Film, literature, and many other forms of art offer human audiences an interpretation of social concepts that are otherwise confusing and complex. Fantasy film, and indeed other forms of fantasy work provide an escape from our often prosaic existences (Fabrizzi, 1). The concept of escape through th...
Film, literature, and many other forms of art offer human audiences an interpretation of
social concepts that are otherwise confusing and complex. Fantasy film, and indeed other forms
of fantasy work provide an escape from our often prosaic existences (Fabrizzi, 1). The concept of
escape through the complex, oblique, and thought provoking story telling in fantasy films is a
vital element of the genre. Recently, however, fantasy film has picked up a stronger and
empowering characteristic: challenging status quo. Over the years, society has organized itself in
patterns and sections that left parts of it vulnerable and oppressed. A representation of this aspect
of social organization in art has often been through mimesis. Mimesis is the imitation of reality
and is directly opposed to fantasy. Thus the role of fantasy is social criticism has been
overlooked throughout. Fantasy film, however, is disproving this theory of the unimportance of
art that deviates from direct representation of reality as will be shown in this paper. Fantasy has
the potential to challenge the status quo because it explores what is otherwise repressed.
Fantasy films circumvent social barriers that repress subjects in support of status quo by
changing the ground rules. According to Rosemary Jackson, by confounding aspects and
characteristic of the marvelous and mimetic, fantastic narrations assert what the audience holds
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to be objective reality then proceed to deconstruct reality with manifest unreality (23). The
common narrative of fantasies as narratives and representations of human characters occupying
non-human narratives is incorrect. As Jackson notes, fantasies use inversion of elements of the
real world to create and imaginary reality; “recombining its features in new relations to produce
something strange, unfamiliar, and apparently ‘new’ and different (8). This reconstruction of
reality allows fantasies to surpass and drastically stretch the limits of storytelling and in these
case film narrations. Contemporary art and film in recreating reality and interpreting social
contexts is wont to make invisible the unwanted and unnecessary. The fantastic, however, finds
this unsaid and unseen of culture and what the status quo has silenced and makes it visible and
heard (Fawkes, 32).
Harry Porter
Adapted from the fantasy literature work of J.K Rowling, Harry porter is the story of a
teenage boy who attends a witchcraft school. The school is located in a magical world containing
characteristics of contemporary Britain and a magical realm only accessible through a magical
platform in a London station. It’s main character is an outlandish teenage boy with unpopular
characteristics that gets peddled to heroism in a fantastic fashion. Presenting a magical world
situated between the real and the unreal offers the film a golden opportunity to use unreal
elements of the magical world to criticize the real world. The established status quo of the
western world revolves around a consumer and pop culture that has segmented society, at least
for young people, into the cool and the uncool. By elevating the uncool Harry and his uncool
friends into heroism, the film uses fantastic elements to call into question an important part of the
status quo.
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