I recall a version of the Emperor's Clothes story where the emperor had the offending child and his family executed and everyone continued to play along until they all died of exposure. A little bit more realistic, if bleaker.

Anyway, if I ever hear someone going on about Great Literature et al versus the small-minded Genre Fiction, I will simply point out to them that I'm over here in the mainstream- that is to say, the catalog of books that people actually read.
And also that there's no such thing as genre fiction.