Fantastical!

by Bindi, Co-site author

Picture this: it's Tuesday night, and you find yourself without anything to do. (Okay, so you could be studying for that major exam in history tomorrow, but that's not really at the top of your priority list.) So you grab the remote for the TV and plop yourself down on the couch, settling in for a night of escapism...only which world do you escape to?

Now let's face it: there's only so much we can take of the formulaic court dramas, medical dramas, and police dramas, and even comedy shows often get repetitive. Why? Because they're rooted in reality. Not that I have anything against reality, mind you, but don't we get enough of that--in real life--as it is? Sometimes, don't you feel like watching something completely off the wall? Something entirely...fantastical?

The fact is that no matter how much we scoff at having to suspend all disbelief when engaging in purely fantastical, sci-fi, or horror entertainment, we enjoy it. It makes life interesting. It feeds the imagination. It lets us leave the world of grating reality behind and enter a world that, usually, is so much worse off than our own that we end up being grateful for our reality--and that is a feat almost impossible to accomplish.

Basically, the fantastical entertains us in a way that reality--no matter how many Survivor sequels are released--never can. And honestly, could you imagine a world of entertainment without the element of the fantastical? No Bewitched? No Gargoyles? No Superman?! How...dreary.

Take for example the popular video game series Final Fantasy. For those of you who are familiar with the game, could you ever imagine substituting the Paladin for a police officer? Or what about the the healer for a surgeon? And, if the game was reality-based, there would be no Phoenix Downs to bring you back to life when Emerald Weapon kicked your butt, no ethers to restore the magic points you used battling Ultimecia, and no Bahamut. No fun.

And what about those oh-so popular movies that we could never imagine having not seen? Ghostbusters continues to influence people's perception of psychic researchers to this day; The Exorcist is perhaps the classic horror movie; and, more recently, The Sixth Sense managed to simultaneously chill and astound its audience. So, to put it bluntly: reality dull, fantasy good.

Okay, maybe not always good. As it is all too frequently pointed out by many critics, several shows, movies, and books that revolve around the fantasy/sci-fi/horror genre typically just...suck. But, to avoid naming any names and risk angering anybody who's actually reading this, I'll refrain from naming any specifics (::cough:: Roswell ::cough:: Battlefield Earth ::cough:: Harry Potter ::cough::).

But on the other hand, there are plenty of reasons to absolutely worship this very same genre that produced such horrors as Scientology. Among these are Star Wars, The X-Files (in its glory days), and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. These names represent some of the finest this genre (or any, for that matter) has to offer, despite the Emmys completely snubbing Buffy this year (grrr...argh!).

And speaking of Buffy, was it Tuesday night? Well, I most certainly know what I'll be watching! I mean, come on, the show is fantastical!