[T]he real fun of a list -- and the intellectual labor -- is realized only
when its creator has to explain and defend its rationale. That's where
the allure of lists really lies, because, for impassioned devisers of
Top 5's, the nakedly evaluative function of the list is underwritten by
a mode of popular-culture criticism that is considerably more complex --
and more exegetical -- than the form of the Top 5 seems to suggest....
[D]eveloping the faculty of discrimination is part of the fun of immersing
oneself in the popular -- which means, interestingly, that few fans of
popular culture are wholly "immersed" in it. To be a really
knowledgeable fan, in other words, you usually have to be a keen critic.
Remember this the next time you're accosted by some meerschaum-chomping,
muttonchop-wearing columnist for The New Criterion or the National
Review: It's the people who can't stand popular culture who are truly
indiscriminate. Just say to your muttonchop friend, "If you can't tell
the difference between Poison and the Cure, don't waste my time with
your worthless denunciations of what you call 'rock 'n' roll.'"...
Academic modes of cultural criticism ... are rarely explicitly
evaluative (and the exception of that famous outlier, Harold Bloom, only
proves the rule). Though this aspect of academic criticism is usually
ascribed to the pernicious relativism of postmodernism, it actually has
a much more tangled and interesting history....
[O]ne of the most important functions that the culture industries perform
is to produce criticism of the cultural artifacts produced by the
culture industries.
-- Michael Berube. "Pop Culture's Lists, Rankings, and Critics"
The Chronicle of Higher Education
(November 17, 2000).