Don’t Apologize To The Nerds, Simon Pegg

If you have any Facebook friends who think superheroes are real or proposed to their half-sister at Comic-Con, you probably already know they hate Simon Pegg now, because in an interview with Radio Times, he took a huge shit on grown ass adults who watch comic book movies and actually take them seriously.

“Part of me looks at society as it is now and just thinks we’ve been infantilised by our own taste. Now we’re essentially consuming very childish things – comic books, superheroes… Adults are watching this stuff and taking it seriously.’ It is a kind of dumbing down in a way, because it’s taking our focus away from real-world issues. Films used to be about challenging, emotional journeys or moral questions that might make you walk away and re-evaluate how you felt about…whatever. Now we’re walking out of the cinema really not thinking about anything, other than the fact that the Hulk just had a fight with a robot.”

Of course, he’s not wrong. Or even slightly wrong. But he probably got threatened by a Pizza Hut manager with a styrofoam Thor hammer and caps lock, so he wrote up this way too long and explanatory apology. He also took the title from a song written by Morrissey, so I assume he was being sarcastic. Here’s an excerpt.

“The ‘dumbing down’ comment came off as a huge generalisation by an A-grade asshorn. I did not mean that science fiction or fantasy are dumb, far from it…The point of all this is just to get my position clear. I’m not out of the fold, my passions and preoccupations remain. Sometimes it’s good to look at the state of the union and make sure we’re getting the best we can get.”

He’s right, science fiction or fantasy aren’t dumb. Especially if you can stop playing with your Hulk toy long enough to watch Ex Machina, The One I Love, or Coherence. Or any episode of Black Mirror. You know what’s dumb? Your two hour commercials for Marvel and DC toys. Actual comic books might be “dark” and “edgy” in the way you can apply those words to finished coloring books, but Chris Evans in that dumb ass suit and a CGI Shrek after 42 rounds of P90X is just stupid. Sorry. I know you really want to believe it’s not. Just like you think raising the minimum wage to $15 will make us all one feed off the blood of rats and use human hair as blankets in an interment camp where a Wal-Mart once stood, but in reality, Asgard isn’t an actual place. And superhero movies are dumb.