ABSTRACT
People see folk art as separate from popular culture and others don't know where to draw the line between popular culture and elite art— art that requires a trained sensibility and a certain amount of "sophistication" to appreciate. The old saw that popular culture must be junk because it must appeal to the mythical "lowest common denominator" doesn't seem very persuasive now. Now people in popular culture are beginning to move away from strictly literary, historical, and sociological perspectives. For popular culture is now a "major" minor area in the American educational landscape, and academics at all levels are beginning to process their environment and examine the culture in which they find themselves. They have discovered that deep down in the jungle they are really pop culturists— and once pop culture became a subject matter; they achieved an identity, even though it may be a rather diffuse one.
