Fifty Shades and Twilight, arts and crafting

For the last few months I have been watching and thinking about the various threads I follow surrounding popular books, particularly Twilight and Fifty Shades. I have tried to put it together in a meaningful way, but haven't come to anything coherent yet other than my personal feelings on the matter.

A huge amount of anger seems to simmer when these items come to the fore. The comments seem to be almost unanimous on the idea that they are poorly written and not very clever. One of the subtexts is that they mess with our sacred cows. Very little is said about the fact that they are immensely popular.

The arts has a way of becoming elitist. Even in ad agencies, which are supposed to light up the consciousness of the masses (or target market) short shrift is given to the idea of the wants and needs of the audience as art directors and copywriters dwell on depth, meaning, surprise and awards.

The elitism is, I think, a bastion to defend the amount of crafting which goes into a piece. The artist or writer tries to build an edifice that stands out above the others with the use of craft. A piece that is not popular is vindicated by the application of craft. If the audience doesn't like it, I get the sense that the crafter will be angered. This turns into comparisons. Other, more popular works, become objects of derision.

The audience begs to disagree.

Here's an analogy. An architect can devise a castle with ornate turrets and crenelations. The rest of humanity aspires to and is comfortable in a suburban home or flat. Should the architect of the castle sneer at the architect of suburban homes?

Twilight and Fifty Shades have touched chords (hearts and groins) in ways that clearly make the audience happy, and should be valued for that alone. They won't benefit from a high degree of craftsmanship and the audience won't value it either.

Highly crafted pieces should be valued for their craft, but should not be expected to do well with a wider audience on the basis of the craft.

Attacks on the books become, in essence, vitriol directed at their huge readership. Nobody thinks twice about the millions of books which don't sell well.

My reading choices are not Twilight or Fifty Shades. I can get by on my own choices (though I suspect I will have to read and understand Twilight soon enough). But I do not see any reason to take either of the two down in the eyes of a wider audience simply because they are not to my own liking.