So in the absence of anything better, we went to see Catching Fire last night. It wasn’t bad at all and a lot better than the first movie in the trilogy. Definitely more expensive. I don’t know what they will do with part 3 since the last book in the trilogy was so weak that all I remember from it is the phrase “Let’s go to District13!”
What was quite disturbing, though, was seeing the previews. Of course, the previews for people who came to see a movie in the fantasy genre will be selected based on what these viewers might find appealing. Still, the sheer volume of escapism was unsettling. Vampires, Frankenstein (yet another one!), fantasy, Noah’s Ark with cute special effects, space monsters, more fantasy, and a movie starring Ben Stiller who fantasizes of being a superhero.
And look at the movie lineup. Is there anything about the reality we live in at your neighborhood theater?
Hasn’t the time come to stop escaping into fantasy and start becoming aware?
Clarissa's Blog 
I don’t think escapism has much to do with whether a story takes place in a fantasy setting or not. There are many stories that appear to be set in “the reality we live in” that have their own escapist plots – a lot of mainstream Hollywood movies are like that. Or they’re set in the past during some war or amid the upper classes of some era in the past, but also take great liberties with history and are a vehicle for escapism.
There are works in the fantasy genre that are insightful about human nature and can also look at social problems in interesting ways (well-written dystopian sci-fis are one example). But I’m not familiar with any of the movies you mentioned except for the Ben Stiller one, which I saw a commercial for, and could potentially be an interesting look at the psychology of escapism 🙂 I read the story in high school and don’t remember anything about it except Walter Mitty pretending to smoke a cigarette while facing a firing squad.
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So that’s the cinema of your choice? 🙂
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You don’t even mention the worst part!
Few people love escapist nonsense more than I do, but most of what passes for escapist nonsense now is dreary and soul-destroying.
The first time I was in Eastern Europe was 1984 and the signs were everywhere that it was an exhausted, finished system running on fumes while people waited for something to happen.
I get the same feeling from my own country now (and it’s not fun).
There is some decent tv from the US (Mad Men, Don’t trust the B- in 23 a few other things) but most US culture that I come across now has the rotten smell of decay all through it…..
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Speaking of the last book of the Hunger Games – I hear they’re splitting it into 2 movies, which will only make is less memorable… Boo hollywood money-grubbing.
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Wow, I have no idea how anybody can squeeze out enough substance for two movies out of that book. They will have to do some major writing which is unlikely since the first two movies follow the book so closely.
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The shamanic perspective is that nobody escapes anything. It always catches up with you sooner or later. States of dissociation need to be treated with respect, or else they become escapism and you pay for that with a loss of knowledge, awareness and power.
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Ha! I would like the person who disagreed with this statement to come forward.
For instance, how did they interpret it? Did they react to a feeling they had in relation to it, or do they know more about my theoretical platform than I do? Or was it offensive to mention the subject I did, rather than another subject?
Come on folks! You can learn to think and communicate for yourselves. It just takes lots of time, a bit of effort and the willingness to show some courtesy to others.
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Ah: http://gawker.com/manhattan-man-jumps-52-floors-to-death-with-child-in-ar-1488209248?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_facebook&utm_source=gawker_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
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C.S. Lewis and allegory.
Source: Carpenter 1978:30.
Lewis wrote to Tolkien on 7 December 1929, after reading
Tolkien’s poem on Beren and Luthien, “The two things that come
out clearly are the sense of reality in the background and the
mythical value: the essence of a myth being that it should
have no taint of allegory to the maker and yet should suggest
incipient allegories to the reader.”
And I would say that good fanasy literature should have some mythical value, in other words, it should say something about the human condition, about real life in the real world we live in.
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Considering Lord of the Rings was written to be a Catholic parable using the imagery of Germanic mythology, I think it’s pretty natural that fantasy should have some mythical value.
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I think Rush says it best
Limelight”
Living on a lighted stage
Approaches the unreal
For those who think and feel
In touch with some reality
Beyond the gilded cage
Cast in this unlikely role
Ill-equipped to act
With insufficient tact
One must put up barriers
To keep oneself intact
[Chorus:]
Living in the limelight
The universal dream
For those who wish to seem
Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation
Get on with the fascination
The real relation
The underlying theme
Living in a fish eye lens
Caught in the camera eye
I have no heart to lie
I can’t pretend a stranger
Is a long-awaited friend
All the world’s indeed a stage
And we are merely players
Performers and portrayers
Each another’s audience
Outside the gilded cage
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I understand escapism myself, that’s one of the reasons I write fiction. My job can be quite stressful at times and when I get home I don’t want to read or watch anything too realistic, especially since on TV or newspaper articles are nothing but negative crap about how bad everything is getting, crime, and such. I’m an LoTR geek and have most of the books, several other books, and the movies on BluRay, in a sense life in Middle Earth makes some sense. The bad guys are orcs and anyone who are their allies and the bad guys oppose them, good and bad are clearly demarcated. I’m also a double Pisces so escapism is a big thing with us, reckon it’s better to escape into fantasy fiction instead of drugs and alcohol.
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“reckon it’s better to escape into fantasy fiction instead of drugs and alcohol.”
– That is definitely true.
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