Falling Into Fantasy

[Starr Polish]

The TIME article (up on TOR.n) inspired me to write a little about why 'popular culture' is veering to the past...fantasy, rather than what had been the 'fad' for awhile, or the future/sci-fi. If this is in the wrong forum please move it!

I don't think anyone can deny the sudden surge in popularity of fantasy anything, be it books, games (electronic and card), and movies. Most of us, if not all, have seen this first hand. Why does it feel like fantasy has suddenly become the chosen genre for not just geeks, but mainstream society?

Well, of course, you have to look back, since Lord of the Rings became popular, fantasy has been fairly popular and steadily growing. But with the explosive and long popularity of sci-fi, including Star Trek and Star Wars, it is a bit suprising that fantasy has become as popular as it has in the past few years.

Yes, we have the Peter Jackson movies to blame, or praise. Regardless what you think of the movie, he has brought one of, if not THE, most beloved fantasy stories to life on screen, with huge success. There have to be other things as well. Why has society stopped looking to the future and began looking to the past?

My guess, though not backed by any research other than my own observations, would have to be how quickly we are advancing. Technology has made people more distant, through contact that involved nothing but unpersonalized words on a computer screen. Some people may be unconciously thinking of a '1984' scenario and are somewhat wary of technology and where it would take us. At what I think to be the breakthrough period of sci-fi (when Star Wars came out), mainstream society was looking forward to the future with its technological advances that were supposed to make life easier. Imagining how life would be if our technology were incredibly advanced was, and still is, a type of fantasy. Now that we have reached the Technological Age, life isn't any simpler. In fact, it's much more complicated and hectic then it has ever been. Perhaps we're returning to the fantasy genre because it generally looks to times that represent the past, and thus we think 'simpler'. Are we right to think that it was a simple life? No, not necessarily, but that is how we tend to view it. A time with kingly men, 'good old fashioned war-fare', and knowing that in good time, evil shall fall is probably what most people are thinking of now. With war all around us (and as an American, I cannot help but relate this to the September 11 attacks, 'War on Terrorism', and Iraq) we don't want to think about the future, which is terribly uncertain. Why not look to the past, where we know (or at least, we think we know) how things will be.