Nerd rage! I’m sure most of you know Simon Pegg, the geeky British actor featured in two major franchises, Mission: Impossible and Star Trek, plus the writer/star of films like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Pegg is totally a nerd, a geek, and whatever else you want to say about him. He’s always worn that proudly. But in an interview this week, Pegg seemed to slam Nerd Culture and the whole superhero thing, basically saying that he belongs to a generation of 40-something man-children obsessed with men in capes. I’m paraphrasing (but just barely). Pegg told Radio Times:

“Before Star Wars, the films that were box-office hits were The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Bonnie and Clyde and The French Connection – gritty, amoral art movies. Then suddenly the onus switched over to spectacle and everything changed…Now, I don’t know if that is a good thing. Obviously I’m very much a self-confessed fan of science-fiction and genre cinema. But 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 all 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….But I sometimes feel like I miss grown-up things. And I honestly thought the other day that I’m gonna retire from geekdom. I’ve become the poster child for that generation, and it’s not necessarily something I particularly want to be. I’d quite like to go off and do some serious acting.”

[From Radio Times]

As you can imagine, the Nerd Rage was swift, howling and overall, easy to ignore. But I guess Pegg was getting it online (where nerds live and breathe!), because Pegg ended up writing a lengthy (and I do mean LENGTHY) think-piece on his blog about his interview – go here to read the full piece. To his credit, he didn’t claim he was taken out of context or misquoted. He did say that he was perhaps “being a little bit trollish” and “a bit of a Contrary Mary” (a term I am filing away for future use), but he basically reiterates at length this idea/fact that his generation and younger generations are being infantilized by culture. He does apologize for saying that nerd-culture “dumbs down” society and commits himself to still loving all things sci-fi and fantasy. Honestly, this controversy was totally worth it just so Pegg could write this very thoughtful and provocative post!

Photos courtesy of WENN.