The serious study of popular films by critics is regularly credited with having rendered obsolete a once-dominant view that popular mainstream films are inherently inferior to art films. Yet the change of attitude may be somewhat __________ Although, it is now academically respectable to analyse popular films, the fact that many critics feel compelled to rationalize their own __________ action movies or mass-market fiction reveals, perhaps unwittingly, their continued __________ the old hierarchy of popular and art films.
Which of the following options is the most appropriate sequence that would meaningfully fit the blanks in the above paragraph?