Simon Pegg Calls Out 'Star Wars' For Having Most 'Toxic' Fandom—While Praising 'Star Trek' Fans

From
https://www.comicsands.com/simon-pegg-star-wars-toxic-2657709787.html

Actor Simon Pegg spoke out against a certain fan base he said was "kind of toxic."

The veteran British actor and screenwriter who appeared in major sci-fi franchises like Star Wars and Star Trek, recently expressed his objection to Star Wars diehards.

Mostly White cisgender male members of the fandom have been called out repeatedly for the racism, homophobia and misogyny that's rampant in the Star Wars fan spaces, especially online.

While the toxic members claim it's because they're passionate and protective of the original trilogy that launched the franchise in 1977, Star Wars actors and creatives have called bullsh*t on that excuse.

Their "protective" instincts flare on any whisper of diversity beyond White, male, cisgender heteronormativity.

 

LoL! He must not know many Star Trek fans.

 

Aside from a few flustered people who got a little too mad about Discovery, I honestly don't see it in the Star Trek fandom the excesses I've seen in Star Wars one (See for example the death threats to the actor who played Jar Jar Binks or the racist remarks about Moses Ingram)

 

Don't forget the horrendous shit Kelly Marie Tran had to deal with.

 

Yep, the two fandoms are not really comparable.

 

I'm a life-long fan of both, but never dumb enough to hate on an actor because of someone else's bad plotting and writing. They all tend to do their best with what they are given.

 

Both Trek and Wars fandoms have their share of bad apples, though I guess Star Wars fandom's dark side is a bit more high profile. I think the only time bigotry amongst Star Trek fans got any attention outside of fandom circles was last year when Memory Alpha refused to acknowledge the Star Trek Discovery character Adira as non-binary because it had never been established onscreen, which got called out by actors on the Disco cast, such as Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz.

Still, even that, horrible as it was, is nothing compared to the treatment Kellie Marie Tran or Moses Ingram got from SW fandom.

 

Its not just the fandom (where notorious YouTubers such as Nerdrotic, The Quartering, Geek n Gamers, Clownfish TV, Overlord DVD, et al. have created a White Griveance cottage industry), but Disney's Lucasfilm. Look no further than the mishandling of Boyega as actor, from his racialized, modern-day minstrel stereotyping as Finn, to the undeniable marginalizing of him in all advertising materials for China (and other international markets with a hatred of black people). Then, take Boyega's own complaints about the way he was treated compared to Ridley and Driver and its evidence enough that the self-identified most aggressively liberal/progressive entertainment company in the world forget that dubious title when it comes to black males.

....and no, the Reva addition to the Obi-Wan Kenobi series does not "make-up" for that.

I've never considered Pegg much of an insightful man, but for once, he's not far off the mark. He just needed to take aim at Disney's Lucasfilm to see what spawned many of the issues in question.

 

They’re more toxic because there’s a heck of a lot more of them than Trek fans.

 

Not surprising considering Star Wars is a white people only movie.

 

There's a reason why I limit my contact with either franchise's "fandom", or indeed, fandoms in general. Cliques repulse me. They always seem to amplify to most extreme positions, and there's always some obnoxious fucker desperate for the spotlight, no matter how tiny and dim.

I've been around long enough to see about every kind of bigotry on display, every kind of groupthink opinion regurgitated in lieu of critical thought, or as a homunculian facsimile of a personality, and it's all so very deeply tedious and exhausting to witness. These days I generally don't engage. I find arguing the point only amplifies it. Better to let the small minded mewling of witless fools die in darkness.

 

Maybe there is the same percentage of bad apples in both fandoms and simply Star Wars one is more numerous?

I don't really know.

 

Probably, yeah. Also, Star Wars is generally a higher profile franchise than Star Trek anyway, which is likely another factor as to why its toxic fandom gets noticed more.

 

Back in 2013 he called it asinine and crass and frustrating for fans to rank ID as the worst ST film.

Most liked a lot nonwhite and nonmale characters from the pre-Disney films. And OTOH Anakin was very widely hated before the Disney era.

I do think people should and wish they would separate the actors from the characters and yes put most of the blame on the writers.

 

You don't believe in The Beatles, you just believe in you?

 

There are certainly toxic Star Trek fans as well as toxic Star Wars fans, judging by posts I've seen over the years on this board. It's less understandable for Star Trek given the nature of the Federation - perhaps it's the uniforms and the guns, although not really any leather apart from in the Mirror Universe. At least toxic Star War fans can be understood as having succumbed to the Dark Side.

 

Both fandoms have their toxicity, but Star Wars fans do seem to take it to more of an extreme that Star Trek fans.

 

Star Wars is, by definition, a fantasy franchise about killing and violence, and these traits permeate every significant iteration of the property. (Rebels, for instance, is insanely violent and death-packed for a kids' show, even if said violence is of course as sanitized as possible.) This helps to explain why it's more popular than Trek, and just maybe is a clue as to why it might appeal to certain less open-minded individuals.

 

Well, it's called "Star Wars", not "Star People-Who-Try-To-Resolve-Their-Divergences-In-A-Peaceful-And-Constructive-Way".

 

Why does that man have a talent for being hypocritical, sometimes? There are toxic fans in so many franchises that I cannot keep count. The Star Wars fandom is more known than the others - including Star Trek's. But I don't believe it's the most toxic.