I dream of the day when we will no longer need to defend the importance of pop culture criticism. Unfortunately, it appears that day is still a ways off.

The latest evidence: Deborah Solomon’s New York Times Magazine interview with Andi Zeisler, a co-founder with Lisa Jervis of Bitch magazine, a “feminist response to pop culture” — and a PopPolitics favorite.

What is extra-disturbing about the dismissive tone of Solomon’s questions is that she doesn’t just say that pop culture criticism is irrelevant — she actually blames it for the supposed downfall of feminism.

Interestingly, Solomon can’t resist doing a little cultural criticism herself even while she is demonizing it: “I think Chloe, the hunched and crabby counterterrorism agent on the Fox drama ‘24,’ is probably the most appealing female character on television right now.” Solomon sounds as if she has proudly discovered Chloe, but feminist critics — including myself — have been talking about her for awhile.

In any case, she quickly returns to her original cynicism: “It seems as if its original vision of social equality has been undermined by third-wave feminists like yourself, who limit your critiques to, say, Tori Spelling?s breasts. Doesn?t the obsession with pop culture risk trivializing feminism?”

Of course, her brief exchange with Zeisler about Chloe proves that Bitch-esque criticism isn’t focused on the trivial. Identifying and promoting strong female role models like Chloe is one of our most pressing concerns — on a cultural as well as social and politicial level. Solomon herself admits that those characters are the rare exceptions on television. So why can’t she and others admit that the feminist project has just begun?