los Angeles too):

"Las mujeres Argentinas tienen algo especial, pero es dificil decir que."

Photos courtesy of Perfil, Stephen Lovekin, startraksphoto.com and AFP.