Fantasy fan hates himself . Curious piece from Sandy Starr in Spiked, where he admits to enjoying the rise of fantasy culture represented by the Lord of the Rings Oscar sweep, but doesn't want it to go too far, in case it saps his political will:
The broader reason why mainstream society has become more disposed to immerse itself in fantasy is because of a general cultural stagnation that exists today. At a time when we feel less certain of our ability to impact on the world around us, we tend to retreat into fantasy worlds instead. One consequence of this is that we are increasingly more comfortable contemplating the ins and outs of life in Tolkien's Middle-Earth, than we are confronting the ins and outs of life on Earth proper. As Hollywood serves up ever more lavish fantasy spectacles for us to marvel at, the society that lies outside of the cinema and the comic shop stagnates.Might it not be quite the opposite, as Marc Pesce and Douglas Ruskhoff have argued: that a generation whose culture sees its fantasies become reality (or at least CGI verisimilitude on the big screen) takes reality itself as much less fixed and determinist than previous generations? And thus amenable to structural change?
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