Fear not, sci-fi fans. Simon Pegg says he is “still a nerd and proud.”
In a lengthy and philosophical post on his official Peggster blog, the “Star Trek” actor clarified earlier comments he made in an interview to Radio Times that the recent slate of comic book movies are “kind of dumbing down” cinema.
“I can be a bit of a Contrary Mary in interviews sometimes,” Pegg wrote on his blog. “When you do lots of them, you get sick of your own opinions and start espousing other people’s.”
“Having said that, the idea of our prolonged youth is something I’ve been interested in for a very long time. It’s essentially what ‘Spaced’ was about, at least in part,” he continued, referring to his 1999-2001 British TV series.
The actor-writer-director continued in an academic bent, appropriate for the University of Bristol grad whose undergraduate thesis was titled “A Marxist overview of popular 1970s cinema and hegemonic discourses.”
“Recent developments in popular culture were arguably predicted by the French philosopher and cultural theorist, Jean Baudrillard in his book, ‘America,’ in which he talks about the infantilization of society,” Pegg wrote. “Put simply, this is the idea that as a society, we are kept in a state of arrested development by dominant forces in order to keep us more pliant.”
“I guess what I meant was, the more spectacle becomes the driving creative priority, the less thoughtful or challenging the films can become,” he wrote.
Pegg summarized with the following:
“In short:
I love Science Fiction and fantasy and do not think it’s all childish.
I do not think it is all generated by dominant forces as a direct means of control…much.
I am still a nerd and proud.”