Fantasy Fanatics

Twenty of the top twenty-one world wide box office movies are some form of fantasy. The situation doesn't change much until we get down into second fifty, where comedy, drama, and historical fiction (also the genre of Titanic, the all-time champ and single exception in the top twenty-one) offer some modest competition.

This doubtless says something important about the state of our civilization - probably that reality is too boring and unpleasant to be interesting. I'm a fantasy fan myself, but I like to keep my fantasy separate from reality, in contrast to those who prefer to conflate the two - Fox News fans and dittoheads, for example.

The best fantasy offers an alternate reality with a rationale, logic, and characters preferable to our own. These fantasies attract subcultures of fanatics who live more in that reality than our own. Lord of the Rings fans who learned Sindarin (an elvish language), Trekkies, and Potterheads can bring an incredible devotion to their subject. Hard core Potter fans, for example, can tell you not only mundane details like the names of the three European schools of magic, and the model of broom that Harry rides, but also exotica, like the color of the dress robes Hermione wore to the Yule Ball (periwinkle blue) and the last word of Book Five (wake).

Thanks to this fanaticism, and the much larger numbers of slightly less devoted fans who nevertheless buy all the books, see all the movies, and buy the DVD's, Jo Rowling is tied for 746th (and last) on Forbes list of the world's billionaires.

Which reminds me - I need to go out and buy the DVD of Goblet of Fire, which, unfortunately, the director really made a mess of. Better buy the two DVD extended edition - maybe the deleted scenes are better than the stuff they actually put in the movie.

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