Intellectual opinions of popular culture, the culture of the masses, have been deeply
shaped by critical theory. Since the Frankfurt School, which identified with the 'high
culture' of the intellectual classes, popular culture has been seen as trivial, demeaning
and commercialized, serving the interests of the capitalist system. Post-modernist
theorists, however, no longer accept the belief that there is some objectively superior
high culture setting a standard from which to make evaluations of others. They have