Karin Kross just posted an excellent piece on Tor.com about “dumb” action movies, nominally a review of Pacific Rim (which I haven’t seen) but with broader application to anything we tend to label as “dumb”:
Respectfully, I would like to disagree. Or at least, insist that we stop using the word dumb. Simple? Sure. Uncomplicated? Absolutely. Spectacular, in the truest sense of the word? Hell yes. But none of these things are dumb.
The rest of the article is worth reading for SFF readers, even if you haven’t seen Pacific Rim, because I believe many of us have the same tendency to label action-packed novels with the term “dumb” or a variant thereof. It’s as nonsensical to me as the term “guilty pleasure”, because really folks, it’s entertainment. If you enjoy it, enjoy it without guilt.
My less charitable side thinks that people who react this way after consuming some form of entertainment do it as a way of absolving themselves of responsibility: yeah, I liked it, but I know it’s dumb. Yeah, I liked it, but look, I even feel guilty about it. It’s a self-imposed, inwardly directed form of snobbery (I’m making myself feel bad for liking this) or, possibly, preemptive snobbery: I know people will make fun of me for liking this, so I’ll do it myself to disarm them.
Far Beyond Reality 