20 January 2008

I agreed to watch an old Video of Song of the South the other night, and have to admit I enjoyed the fantasy production; it is charming.  I thought of it later, well really not about the video, but about the concept of fantasy; I thought a lot about it.

Fantasy is about something we wish could be or a pleasant story that is beyond the realm of any possibility - often cartoon-ized.  Cartoon fantasy is fun.  Quasi-real fantasy, such as Tom Cruise running the length of a train  launching itself off the side of a cliff, then jumping out and catching onto the strut of a following helicopter is something else, because to be honest too many people don't have the knowledge or understanding to know that it's fantasy.

Reality, as we all know, is fraught with disaster, both large and small; things frequently do not go as we would wish they would, causing pain or  unpleasantness.

My concern, being a dour realist, is the tendency in our culture to shun reality and flee to fantasy.  Daytime soap operas are perhaps the most obvious example, but most movies and weekend athletic events are right in there.  Reality can be too unpleasant, and fantasy is fun.

So what? you might ask.  Well, there are people out there who, if given the opportunity, will take full advantage of those living in a fantasy world to impose upon them (us) their own brand of reality.  They prey upon our fantasies to create their own, for themselves, at our expense.  The old saw, there is no free lunch, is substantially true, and although life is not generally a zero sum game, it can be made to be one: they win we lose.

So fantasy is bad?  Not when it is confined to the realm of innocent entertainment, and a break from stressful reality.  But when it begins to replace reality, and becomes a place to hide from the unpleasantness of the real world, yes, it can be bad.  Let's face it, reality is just what it purports to be - reality.  One can not hide forever from it, and trying to only makes unpleasant reality worse.  History is replete with examples, but for that matter so are many novels, those that are firmly entrenched in reality that is, and not fantasy.

Ahhh, I'm sorry, I forgot.  History is pase; who cares what happened once upon a time decades or centuries ago?  What possibly could we learn from that, as the world turns and the Super Bowl is about to start?