Being a fan of any nerdy property can open the door to some toxic fans. There will be those who say that they’re a bigger fan just because they were there from the start, and then there will be others who just completely misunderstand the messaging of the property they love. So when Simon Pegg—known for his work in Edgar Wright’s Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, as well as his role as Scotty in the Kelvin Universe Star Trek movies and lending his writing talents to Star Trek Beyond—said that Star Wars has the most toxic fandom, he wasn’t wrong.
During an interview on the Sirius XM radio show called Jim and Sam, Pegg was asked about which fandom has the most toxic fans. Pegg is a part of all of these fandoms in some capacity, so he does have a bit of an idea on how they react to things. The question focused on Doctor Who, Star Trek, and Star Wars. “To be honest—and as someone who kind of was, you know, kicked off about the prequels when they came out, the Star Wars fan base really seems to be the most kind of toxic at the moment. I’m probably being very controversial to say that,” Pegg said.
He’s not controversial; it’s true.
Pegg’s own past with Star Wars
Now, Pegg isn’t innocent. He talked in the interview about his own reactions to the prequels and, particularly, his reaction to Jar Jar Binks—the problem there being that actor Ahmed Best has been very vocal about what the hate for his character did to him, and so it is nice, in this instance, that Pegg is owning up to his own faults in this discussion.
“I mean, I’m out of it now … I’ve apologized for the things I said about, you know, Jar Jar Binks. Cause of course there was a fucking actor involved. He was getting a lot of flack and … It was a human being. And because it got a lot of hate, he suffered, you know, and I feel terrible about being part of that,” he added.
The problem is that it hasn’t stopped there. I remember the prequel hate. I was someone who loved them, and saying that meant dealing with an influx of people saying I wasn’t really a fan of Star Wars when, on the contrary, I was watching those movies as I was growing up, so you know … who Star Wars is meant for. The growing animosity within the fandom comes from a slew of extremists who think their way of thinking about Star Wars is the only “right” way.
It’s not. They’re normally racists/sexists who think they know more, and yet I could most definitely school them in Star Wars trivia and they’d probably say I cheated, but my point is that these people are ruining the franchise for a lot of fans because they make it insufferable to be online and talk about the series. I have personally decided that I will continue to talk about Star Wars, and if they have a problem with my opinion, I’ll simply rewatch Revenge of the Sith and carry on with my day because their bad opinions shouldn’t ruin something I love.
But they also need to be stopped from attacking actors for simply existing in this franchise.
Star Trek vs. Star Wars
Now, Pegg has been a part of the Star Trek world since 2009, and while Trek has its own problems with fans, it isn’t to the same level as Star Wars because if a Star Trek fan starts complaining about diversity in the franchise, then you know that they were … never a fan to begin with. But also, the Star Trek fandom isn’t perfect. They were aggressively mean about the Kelvin movies (which rule, I don’t care), and they love to complain about newer Trek properties, but the series was born out of inclusivity and diversity, and so it does have that advantage over Star Wars.
Pegg went on to talk about the Star Trek fandom, saying, “I find the Star Trek fans have always been very, very inclusive, you know, Star Trek’s about diversity. It has been since 1966, it always was.” He’s definitely referring to the influx of hate from the Star Wars fandom for actors like Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Moses Ingram, Kelly Marie Tran with her sequel trilogy role of Rose Tico, John Boyega for his role as Finn, and even, to an extent, Daisy Ridley, for Rey, for daring to be a woman who is a powerful Jedi. It’s sad that there are this many very public examples.
Most recently, Moses Ingram was attacked on her social media accounts after the premiere of Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the initial (frankly racist) reactions to her character all were moot by the end because Reva had one of the best character arcs in the series. And the anger was quickly drowned out by those who love the character, but it’s still there, and they’re still attacking those actors just trying to do their jobs, and that’s what’s not okay.
Pegg concluded, “There’s no sort of like, ‘Oh, you’re suddenly being woke.’ No Star Trek was woke from the beginning, you know? … This is massively progressive. Star Wars suddenly there’s, there’s a little bit more diversity and everyone’s kicking off about it. And it’s, it’s really sad.” And he’s right. Trek has always been about what the world should look like and be, and it made history time and time again. While we had characters like Lando Calrissian in the original Star Wars trilogy, that franchise is getting better about inclusion, but it has also ushered in a world of hatred from supposed “fans” who don’t like it.
Yes, “fans” is in quotation marks on purpose because those who hate the diversity happening in Star Wars or complain about how “woke” it is never understood the franchise in the first place. So, Simon Pegg is completely right. The most toxic fandom right now is Star Wars, but I’d also argue that those who are toxic and complaining about the “wokeness” of Star Wars now are not actually fans of the franchise.
(featured image: Paramount)
