Critcisms - Can Pop Culture be Art?

While I will try to avoid any negative criticism about the films I enjoy, I have to consider the opinions of others on this. Personally, I love pop culture things like films, rock music, comic books and the like. Those with more Marxist views however would be very much against all of this, their excuse always being that high art is no longer made and pop culture commodities are their to keep the powerful in power. To argue, I quote the definition of "art":

1.The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form.
2.Works produced by such skill and imagination.

Human nature could not have changed greatly from the times which Marxist theories favoured as artistic, so great art for the past 500 years or so must all be inspired by the same powerful thoughts and emotions. Plus now that technology has excelled to the point where anyone anywhere can see a film, listen to a song or read a book it is so much easier to access the material as well as become some kind of artist themselves. Of course this is the best way to inspire people, instead of abolishing all capitalism and pop culture they do not seem to realise that even a Marxist like themselves could use the media as a tool to pass on their ideas. Indeed, they already write books and sell it for £8 or £9 (sounds pretty capitalistic to me).
Interestingly, Marxist Theodore Adorno while referring to his theory of pseudo-individualism, said that the true needs that everyone should have are:

• Freedom 
• Genuine happiness
• Creativity

His point about freedom may be true in terms of the film, where the filmmaker will be restricted much of the time by studios still this is through no fault of their own but for the general public in everyday life I believe they have all the freedom they could possibly want. "Genuine happiness" I am confused about, I ask how do you know if you are truley or falsely happy and what are the differences between the two? Surely they give you the exact same feelings? While I may not favour much of the modern mainstream myself, I believe that great forms of artistic expression can be present in film. The obsession films seem to have with outsiders allow movies like Donnie Darko to explore alienation, as well as the psyche and paronid nature of humans, quite easily comparable with any "high art" a Marxist puts forward.