This article addresses issues surrounding critical media literacy using popular culture texts. The authors focus on the example of their work with a fourth-grade class involved in a project to unpack the messages of popular media and advertising texts. This project, which they call the Elementary Bubble Project, was inspired by guerilla artist Ji Lee, who uses "culture jamming" as a means to critique consumerist values propagated in mass advertising campaigns. The authors found that fourth graders involved in the project were articulate, thought critically, and displayed an amazing sense of humor when given space in the curriculum for "talking back" to their popular culture texts. The authors highlight tensions that can arise when trying to balance students' pleasure with social critique in critical media literacy lessons. (Contains 2 figures.)