{"id":664,"date":"2018-09-16T09:39:52","date_gmt":"2018-09-16T15:39:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/?page_id=664"},"modified":"2018-09-16T09:39:52","modified_gmt":"2018-09-16T15:39:52","slug":"jfa-27-2-2016","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/jfa-27-2-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"JFA 27.2 (2016)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction: Big Phanta versus Home Cures <\/strong><\/h3>\n

It is sort of thrilling to be able to complain about fantasy success stories. Game of Thrones<\/em>, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings<\/em>, The Hunger Games<\/em>, Twilight, and the sprawling universe of superheroes saturate our culture, constituting a common frame of reference rivaling many religions and probably surpassing both science and history. And that\u2019s mostly a good thing, although a little more historical and scientific awareness wouldn\u2019t hurt humanity\u2019s chance of surviving the century. However, something happens to fantasy when it becomes really successful. It gets broader, less nuanced, and more insistent. It wants to sell you things, including itself. It starts to resemble big corporations like Pfizer and Bayer: the drug companies that recruit doctors and politicians to convince us that we need their products to maintain our health and sanity by smoothing over reality. Let\u2019s call these book and media franchises Big Phanta.<\/p>\n

Unlike Big Phanta, well-crafted fantasy stories are quirky, particular, and obdurate. They are more likely to unsettle than to soothe. This includes the written texts that form the basis for many of the franchises: Martin\u2019s Song of Ice and Fire as opposed to the televised Game of Thrones<\/em>, or Tolkien\u2019s The Hobbit<\/em> in comparison with Peter Jackson\u2019s. Sometimes, because fiction, as well as media, can be franchised, one has to go back to the sources behind a particular written text to get to the un-homogenized experience, the real home-brew. Behind the Twilight series lurk Dracula <\/em>and Carmilla<\/em> and a lot of disturbing folk narrative about unsparkly vampires. Typically, this kind of fantasy comes into being only with time and isolation: it has to cure, like olives or country hams. It\u2019s labor-intensive and intense. It rarely pleases all tastes. Whereas Big Phanta is reliably uniform and can be turned out in mass quantities, each Home Cure is a new challenge, a unique flavor. Sometimes you have to cut out moldy bits, or throw out a whole spoiled batch. The trade-off is that home-cured fantasy can also be a home cure. With the right reader at the right time, it is, as Ray Bradbury once said, a medicine for melancholy.<\/p>\n

Each of the articles in this issue includes an implied contrast between Big Phanta and something else. Irina Ruppo Malone looks at medievalist fantasy from the pens of Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, better known as writers of science fiction. The Strugatskys\u2019 Hard to Be a God<\/em> might have been written as a response to the growing popularity of Tolkien\u2019s The Lord of the Rings<\/em>, but the kind of Medievalist nostalgia satirized by the Strugatskys predates Tolkien. Ruppo Malone directs us toward Sir Walter Scott and his successors. It\u2019s hard to know which texts and movements from the West were available to Soviet readers, but other possible targets could include William Morris, Lord Dunsany, and Robert Howard. None of these is Big Phanta in the same way something like the Potter movies is, but taken collectively they exert an ideological push away from history into what Ruppo Malone calls a \u201cdream space\u201d of the past. Science fantasy like Hard to Be a God<\/em> ruptures that dream space and is thus perhaps its own home cure.<\/p>\n

Caroline E. Jones looks at the version of Big Phanta represented in the dystopian state of Panem in Suzanne Collins\u2019s Hunger Games trilogy. That state is maintained by a mix of deprivation and illusion\u2014the latter is the circus part of Collins\u2019s bread-and-circuses allusion. Jones asserts that Collins\u2019s take on dystopia is like the critical utopias identified by Tom Moylan in that the oppressive state generates its own self-critique and, eventually, downfall. This downfall comes in the form of the resisting heroes Katniss and Peeta, whose actions catalyze a rebellion by asserting that hope endures even amid devastation and injustice. Jones focuses on the novels, rather than on the film adaptations. Collins\u2019s home-cured version includes a warning that even resistance can become tyranny; when transferred to the big screen, however, some of that subtlety was lost and the films occasionally came to resemble the sort of spectacle that enures the citizens of Panem to their own oppression.<\/p>\n

Marek Oziewicz looks explicitly at the way meaning and affect can change in the transfer from one medium to another: in this case, Peter Jackson\u2019s adaptation of Tolkien\u2019s The Hobbit<\/em>. Acknowledging that movies and novels have different dynamics, Oziewicz nonetheless claims that the film versions are what he calls a \u201cbeautiful disaster\u201d: cinematically gorgeous and useful as fodder for computer game designers but narratively incoherent and lacking the ethical vision that was an important part of Tolkien\u2019s Home Cure.<\/p>\n

Kelly Budruweit takes on Stephenie Meyer\u2019s Twilight novels: arguably Big Phanta even in their print incarnation. One could argue that there is a difference between author\u2019s and publisher\u2019s ambitions, and that packaging can turn something from Home Cure to Big Phanta, but the pattern Budruweit identifies, of pulling the Gothic mode\u2019s fangs, so to speak, is Meyer\u2019s own choice. In this case, the books and movies of the Twilight franchise appeal broadly in proportion to their sanitizing of the vampire metaphor and their reinscription of a conservative view of sexuality and self in the imaginative space once occupied by dangerously deviant beings like Nosferatu and Lamia.<\/p>\n

Finally, Joseph Young reminds us that one generation\u2019s bold experiment can become the next generation\u2019s establishment to be rebelled against: he shows how both George R. R. Martin and Terry Pratchett take Tolkien\u2019s Lord of the Rings<\/em> as a set of rules to be broken. Focusing on Martin and invoking Northop Frye\u2019s theory of modes, he compares scenes in Tolkien and Martin, showing how Tolkien\u2019s use of the high mimetic mode creates an opportunity for parody in the ironic mode. The target is not Tolkien himself so much as his instantiation as a literary monument. It is not the text itself that has become Big Phanta but rather the uses of it by fans and imitators. Martin offers a Home Cure that involves lots of sweating, bleeding, and purgation: not comfortable or comforting, but then good cures rarely are.<\/p>\n

Articles<\/h3>\n

Introduction: Big Phanta versus Home Cures
\nBrian Attebery<\/p>\n

What\u2019s Wrong with Medievalism? Tolkien, the Strugatsky Brothers, and the Question of the Ideology of Fantasy
\nIrina Ruppo Malone<\/p>\n

Changing the World: Faces of Rebellion in Suzanne Collins\u2019s Hunger Games Trilogy
\nCaroline E. Jones<\/p>\n

Peter Jackson\u2019s The Hobbit<\/em>: A Beautiful Disaster
\nMarek C. Oziewicz<\/p>\n

Twilight\u2019s Heteronormative Reversal of the Monstrous: Utopia and the Gothic Design
\nKelly Budruweit<\/p>\n

The American Pratchett? Muck and Modality in George R. R. Martin\u2019s Song of Ice and Fire
\nJoseph Young<\/p>\n

Reviews<\/h3>\n

Jennifer L. Feeley and Sarah Ann Wells\u2019s Simultaneous Worlds: Global Science Fiction Cinema
\n<\/em>Rev. by Mark Azzopardi<\/p>\n

Dieter Petzold\u2019s C. S. Lewis\u201450 Jahre nach seinem Tod. Werk und Wirkung zwischen Huldigung und Kritik. <\/em>[C. S. Lewis\u201450 Years after his Death. Works and Influence Between Tribute and Criticism]
\nRev. by Bruce A. Beatie<\/p>\n

Sarah Juliet Lauro\u2019s The Transatlantic Zombie: Slavery, Rebellion, and Living Dead
\n<\/em>Rev. by Kyle William Bishop<\/p>\n

Tara Pedersen\u2019s Mermaids and the Production of Knowledge in Early Modern England
\n<\/em>Rev. by Melissa Ridley Elmes<\/p>\n

Eduardo Urzaiz\u2019s Eugenia: A Fictional Sketch of Future Customs: A Critical Edition
\n<\/em>Rev. by Miguel Garc\u00eda<\/p>\n

Markus P. J. Bohlmann and Sean Moreland\u2019s Monstrous Children and Childish Monsters: Essays on Cinema\u2019s Holy Terrors
\n<\/em>Rev. by Ana Grinberg<\/p>\n

Justin Everett and Jeffrey H. Shanks\u2019s The Unique Legacy of Weird Tales: The Evolution of Modern Fantasy and Horror
\n<\/em>Rev. by Sean A. Guynes<\/p>\n

James Burton\u2019s Philosophy and Science Fiction: Henri Bergson and the Fabulations of Philip K. Dick
\n<\/em>Rev. by Chad A. Hines<\/p>\n

Patricia Garc\u00eda\u2019s Space and the Postmodern Fantastic in Contemporary Literature: The Architectural Void
\n<\/em>Rev. by Dale Knickerbocker<\/p>\n

Linnie Blake and Xavier Aldana Reyes\u2019s Digital Horror: Haunted Technologies, Network Panic and the Found Footage Phenomenon
\n<\/em>Rev. by Murray Leeder<\/p>\n

Quentin Meillassoux\u2019s Science Fiction and Extro-Science Fiction
\n<\/em>Rev. by Sean Matharoo<\/p>\n

Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock\u2019s The Works of Tim Burton: Margins to Mainstream
\n<\/em>Rev. by John W. Morehead<\/p>\n

Helen Young\u2019s Race and Popular Fantasy Literature: Habits of Whiteness
\n<\/em>Rev. by Marek C. Oziewicz<\/p>\n

Matthew Carl Strecher\u2019s The Forbidden Worlds of Haruki Murakami
\n<\/em>Rev. by Pedro Ponce<\/p>\n

Carl Freedman\u2019s Art and Idea in the Novels of China Mi\u00e9ville <\/em>& Caroline Edwards and Tony Venezia\u2019s China Mi\u00e9ville: Critical Essays
\n<\/em>Rev. by Benjamin J. Robertson<\/p>\n

Leslie A. Donovan\u2019s Approaches to Teaching Tolkien\u2019s <\/em>The Lord of the Rings and Other Works
\n<\/em>Rev. by W. A. Senior<\/p>\n

Persephone Braham\u2019s From Amazons to Zombies: Monsters in Latin America
\n<\/em>Rev. by Audrey Taylor<\/p>\n

Angelika Bammer\u2019s Partial Visions: Feminism and Utopianism in the 1970s
\n<\/em>Rev. by Karina A. Vado<\/p>\n

Nicholas Michaud\u2019s Adventure Time and Philosophy: The Handbook for Heroes
\n<\/em>Rev. by Justin Wigard<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction: Big Phanta versus Home Cures It is sort of thrilling to be able to complain about fantasy success stories. Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games, Twilight, and the sprawling universe of superheroes saturate our culture, constituting a common frame of reference rivaling many religions and probably surpassing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-664","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":665,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/664\/revisions\/665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}