#i know they got SOME kind of of punk haircuts but I'm too lazy to check

[nateconnolly]

I hate fake and arbitrary divisions between "high" and "low" culture, but I do think there is an important (and morally neutral) difference between a story that's trying to say something important, and a story that is just out here trying to be fun.

Like Terry Pratchett is genre fiction, which is typically regarded by academic institutions and establishment publishing houses as low culture, but it seems undeniable that most of his stories are about moral outrage and love and free will. That is literature that takes itself seriously.

There's also The Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers No. 1: Extreme Danger, which thematically boils down to "Don't you want to fight crime and dye your hair blue? Wouldn't it be fun to fight crime and dye your hair blue?" That is literature which is just trying to be fun.

I would argue that most of the former category tries to be fun, but isn't just trying to be fun. I'd also argue that a lot of things in the second category say more than they are designed to say -- many Hardy Boys books are pretty blatant American jingoist propaganda.