Lisa's Blog: The Quite Quite Fantastic

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

One of my favorite episodes of the classic British TV series The Avengers, which starred Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg as secret agents stylishly investigating crimes in 1960s England, is “Honey for the Prince.” In this episode, a company called QQF (Quite Quite Fantastic) turns people’s fantasies into reality using actors, props, elaborate sets, and even special effects. (In one memorable example, they recreate the Battle of Waterloo for a Napoleon fanboy.)

In “Honey for the Prince,” enemy agents employ the services of QQF to figure out how to assassinate a Middle Eastern prince during his visit to London. Steed (Macnee) and Mrs. Peel (Rigg) must infiltrate the prince’s entourage and find a way to foil the plot. Minor spoiler: it involves putting the lovely Diana Rigg in a scandalously revealing harem outfit that no doubt gave the American TV censors fits. (But not nearly as much as the Avengers episode “A Touch of Brimstone,” in which Mrs. Peel ends up in black leather fetish gear, complete with a spiked collar and a snake. The episode was banned in America. But I digress.)

There are many reasons I love the episode “Honey for the Prince.” Not only does it feature lots of trademark Steed/Peel quips and repartee, but the QQF is a fun premise for a business model: a company that can make your fantasies come true for the right price. Who among us wouldn’t want to hire them to bring one or two of our dreams to life? Wouldn’t you want to step out of your reality for a bit and be a secret agent, or a military commander, or an actor walking the red carpet at a film premiere?

Watching the episode leads me to ponder the role of fantasy in our lives. The way we think about fantasy has always been a complex and fascinating phenomenon. Humans have been writing and telling fantastic stories for a very, very long time. In the 2nd century, Lucian of Samosota wrote of trips to the moon aboard a ship caught up in a storm at sea. The Beowulf poem, which dates to as early as 700 AD, contains a dragon, sea monsters, the monstrous Grendel, and Grendel’s mother. Many tales from the medieval and Early Modern periods included fantastical elements ranging from dragons to the fae and other wonders. These stories were part of the fabric of everyday lives. For many, the fantastic and magical seemed always just out of sight–around the corner, or hidden in the woods or deep in caves.

In 1666, the English writer Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle, wrote what some argue is the first work of science fiction, though other scholars point to More’s Utopia (published 1516) or even earlier, to Lucian’s voyages to the moon in the second century. Cavendish’s text is called The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World, and is better known as The Blazing World. In it, a young woman is kidnapped from Earth and taken to another world populated by talking animals. She becomes their Empress and then their military commander, and leads them to victory over their enemies. The Blazing World contains one of my favorite lines in all of English literature: “Though I cannot be Henry the Fifth, or Charles the Second; yet, I will endeavour to be, Margaret the First.” She adds, “I have neither Power, Time nor Occasion, to be a great Conqueror, like Alexander, or Cesar; yet, rather than not be Mistress of a World, since Fortune and the Fates would give me none, I have made One of my own.” (Every woman who writes should have this quote on her wall, at least in my opinion.)

Fantastic literature flourished (and continues to do so) in almost every culture around the world. But somewhere along the way, in some places it became a kind of second-class form of storytelling, separate from “mainstream” fiction. Go into any bookstore and you’re likely to find fantasy and science fiction in a separate section from “fiction.” But why?

Read more about Le Guin’s essay HERE

In 1974, science fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin published her wonderful essay “Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?” In this essay, she ponders why fantasy is considered to be mainly for children, and why adults who enjoy fantasy (including high fantasy, urban fantasy, science fiction, and so forth) are looked down upon for their interest. As a college professor of English, I’ve taught this essay numerous times in various literature courses. It always sparks interesting discussion about the role of fantasy in our lives—and then, in a broader context, about the role of fiction, reading, films, video games, and other forms of so-called “escapism.”

In her essay, LeGuin theorizes that anti-fantasy sentiments are part of a larger issue: that so many adults—especially males—are anti-fiction. Numerous studies show men are less likely to read books than women. And for many, the older and farther from school we get, the fewer books we tend to read. The percentage of American adults who read books decreases each year.

Though LeGuin wrote her essay more than forty years ago, her observations are still relevant, especially in the way she ties the criticism of fiction (regardless of genre) to capitalism. LeGuin writes: “To read War and Peace or The Lord of the Rings plainly is not ‘work’ – you do it for pleasure. And if it cannot be justified as ‘educational’ or as ‘self-improvement,’ then . . . it can only be self-indulgence or escapism. Equally, in the businessman’s value system, if an act does not bring in an immediate, tangible profit, it has no justification at all. Thus the only person who has an excuse to read Tolstoy or Tolkien is the English teacher, because he gets paid for it. But our businessman might allow himself to read a best-seller now and then: not because it is a good book, but because it is a best-seller – it is a success, it has made money. To the strangely mystical mind of the money-changer, this justifies its existence; and by reading it he may participate, a little, in the power and manna of its success.”

Photo by Pauline Loroy on Unsplash

How sadly true. When everything in our lives is monetized, the idea of “spending” time (and notice the commodification of time in that phrase) to read, especially fiction, becomes a seemingly frivolous or unjustifiable expenditure. To many, fiction isn’t practical. “What use is it?” as Le Guin asks rhetorically. It’s daydreams. Fantasies. Pretend. How very…useless.

At this point in the discussion, my students will inevitably point out the popularity of franchises like Star Trek, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and so forth. You might also include the Marvel and DC films, as well as the Game of Thrones television series (the most pirated TV series in history), in the counterargument. Clearly, fantasy (and the fantastic) does have an important role in our lives today. I’d argue even the James Bond films continue to be popular because they offer a fantasy world of spies, villains, gadgets, and adventure that we like to get lost in. The same goes for the Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible films (especially the two most recent ones) and two relatively recent Charlize Theron films: the spy-action flick Atomic Blonde and the high-octane post-apocalyptic Mad Max: Fury Road. Even one of my favorite action film franchises, the Fast and the Furious films, are almost entirely fantasy. (Don’t believe me? In Furious 7, Dom [Vin Diesel, whose assumed name is a bit of fantasy in itself] drives a million-dollar sports car out of one skyscraper through another skyscraper and into a third skyscraper, as his passenger, Brian [the late Paul Walker] shouts, “Dom, cars don’t fly!”) Oh, I love these dumb movies SO MUCH.

Photo by Krists Luhaers on Unsplash

Take a look at the top-grossing films of all time, and notice how many of them fall into the fantasy category:

1. Avatar
2. Avengers: Endgame
3. Avatar: The Way of Water
4. Titanic
5. Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens
6. Avengers: Infinity War
7. Spider-Man: No Way Home
8. Jurassic World
9. The Lion King
10. The Avengers
11. Furious 7
12. Top Gun: Maverick
13. Frozen II
14. Avengers: Age of Ultron
15. Black Panther
16. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II
17. Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
18. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
19. Frozen
20. Beauty and the Beast

Source: boxofficemojo.com

So does the runaway popularity of fantasy films and series disprove LeGuin’s assertion that Americans are anti-fiction or anti-fantasy? I think the answer is complicated.

We’ll take fantasy in small doses (a 2- or 3-hour film or a weekly show) but fewer will take the time to read a book (for a lot of reasons). We can appreciate an escape into a fictional world, but we appear to prefer only certain types of fantasy that conform to our established worldviews on race, gender, and yes, capitalism. If you’re looking for a unique story with creative, imaginative storytelling and a plot you haven’t seen a hundred times before, good luck—original stories are increasingly difficult to find, as evidenced by the percentage of those top-grossing films that are part of franchises. The MCU films are mostly cookie-cutter superhero stories. Perhaps we like fantasy, but only when it’s familiar–which somewhat defeats the purpose of fantasy.

On the bright side, we have more fantasy and fantastic shows and films out than we’ve seen in a while, so there the environment is right for more and better stories to be told. Star Trek, my own gateway drug to the fantastic, is booming right now with no less than FOUR series in production (Discovery, Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, and Prodigy).

Image: from Madness Games & Comics store in Dallas, Texas (https://madnessgames.com/)

And while theaters are filled with franchise films, we are in another golden era for comics and graphic novels. Comics stores have never been more bursting at the seams with truly original stories. Don’t sleep on comics! If you want fantastic tales, check out some of the awesome comics that are out right now. I can personally vouch for these: Saga, Monstress, Lazarus, Local Man, The Wicked + The Divine, Preacher, Paper Girls, Locke & Key, Lumberjanes, Maus, Fables, East of West, Sex Criminals, Revival, Rat Queens, and Faith. These are stories you have never heard before, and they are Quite, Quite Fantastic (in every sense of the word).

Thank you for reading this rather lengthy post. It’s a big topic and I’ve barely scratched the surface, but I’m interested to hear your thoughts on the role of fantasy in our lives. And I’m super curious: What fantasy/dream would you hire the QQF to create for you?