As far as the second part of your question goes, what I would call popluar culture did not really reflect the grim realities. I think you had some of that in songs like "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime" and in books like "Of Mice and Men."
But people can't go around being depressed all the time, even during a depression. In most textbooks, the popular culture of the '30s is described as being pretty light-hearted, to get people's minds off their problems. Movies were quite popular and were often pretty funny or escapist. So you had Marx Brothers movies being very popular. And movies like "Broadway Melody of 1936." And you have songs like "Happy Days are Here Again" and Cole Porter songs like "Putting on the Ritz."
So the popular culture really did not reflect the grim realities -- why immerse yourself in grim reality for fun?
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