From the wonky opening that brought you “Fuck you Star Trek fans” and “Phwooar, Princess Leia”, comes this … “Nerd culture is the product of a late capitalist conspiracy, designed to infantalize the consumer as a means of non-aggressive control.”
It has come to my attention (thank you google), that the excellent website, Io9 picked up on some controversial comments I made to the Radio Times, which can be summed up in the above headline. Now, maybe I was being a little bit trollish, I can be a bit of a Contrary Mary in interviews sometimes. 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.
One of the things that inspired Jessica and myself, all those years ago, was the unprecedented extension our generation was granted to its youth, in contrast to the previous generation, who seemed to adopt a received notion of maturity at lot sooner. The children of the 70s and 80s were the first generation, for whom it wasn’t imperative to ‘grow up’ immediately after leaving school. Why this happened is a whole other sociological discussion: a rise in the student population, progress in gender equality, the absence of world war; all these things and more contributed to this social evolution. What fascinated Jess and I was the way we utilised this time. For Tim and Daisy, not having to grow up in the way their parents did, simply meant a continuation of their childhood. For Daisy, it was the pursuit of her girlhood dreams and fantasies. For Tim, he channeled his childhood passions into his adult life, cared about them as much, invested in them, the same level of time, importance and emotion. His hobbies and interests defined who he was, rather than his professional status.
In the 18 years since we wrote Spaced, this extended adolescence has been cannily co-opted by market forces, who have identified this relatively new demographic as an incredibly lucrative wellspring of consumerist potential. Suddenly, here was an entire generation crying out for an evolved version of the things they were consuming as children. This demographic is now well and truly serviced in all facets of entertainment and the first and second childhoods have merged into a mainstream phenomenon.
Before Star Wars, the big Hollywood studios were making art movies, with morally ambiguous characters, that were thematically troubling and often dark (Travis Bickle dark, as opposed to Bruce Wayne dark)*. This was probably due in large part to the Vietnam War and the fact that a large portion of America’s young men were being forced to grow up very quickly. Images beamed back home from the conflict, were troubling and a growing protest movement forced the nation to question the action abroad. Elsewhere, feminism was still dismissed as a lunatic fringe by the patriarchal old guard, as mainstream culture actively perpetuated traditional gender roles. Star Wars was very much an antidote to the moral confusion of the war, solving the conundrum of who was good and who was evil. At the heart of the story was an ass kicking princess who must surely have empowered an entire generation of girls. It was a balm for a nation in crisis in a number of ways and such was that nation’s influence, the film became a global phenomenon.
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 infantilzation of society. 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. We are made passionate about the things that occupied us as children as a means of drawing our attentions away from the things we really should be invested in, inequality, corruption, economic injustice etc. It makes sense that when faced with the awfulness of the world, the harsh realities that surround us, our instinct is to seek comfort, and where else were the majority of us most comfortable than our youth? A time when we were shielded from painful truths by our recreational passions, the toys we played with, the games we played, the comics we read. There was probably more discussion on Twitter about the The Force Awakens and the Batman vs Superman trailers than there was about the Nepalese earthquake or the British general election.
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. How could I say that? In the words of Han Solo, “Hey, it’s me!” In the last two weeks, I have seen two brilliant exponents of the genre. Ex Machina and Mad Max: Fury Road, both of which had my head spinning in different and wonderful ways and are both very grown up films (although Max has a youthful exuberance which is nothing’s short of joyous, thanks George Miller, 70) I’ve yet to see Tomorrowland but with Brad Bird at the helm, it cannot be anything but a hugely entertaining think piece.
I guess what I meant was, the more spectacle becomes the driving creative priority, the less thoughtful or challenging the films can become. The spectacle of Mad Max is underpinned not only multiple layers of plot and character but also by an almost lost cinematic sense of ‘how did they do that?’ The best thing art can do is make you think, make you re-evaluate the opinions you thought were yours. It’s interesting to see how a cerebral film maker like Christopher Nolan, took on Batman and made it something more adult, more challenging, chasing Frank Miller’s peerless Dark Knight into a slightly less murky world of questionable morality and violence. But even these films are ultimately driven by market forces and somebody somewhere will want to soften the edges, so that toys and lunch boxes can be sold. In that respect, Bruce Wayne’s fascistic vigilantism was never really held to account, however interesting Nolan doubtless found that idea. Did he have an abiding love of Batman or was it a means of making his kind of movie on the mainstream stage?
Fantasy in all its forms is probably the most potent of social metaphors and as such can be complex and poetic. No one could ever accuse Game of Thrones of being childish. George RR Martin clearly saw the swords and sorcery genre as a fertile means to express his musings on ambition, power and lust. Perhaps it milieu makes it more commercial though, would a straight up historical drama have lasted so long? Maybe Game of Thrones wouldn’t have been made at all ten years ago. A world without Game of Thrones?! if Baudrillard had predicted that, I probably would have dropped out of university and become a cobbler**.
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. On one hand it’s a wonderful thing, having what used to be fringe concerns, suddenly ruling the mainstream but at the same time, these concerns have also been monetised and marketed and the things that made them precious to us, aren’t always the primary concern (right, Star Trek TOS fans?)
Also, it’s good to ask why we like this stuff, what makes it so alluring, so discussed, so sacred. Do we channel our passion and indignation into ephemera, rather than reality? Not just science fiction and fantasy but gossip and talent shows and nostalgia and people’s arses. Is it right? Is it dangerous? Something to discuss over a game of 3D chess, perhaps.
Speaking of which I better climb aboard the old hypocropter and fly back to writing Star Trek Beyond.
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.
Love and rockets,
Simon
p.s. Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan are also Stormtroopers in The Force Awakens.
*Those type of films are made today but not by big studios. Before Star Wars, SciFi and Fantasy were seen as B movie fodder, that the big studios were wary of. Alan Ladd Jnr really doesn’t get the credit he deserves for backing George Lucas.
**No disrespect to cobblers, I merely intended to allude to a profession that would not fill my days with fantasy. Not that cobblers can’t enjoy fantasy, they can. After all, some of them are magic elves who only come out at night to save a poor husband and wife from destitution. Surely a metaphor for the invisible underclass, enabling social mobility among the executive echelons of the pre war working class.
Simon Pegg
Actor/writer - Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Paul, World's End. Also, secret agent, starship engineer and diesel weasel. GSOH. Must love dogs.
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I have turned to entertainment, away from thinking about “things that matter” because when I look at the things that matter all I see is a system that will not change without drastic action. And thinking about / talking about drastic action makes one crazy. So- until everyone else gets caught up I’ll be watching Star Wars, playing Madden and working on my poker game. Ring me when the revolution begins.
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That’ll do pig, that’ll do.
Don’t change a word, don’t back down. You are exactly right. I’m a 50 year old physician who grew up reading Asimov’s Foundation, Heinleins Stranger, Bradbury’s 451 and Tolkien’s LOTR- these were stories that made you think.
Now everything has to go boom, costumes be skin tight amidst the saintly glow of lens flair.
Stargate ran a series retrospective in it’s episode “200” and roundly mocked the trend of shows going for EMO teens as main characters and then largely fielded that as a cast for SGU- which lasted 1 season.
At the very end of that episode Is a great little speech that stands in contrast to the tone of the rest of the (Outstanding) episode.
ANDERS
“Science fiction is an existential metaphor. It allows us to tell stories about the human condition. Isaac Asimov once said: “Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today, but the core of science fiction, its essence, has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all.”
Mr. Pegg you are one of the central players in science fiction right now- you rightly called out a bad trend. It’s not that the current superhero films are bad, they’re great fun, but it’s mind candy and someone should start making thinking Sci-fi again.
Put JW and yourself in a room with a stack of 19-20th century Sci-fi and blank paper. We’d be immeasurably better at the end of that process.
Keep the faith
Alright Peggers,
Nice little read that. You’re pretty good with the old words aren’t you?
Now I know why I still love all the stuff I loved when I was 12 and I feel even better than before I knew why. Brilliant!
Also, I think you spilt my pint in the Green Dragon in Stratford once. I was a goth and was cool about it so you probably didn’t notice.
Also, Is the new Star trek going to have Nick in it as a Tribble Master Breeder?
Ta,
Tim
Infantilization is not really the cause for people’s not getting engaged in social issues. The problem of lack of engagement stems from numerous causes: the narrowing of news coverage (the same three stories all day) and shrinking of news staffs; the media’s failure to cover many issues; the media’s penchant for covering stories for a short while and then dropping them as if they’ve been solved; the framing of every issue as a noisy debate between left and right, which wearies many people and they stop listening; a kind of stigma attached to be being socially aware and active (stemming in part from TV and film representations of activists as kooks or insincere malcontents); the boiling down of complex stories into simple sound bytes often repeated without giving a broader context; the attention span shortening influence of computers and Internet resources; an economic system with stagnant wages that causes people to be more fixated on their own livelihoods than worrying about things elsewhere; decades of cultural fixation on the self and one’s own fulfillment; learned helplessness on the part of those who look at the state of the world and believe that their influence over government or ability to change anything is nil; intellectual relativism that says that all things are basically the same anyway; a xenophobic resentment of other countries or providing assistance to them informed somewhat by the aforementioned economic conditions that make people want to circle the wagons and protect our own jobs, country, etc.
There are other causes, but each of these in its way eats away at people’s ability or desire to be engaged. Pegg’s comments, however, appeal to our resulting need for simplistic scapegoating (I’m not saying that’s what he’s doing, but that in a sound-byte driven world, we gravitate toward the short questions and short answers)– i.e., fantasy movies make us babies with long childhoods, so we don’t engage. That’s something we can have quick, short responses to and not have to think about much.
I should also note that the “serious” movies of the 70’s usually did no more to encourage concern about social issues than entertainment today. The movies he mentions — The French Connection and Taxi Driver — have little to do with pertinent social issues that people would be moved to do something about.
Excellent clarification. You’re correct in how the dominant market forces have usurped our childhoods to maintain a pliant society. The things that made the original ‘Star Trek’ (truly a thinking person’s television show, despite NBC’s efforts to make it more “palatable” to audiences with increased action scenes) were utterly lost in J.J. Abrams’ reboot, which is one reason I dread the prospect of going to see the new Star Wars film. Nevertheless, the knowledge that he shot it on film, and breakdowns of what key scenes (such as the activation of the new Sith lightsaber) tell us about the characters and the story, pique my interest enough that I will take the risk.
But if you really look at what made shows like ‘Star Trek’ so enduringly popular, it was the social and political commentary. Rod Serling’s ‘The Twilight Zone’ was full of these commentaries, and they forced us to question societal norms and looming threats of the 1950s (McArthyism, atomic war, and totalitarianism, for example). Roddenberry offered a brighter vision of the future, but still asked that we keep open minds and recognize that for all we’ve accomplished, we still have a long way to go.
But when one looks at the continual reboots of these shows, those important factors were done away with, the characters reduced to caricatures of their previous incarnations, and the stories reduced to nothing more than cheap amusement park thrills and horror house scares. It’s obvious the writers and directors never once sat down and actually observed the original shows to see what truly made them so great. That’s deliberate, because if the reboots were to capture the true essence of those much-loved shows, audiences would be made to think, and the last thing the market wants is a thinking society capable of rendering its own decisions as to what is best for itself.
What we need are film-makers willing to go outside the Hollywood system again to make the kind of thinking persons’ films we need so badly. The whole reason we had the Hollywood Renaissance was because actors, writers, and directors were sick of producing the mindless tripe Hollywood demanded and so went outside the system to make their own films and tell the meaningful stories they wanted to tell.
Excellent follow-up, Mr.Pegg. Truly.
Nevertheless, when you have a few idle moments to spare, please review the worldwide box office grosses for 1970 – 73. Not all was gold, by a long shot. We all fall prey to looking through rose-colored glasses.
Lastly, as to your comment, “There was probably more discussion on Twitter about the The Force Awakens and the Batman vs Superman trailers than there was about the Nepalese earthquake or the British general election” — bread and circuses, nothing surprising about it.
I have to say that your piece, no wait , the entire edifice on which you stand is undermined by your image.That top banner could be an alternate banknote, a Peggster Pound, from some remote island owned and ran by a particularly nerdy chap who’s passion is bowls (which he’s crap at), so much so that its the only sport on the curriculum. Forgive me but isn’t that a knitted tanktop or cardigan? I’m hoping this is tongue in cheek though i can’t help thinking this is a serious stab at seriousness.
I’m hoping, nay praying that from the waist down you’re sporting a nappy and flippers with one hand holding a pipe. If , god forbid, you’re in cordouroy trousers and slip ons i will never, ever watch another one of your films!
Seems Simon upset the hard of thinking. Not all sci fi and fantasy is good, and some of it is just cynical money making with little artistic merit. Controversial? Sue me.
In a way its kind of ironic, that comments intended to be about the infantization of the western world are taken out of context in one of the most infantile ways… I mean, one only has to read a single blog post from Ryan Holiday to realize just how easily the entire media machine is manipulated into regurgitating some half thought out childish opinion based on pure and utter bullshit. It doesn’t even matter if you didn’t say any of the things quoted on io9, people would still throw a massive social networking temper tantrum about it and the media machine never bothers correcting itself even when they get it wrong. In fact i think trying to clarify your clearly benign intentions to a nation of idiots is the last thing you should be doing, because they’re so surreptitious it doesn’t really matter what you say, if you make an intelligent argument, their small minded brains will throw out all the big words their small minds didn’t understand, and take the other parts out of context, filling in the blanks with their own idiotic assumptions to make you out to be their own veritable strawman. I got what you meant the first time around. There are certain things you take as a given, if you’re intelligent, if you have common sense. You don’t have to explain why the Michael Bay type explosions and action are just the pulp cinematic equivalent of childishly smashing some action figures together, and you don’t have to apologize for wanting sci fi to be more adult in its terms of themes than a simple, good guy wins, bad guy dies, sort of thing thats indistinguishable from the games kids play in their backyard. You don’t have to spell it out for people like they’re children. And the fact that they think you should have to, is embarrassing for the human race.
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And to think I was going to boycott Star Trek Beyond because you were writing it. It seems you have a habit of speaking before you think. It’s probably for the best that you left your twitter account to be handled by your assistants. I’ve dialed back my own social media presence on account of my own foot in the mouth behavior. You seem to be genuinely apologetic about offending people with your statements. I hope that is the case. Your friend Bob Orci could learn a thing or two about appropriate online behavior and taking genuine criticism without throwing a fit. Anyways, I enjoyed reading this blog post. Good luck with the screenplay for Star Trek Beyond. I hope you’re enjoying the journey of writing for the Trek franchise as much as you do playing Scotty.
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I agree that science fiction is not a dumb genre (far from it). As a woman born in 1971 I was often ridiculed for being a Trekkie. (Born in Poland, have lived in Sweden before I turned 10). I was actually a really good student, and became a lawyer to no one’s surprise, not before graduating from High School in Minneapolis (USA) at the age of 16 and becoming a mother in 1990. There was no box anyone could fit me into, although many have tried. You have to fit into a box and the box has to have a label telling others who you are. Otherwise the people around you just can’t function. I noticed at a very early age that there were two kind of sci-fi nerds. (I’m simplifying of course since no one can fit perfectly into a labeled box). One kind understands the underlying meaning of the genre. Gene Roddenberry’s “agenda” of bringing up “forbidden” subjects and getting away with it, since what happened on an imaginary planet could never have anything to teach humanity about being human. It was but a fairy tale, a fantasy, something for children and couldn’t possibly have any kind of political ideas hidden n the plot. Right?
Then there is a different kind of nerd whose admiration for science fiction was…, let’s say less complicated. This group has a larger passion for the starships and the fights. One group was eager to ask Kirk or Picard about dark matter and phasors (at fan gatherings or what not). Others asked Mr Stewart or Mr Nimoy for an autograph after making an effort to read a little about dark matter and other strange things mentioned in Star Trek and other Sci-Fi shows or movies. Some of us (Me) still have no idea what or how this universe really is, or how many multiverses there might be out the. Even if God created it all, then from what and how? Some of us don’t get that part, but we do understand the fiction part of it all. “The hidden agenda”. No conspiracies that it, but the many questions that came up in a galaxy far away, but might as well be about us. Many times the stories are about humanity, our planet, out purpose our weaknesses and strengths, but those questions are overlooked or not as entertaining as the starships.
At a time when a moon landing is just too boring to give a crap about, it is still very important not to utter the wrong word about a movie. I think I’d better stop now because you either get it by now or you never will. And that’s ok. What a dull universe (or whatever the right term might be) it would be if we all could fit into the same box. I’m sure you’d say it would be a boring place. But why then do people STILL try to cram me into that darn box? I’ll soon be 44 years old. Will people ever give up or will they be happy only after I am cut into pieces just so they can finally close the lid and label this stupid box? Is the label even written yet or will that take about 50 years as well?
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Simon, you are free to pursue whatever project you want. You have been the victim of the reactionary internet where people form opinions based on a headline.
I have always enjoyed your work and look forward to the new Star Trek movie.
Best of luck.
Cheers!
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This is the same guy who did Shaun of the Dead, yes? Fun movie, but not exactly Citizen Kane. That’s a lot of words to say you f’d up. I’m sure this “apology” has nothing to do with the fact that you want your movies to continue to make money. Because that would be capitalism and that would be wrong, right. It’s all about the “art”.
Well written, articulate and intelligent. It’s nice now and then to see that behind the wide array of characters played by “actors”, there is also a mind, unafraid to speak out,.. maybe not often wisely, but that is what makes us human.
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Hi Simon.
A great riposte to what I feel is a straw man accusation, and a source of some mild cultural anxiety for me, as someone who enjoys comics and science fiction, with Darth Vader and Doctor Doom favourite fictional characters, but has also ‘grown up’ since and likes to challenge themselves with more canonical forms of art, especially modernist music and literature (I don’t know why people think it is obsolete – I don’t feel Postmodernism is a replacement, more a lazy diversion).
How we get to high culture is usually by means of education, curiosity or sometimes Tom and Jerry cartoons (Cat concerto being one that drew me to classic music in my youth). I think the curious mind is never quite satisfied with pop culture, especially of a self-referential nature, (as cool at it seemed in my teens), and will aspire to know more background and context in which their favourite fictions/properties are produced. You have hit the nail on the head here, and it is refreshing to read someone who knows the role sci-fi/fantasy play in the lives of people, It certainly served as escapism during medical , and as corollary, social difficulties as a teenager. Some people will always want to escape into these worlds because the real world is complex and sometimes harrowing, but I found this state of fantasy is fragile and life is harder to deal with if that dream-state is interrupted. That’s why I like to know what’s happening in politics, economics and society, and to practice skepticism in most matters.
I definitely feel that popular science fiction could learn something from the harder writers of the past, and experiment more in form AND content. I know Star Trek: The Motion Picture isn’t popular, but it felt like the most authentic of the films, and is my favourite from a conceptual standpoint, but then I love the ideas of Clarke, Asimov and their mutual friend, Dr Carl Sagan. I want Sci-Fi to be big again.
I hope Star Trek Beyond offers greater scope than what we’ve been used to.
Cheers
Tom.
Don’t back out now. You’re right and you should stand up for it. This has been widely discussed in academia* for some time now, the effects of mass-produced popular culture–and especially TV and movie culture–on the general population. They’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter how intelligent or educational it is, staring at the idiot screen has the same effect on you. It’s a distraction. It rewires your brain. It makes you compliant.
Turns out Orwell didn’t have it entirely right. We never needed two-way telescreens to control the people. We only needed the screen to go one way. Long as our brains are properly numbed we’re no threat to anyone.
You’re going to get blowback for saying things like this. All I can say is that if you want to be able to look at yourself in the mirror in the long run, take whatever earnings you get from the next film, invest them wisely, and then say what you really think and let the chips fall where they may. That’s the problem with the money economy, it makes cowards of us all. Don’t let that happen to you when you have an out.
[*Not that I think academia are the be-all, end-all but sometimes you need that degree of distance from normal society to really see the patterns of what is happening in society.]
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IO9 misrepresenting the facts? WHAT’S GOING ON WITH THE WORLD!!!!!!!?????
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You are awesome. Keep being awesome.
McLuhan said “Advertising is the art form of this century
or so.
Today, all media arts serve to sell lifestyles which manufacturing can fill with unneeded (superhero) merchandise, the only rhetoric employed is to render the audience comfortably numb, while their attention is being sucked out.
Great article, this needed to be said, and it’s a sorry world where you have to apologize for this
If I’d been hauled up by the testicles (figuratively of course) every time I said something to convey a broader message, without carefully considering how many different ways it could be used against me, I’d be constantly tripping over them!!!
“p.s. Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan are also Stormtroopers in The Force Awakens.”
Hah, I wonder how many news websites will take that to be serious too.
Well . . . no.
First, I would refer you to C.S. Lewis:
“Critics who treat ‘adult’ as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
Once you grok that and get past treating “childish” as a weapon to attack the hobbies of others, you can begin to learn to accept people liking different hobbies, including different expressions of art. Taking your examples specifically:
Mad Max: Fury Road was . . . weak. The “multiple layers of plot and character” were shallow and distracting to the point of the spectacle becoming the only unifying factor.
It wasn’t a Mad Max movie, with Imperator Furiosa as the guest ally.
It wasn’t the start of an Imperator Furiosa series, set in the world of Mad Max, with a guest appearance by Mad Max.
It was a Michael Bay effects-fest, with random pretenses of plot and character development attempting to string together rehashes of the chase scenes from The Road Warrior.
Genre intensive to be sure, but high art? Not even close.
Frank Miller’s Dark Knight was adult all on its own. It did not require Christopher Nolan to up it.
Which is not to take away from Nolan’s achievement. Especially when viewed in direct sequence, the degree of foreshadowing is astounding, not to mention the character development from one movie to the next.
As for “fascistic vigilantism” being held to “account”, how much more needed to happen to the man?
He lost the woman he loved, his health, his reputation, even his wealth. And then he had to “die” to actually “rise”.
And did you forget Lucius Fox threatening to quit over the spy device in The Dark Knight, and the voiceover about trust being rewarded?
It would seem you missed a considerable portion of the woods the movie was searching for the trees of “adulthood”.
That brings us to Game of Thrones and George RR Martin.
No, I wouldn’t accuse it of being childish.
I also would not herald it as an expression of musings on ambition, power, and lust.
Instead I would leave it as it is – an indulgence in paraphilias under the pretense of realism.
Any musings on ambition and power were lost by the middle of the second book in an ocean of gratuitous torture, sexual abuse, and “alternative” sexual attractions.
As for it not being done 10 years ago, surely you know that the first book was published 20 years ago.
Or do you just want to restrict that to film? Allow me to introduce you to Flesh + Blood, a historical piece from Paul Verhoeven (before he trashed Starship Troopers), released in 1985. Now THAT was a gritty, realistic, movie! Okay, so it didn’t have dragons. Whatever. It “only” had Jennifer Jason Leigh running around wearing as much as Daenarys Targaryen, while Rutger Hauer and Brion James cutting down people with style that Jaime Lannister could only dream about. Yeah baby! That title is pure truth in advertising.
I know, you want a TV series. How about War of the Worlds, from 1988 to 1990? It was network, so no nudity, and sci-fi instead of fantasy, but in terms of character abuse, I dare you to watch it straight through and not contemplate ultimate doom at the endless string of pyrrhic victories before the sudden cancellation Hollywood ending.
Sorry dude, but been there, done that.
Oh, and the literary content? Bio of a Space Tyrant by Piers Anthony, 5 books 1983-1986, covered much of the same territory in terms of sexual content without the torture pr0n, and with some real musings on ambition and power, not to mention Robert A. Heinlein and the social and sexual themes of Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) and Time Enough For Love (1973). So even there Martin is decades late, despite being millions of dollars ahead.
Art criticism has its place.
Study of the tropes and archetypes involved has its place as well.
But trying to make it an issue in order to score points?
Arguing chocolate vs. vanilla ice cream will get your further and be more “adult”.
Simon hit on some great points about infantilizing adults. I am constantly reminded of Huxley’s Brave New World. The various caste were kept infantilized and distracted with drugs(soma), sex, and music/entertainment.
Grown men today know more information about the inner workings of the Klingon High Council than they do about the workings of their own governments and control systems.
Bread and circuses in the end. Keep people fat (with food stamps/the dole) and entertained and they will be too content to object to how they are controlled. Its like Huxley said in a lecture at Berkley some time in 1962. There are methods of control being developed that will cause people to love their servitude.
Bertrand Russell wrote “A revolt of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organized insurrection of sheep against the practice of eating mutton.” in regards to the methods of control being developed in his day.
Phillip K. Dick was famous for his paranoid delusions but something that always struck me were claims he made that he had been contacted to implant certain ideas in his writings by some shadowy group. He claimed he refused but felt other authors may have been approached to do the same thing. He attempted to contact the FBI about his claims. I have no proof either way but in light of the ongoing discussion it is interesting to ponder the implications.
Long before Star Wars there was James Bond and many other movies that were mainly spectacle. The rise in “spectacle” movies has really been a product of the special effects industry rather than the silly notion of some capitalist conspiracy to dumb people down by a liberal Hollywood machine. As special effects got better and less costly this obviously allowed the comic book, sci fi and fantasy genres to put ideas on screen which were never feasible before and people obviously are interested in seeing these worlds and ideas which are now only limited by the imagination.
The idea of an extended childhood is interesting. To have a discussion on the topic though you first have to have a definition of what “being an adult” means. Traditionally, people would finish school, get married, have kids and would then take care of their family and kids and this is what being an adult has traditionally meant. The 60s brought about chages where people became more selfish and these norms changed. Women became more focused on careers rather than children and the family structure became less important. Promiscuity increased and now many men and women are more concerned with getting free milk rather than buying the cow as the expression goes. As the focus on family and kids has decreased people have a lot more time to indulge their own aspirations and whims. This is not always a bad thing, but as generations have continuously become more selfish, there are some that take this to a negative level. When you’re 35 and living in your parents’ basement this irresponsibility could easily be seen as a problem.
Regarding Pegg’s main premise, the reality is that we are being brainwashed on a national level. Men are being demonized under the flag of radical feminism and false stories (Rolling Stone’s excoriated rape story for example) are perpetuated to the public. Whites are being demonized with racist logical fallacies such as “white privilege”. America’s history is being demonized and we are being taught self hate for actions that were committed worldwide and that we have no responsibility for (ironically it’s being done by a political party that actually committed the bulk of slavery). We are being sold “climate change” so that politicians can convince the uninformed that the world will end if you don’t vote for them (as if the climate hasn’t been changing for billions of years and we should just accept computer models that have been consistently wrong). It seems the hypocritic actors demonizing capitalism from their mansions that capitalism built are endless. Christians are having Constitutional rights take away, usurped by the made up right to redefine words. Free speech is being demonized by an ever growing leftist thought police with political correct types now trying to burn down the lives of all who have a different opion. Morals have been flipped where lying, rioting, looting and the assault of innocents is excused while the truth is suppressed and branded racist. Success is being demonized by class warfare and Marxist constructs such as “wealth inequality”. True equality under the law is being attacked with racist and sexist programs under the flag of affirmative action.
The reality is that we are being lied to, divided and conquered through mental rape by the Hollywood music industry, the movie industry, TV entertainment, TV and print media and via the Internet and social media. Pegg’s blog is just another example. The illustrations of this in the movie industry vary from total propaganda such as the atrocious movie “Cloud Atlas” to little jabs such as Tim Robbins’ comment about “occupations never succeed” in War of the Worlds, referencing liberal talking points regarding the Iraq war. You can view 12 Years A Slave and see where the director demonized whites by having an evil white man kill a black man and throw his body overboard (in the real story the black man died of smallpox). The examples of leftist ideological subversion are endless. To understand this, one needs to investigate Yuri Bezmenov, but that’s beyond the scope here. Pegg illustrates all this himself with words and phrases like “feminism was still dismissed as a lunatic fringe by the patriarchal old guard” and Marxist buzzwords like “inequality”, “economic injustice” and moral twisting ideals such as describing the capture of criminals as “fascistic vigilantism”.
Where Pegg really loses his mind, is in suggesting that we need MORE of this. I couldn’t disagree more. We are indeed being dumbed down, but it’s not by movies with no real message, but by movies that constantly send all the wrong messages. Learning nothing is better than learning lies. Movies have always been an escape and that’s hardly a bad thing. What Pegg doesn’t get is that many are trying to escape the abuse of entertainment that Pegg seems to favor. There’s nothing wrong with deep movies that make you think, the problem is when those with hidden agendas use entertainment to lead you to a false conclusion and tell you what to think. Sorry Pegg, love your movies, but the last thing we need is our only escape taken away.
I think you’re politicizing a discussion about artistic merit and cultural significance.
Nothing to do with what you wrote and what you think – just want you to know that “Paul” is simply the funniest film EVER, I love every second of it, and all the allusions hidden, and not so hidden in there are pure genius.
I believe the phrase you may be looking for is “psychological neoteny”
more general information on neoteny here as well,
(CTRL-F “psychological neoteny”)
but therehave been serious studies of what may be happening culturally in response to, essentially, the precursor to the Rich economy/cultural singularity (I know, seems like stretching a bit, but it’s an interesting speculation)
replying to myself to include another link re:“psychological neoteny”
http://www.laurakkerr.com/2014/02/20/globalization-psychological-neoteny/
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Hard to believe how much utter b******* this post has generated…….
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