
Adults' obsession with science fiction causing society to become infantilised - abhimskywalker
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/simon-pegg-adults-obsession-with-science-fiction-causing-society-to-become-infantilised-10259337.html
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notacoward
Seems to be less about _science fiction_ than about _comic books_ a.k.a.
graphic novels, and in that more restricted context he might have a point.
Generalizing wildly, that sub-genre really is a bit more escapist than SF
(including fantasy) overall. Escapism is a fine thing in moderation - all
entertainment has it as one element - but it can also be overdone. SF more
generally has as much interpersonal drama and social commentary as any other
genre. If you want to see some truly inane movies, "romantic comedy" is the
genre to look at. I guess taking pot shots at geeks was a better/safer way for
a second-rate actor to get some publicity, though.

~~~
fashionapp
Complaining about broad brush criticism of one genre then returning the favor
to another genre is hardly fair.

~~~
notacoward
Life's not fair, and I don't believe in giving everyone a trophy just for
participating. There really are some genres that are - in fact if not of
necessity - more or less devoid of intellectually stimulating content. That's
not the same as saying they cause some sort of mind-rot, which is an important
difference between my rejection of the OP's thesis and your rejection of mine.
Another important difference is that I made an actual counterargument instead
of just complaining. If you want to argue that (a) comics-based movies are no
more escapist than SF generally, or (b) romantic comedies as they actually
exist in theatres are something other than fluff, then you just go ahead.
That's the way we learn from each other. Complaining about "fairness" instead
of about the facts won't get anyone anywhere.

~~~
fashionapp
The main thing I disagreed with is that any one genre has a monopoly on
stupidity. Your comment is like quoting "She loves you yeah yeah yeah" to
dismiss the Beatles or pop music. A high premium placed on intellectualism
rather than work that engages the heart, the soul, the hips, discusses social
dynamics, and so forth.

Actually I mean romantic comedies in their entirety including all of film and
literature. Your perspective evinces a strong familiarity with SF and a
surface impression of recent romcoms but I could be wrong.

To me SF films are mainly about technology fetishism and the social commentary
is incidental.

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thaumaturgy
> _Adults are watching this stuff, and taking it seriously!_

Wait, seriously how? Who? How many of them?

> _Films used to be about challenging, emotional journeys._

Charlie Chaplin. Laurel and Hardy. Buster Keaton. John Wayne. Die Hard. Lethal
Weapon. Airplane.

The World's End.

> _Now we’re really not thinking about anything, other than the fact that the
> Hulk just had a fight with a robot.”_

Yep. I took an afternoon off to treat a few people to Age of Ultron. It was
awesome. Afterward, I went back to work.

I think this article can go sit right next to the nonsense about Clint
Eastwood and the empty chair: "Person states opinions about society and ends
up in the news because they're an actor, more at 11."

~~~
coldtea
> _Wait, seriously how? Who? How many of them?_

Too many, all arounds us. You wouldn't catch many 20 and 30 years old dead in
something like Comic-Con 30 years ago.

> _Charlie Chaplin. Laurel and Hardy. Buster Keaton. John Wayne._

Not sure how Chaplin, Keaton and John Wayne are in any way a counter-argument
about films being "challenging, emotional journeys".

Something like "The Searchers" is an order of magnitude more poignant and
challenging than Iron Man or Avengers. As for Chaplin, there's a reason he is
taught in film school, and that is not because he was merely popular and
funny.

> _Die Hard. Lethal Weapon. Airplane._

Only his point wasn't that there weren't slapstick or action movies back in
the day, mostly for mindless fun. Just that those kind of movies (and even
more naive "action" movies) are prevalent today with the 20-40 demographic,
something which wasn't the case in decades past.

~~~
thaumaturgy
> _You wouldn 't catch many 20 and 30 years old dead in something like Comic-
> Con 30 years ago._

BayCon has been around for 30 years. Before that, the niche interests just
change -- my dad and his friends have been dressing up in 20s garb and driving
20s cars to period events since the 60s. There are Civil War re-enactments and
sex clubs and costume parties and all sorts of things.

And anyway, making those things into an indictment of society at large is
silly, especially when there are so many trivially easy indictments of society
(like the way everyone always thinks this generation is worse than the ones
before it).

> _Something like "The Searchers" is an order of magnitude more poignant and
> challenging than Iron Man or Avengers._

Are you being disingenuous, or did you not realize you're cherry-picking here?
Spaghetti Westerns and shoot-em-ups and grindhouse films and silent comedies
have all occupied a place as entertainment alongside more serious films, and
"serious" films, if that's what you're into, are still alive and well.

Try comparing Laurel and Hardy's "A Perfect Day" to The Avengers while
comparing The Searchers to, I dunno, Gran Torino or Million Dollar Baby or
Interstellar or whatever your poison.

> _Just that those kind of movies (and even more naive "action" movies) are
> prevalent today with the 20-40 demographic, something which wasn't the case
> in decades past._

And my point is that he's wrong, and history proves it.

This is just a classic rose-colored glasses problem, that's all. People are
imagining history as they prefer to imagine it, not as it was.

This page has a picture of the nonexistent 20-40 year olds turning out to see
Stan Laurel in 1947: [http://www.nwemail.co.uk/memories/stan-at-queen-s-first-
roya...](http://www.nwemail.co.uk/memories/stan-at-queen-s-first-royal-
variety-show-1.1015949)

"When one goes, as I did recently, to a city like Chicago and finds on the
South Side, a district equivalent to New York’s Harlem, a two-million-dollar
building of a magnificence housing nothing but photoplays, and sees over four
thousand people packed in, watching and listening and obviously amused and
thrilled, he asks what all this means, and admits, unless he is a Dumbkopf,
the coming in of a new order. Particularly is he amazed and bewildered when,
in the same city, he witnesses a brilliant spoken farce-comedy, deftly played
by distinguished actors, given before half-empty benches – yet in the very
heart of the town. What is one to say in the light of such over-whelming
evidence? Simply that something has entered the world, suddenly, which grips
the people, appeals to them, rivets their attention, and drives them out of
the old established theatres."

That was written in 1921.

Context at
[https://nenaghsilentfilmfestival.wordpress.com/category/frid...](https://nenaghsilentfilmfestival.wordpress.com/category/friday-
facts/)

~~~
coldtea
> _BayCon has been around for 30 years._

Star Trek conventions and other stuff too. But all of those were a very fringe
thing to what Comic-Con is today, and were not attended by late-20 or
30-somethings...

> _Before that, the niche interests just change -- my dad and his friends have
> been dressing up in 20s garb and driving 20s cars to period events since the
> 60s. There are Civil War re-enactments and sex clubs and costume parties and
> all sorts of things._

A costume ball or a civil war re-enanactment (much less a "sex club") is not
the same kind of thing as a comics/star wars/etc based pop culture that's
mainstream with adults.

> _This page has a picture of the nonexistent 20-40 year olds turning out to
> see Stan Laurel in 1947_

Not sure what the relevance is. Stan Laurel was a comedian and a famous actor.
Nobody said comedy and movies weren't popular with adults.

We're talking about stuff like Batman and similar superhero stuff -- which was
something few 20-40 year olds cared for even in the early 80s.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Oh. Even monster movies like 1931's Frankenstein don't count? (Which grossed
$185 million in 2015 terms.)

Well, OK. I guess you can argue the "infantilisation" of society from the
narrowest possible definition so that it represents just one particular modern
fad. I guess that means you get to believe society is newly infantile up until
the novelty of realistic superhero movies wears off?

My mistake, anyway. I thought there was a debate over "this fad means society
is more infantile than it used to be", not, "superhero movies specifically
mean that society is now infantile". The first argument is common but wrong
and easily rebutted, the second one wouldn't've been worth the time.

------
kwhitefoot
Sci-fi seems to mean 'anything that looks vaguely technical in a story'.

SF, especially, hard SF, has always tackled grown up questions.

Here are a few I have recently re-read:

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, Saturn's Children by Charles Stross,
Engines Of Light by Ken McLeod, 2001 by Arthur C. Clarke, Robots of Dawn, etc.
by Isaac Asimov.

------
rwallace
I agree that society is becoming infantilized and this is a huge problem, but
I'm going to call a complete miss on the attempt to identify the cause. For
one thing, most adults are not fans of science fiction to any significant
degree, which means it can't be a significant factor.

------
CatsoCatsoCatso
The most extreme instance of this being the adults who watch (and take rather
seriously) My Little Pony? Something I've always found unsettling.

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chrismcb
I think someone completely missed the point of Avengers 2. He claims that
science fiction takes our focus away from real world issues (lets completely
ignore for the moment, that is the sole point of entertainment) But science
fiction in general typically tackles real world problems set in a different
place or time. Avengers tackled issues such as AIs and robots taking over
(While not an immediate issue, it is more important today than a few years
ago) Or giving up our freedom for security (basically locking humanity up in a
cage to protect them) Or the fact that someone who has altruistic intentions
could still harm someone. Science Fiction tends to tackle more "real world"
issues than many other forms of entertainment does.

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javajosh
To be honest I'm glad to hear any celebrity come out in support of
sophistication in entertainment or anything else. Of course, the irony is that
it is the public dependance on celebrity judgement that infantilizes society.
Precious few philosophers, writers, and thinkers every make any sort of impact
at all on the mainstream, and the ones that do _always_ have a celebrity to
thank for the exposure (and her name is usually "Oprah").

In any event, yeah, it's clear Pegg meant a certain sub-genre, comic-book
science fiction. There have been plenty of extraordinary SF films over the
years that are quite delicate and complex, Ex Machina not least among them.

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mercurial
This doesn't come off as particularly convincing. Is the argument that Fast
and Furious movies are "challenging, emotional journeys" while Iron Man isn't?

What I do find a bit concerning is the avalanche of super hero movies. While
I've been raised on a diet of French and US comics, and like a good braindead
super hero movie (or even less braindead, like Watchmen), monocultures are not
a good thing. More variety would be nice. But thinking they are more silly
than generic Hollywood blockbusters is a weird complaint.

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firegrind
The comment that this page reiterates concerns the garish, collectible candy
that Marvel and DC have made their stock-in-trade.

Folks who prefer their science fiction from the likes of Jack Womack, Cormack
McCarthy or any of the masters of science fiction need not be concerned.

Move along please, there's nothing to see here.

~~~
mercurial
I would like to mention that DC, under its Vertigo imprint, has published some
terrific adult-oriented comics (including Sandman). Not all comics involve
dimension-hoping shapeshifting vampires from outer space out to destroy NY
(and even some "regular" comics, like Frank Miller's Daredevil, have had some
good plotting, art and character development).

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coldtea
Good luck getting a lucid discussion about this on HN.

~~~
jusssi
The only discussion to be had about the article is:

"Since when has comicbook superhero garbage counted as scifi?" "It still
doesn't."

End of conversation.

~~~
coldtea
I rest my case.

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lightlyused
Projection?

~~~
coldtea
No, observation.

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jkot
Is there some browser extension to filter HN based on target domains?

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ghostberry
A bad case of rose tinted spectacles.

