Food For Thought: Fantasy Worlds and Depression

On the slant, but this caught my eye this evening: Does Watching "Avatar" Lead to Depression? by Deborah Huso

Hundreds of fans of James Cameron's hit film "Avatar," which has raked in $1.4 billion, are reporting symptoms of depression as well as suicidal thoughts after seeing the movie. The film is set in the future when the Earth's resources have been depleted and a corporation is looking to mine the natural resources of a planet called, Pandora, which is portrayed as a world of beauty, with inhabitants that are close to nature and all creatures are connected. Many attribute their depression to the fact that the utopian world shown in the movie is unattainable here on earth and makes life seem meaningless.

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Crazy as it may sound at first, feeling blue after engaging in some form of escapism, whether it's an especially touching movie or a great book, isn't unusual. But if it's impacting your ability to function, you could be taking escapism to the extreme. Escapism on that level can be a symptom of all kinds of problems from anxiety disorder to clinical depression.

“If a person has such an inordinate attraction to fantasy material and is prevented access to it, frustration, stress, anxiety or depression might possibly result,” said Frank Farley, Ph.D., a professor of educational psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia. “Modeling or identifying with media depictions is not unknown,” he added. “Yet most people make the distinction of reality versus fantasy.”

So does that make Avatar a new fairy tale in the pop culture sense, the one in which the label 'fairy tale' implies idyllic, perfect existence? Just do a news search to see how overused the term is in articles about romances and weddings, sports and politics.

Of course, except for the usual happy endings, we know that the real fairy tales are anything but idyllic, but rather violent and scary with only the hope of a happily ever after ending. It's always fun to compare the public perception versus the reality of what's in the tales, at least the earlier versions before they were made safer for the nursery.

Also applicable since so many of us fairy tale enthusiasts are also lovers of fantasy and science fiction in general. Although I admit I haven't seen Avatar yet and am not really very interested in it despite several rather enthusiastic endorsements from friends. My loss, I know, but I have become insanely picky about movies of late.

Edited: Noticed a few minutes after posting that this is my 350th post. Chugging right along...

Arabian Nights and Marina Warner

I'm a few days behind on this--playing catch up after being sick--but here's Do the tales of the Arabian Nights have resonance for audiences today? Marina Warner warms to the RSC's production of Arabian Nights by Marina Warner, found at The Guardian. (The best newspaper for fairy tale related articles. Someone there shares our interests!)

Here's a passage from the article, but you have to click through to read it all:

The first translation of One Thousand and One Nights into English, under the title Arabian Nights' Entertainments, instantly sparked a craze when it appeared at the beginning of the 18th century, and set the tone for the stories' successful entrance into the history of drama and performance. The first Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp was performed at Drury Lane in London in the 1780s, with designs by Philippe de Loutherbourg, the artist who a few years before had created a fabulous Oriental mise-en-scène for William Beckford's 21st birthday party, which combined séance, orgy, gothic ruins and private theatricals. This inspired Beckford's original Arabian Nights fantasy, the novel Vathek, which is bathed, like the party, in what he recalled was "a strange, necromantic light". Since those days of heady dreams, shows such as Aladdin or Ali Baba have taken an ever more, and more rudely, comic turn. Their bawdy rough-and-tumble does reflect a strain of the multilayered Nights stories; but it's still the case that the traditional panto gives a false sense of the stories, missing the riches of their poetry, enchanted atmosphere, protean originality and endlessly ingenious narrative logic.

The book's earliest readers in France belonged to a courtly world that hardly distinguished between performance and ordinary round, so stylised and ornamented was the royal day at Versailles or in noblemen and women's hotels particuliers, where the first exclamations of delight greeted the fantastic tales of One Thousand and One Nights. But very quickly, the book's storytelling devices were taken over by other voices placed at different, dissenting angles to power: Elizabeth Inchbald and Frances Sheridan put on Oriental disguise to satirise sexual hypocrisy and social conventions; Voltaire, Addison and Swift also found they could use the mode to mock and attack their targets. In the theatre especially, the sheer abundance of the plots of the Nights opened up possibilities: the book presented magical twists and turns that intrinsically lent themselves to high-spirited performance and to technical experiment. The history of the Nights on the stage is consequently intertwined with some brilliant early stagecraft for transformation scenes, flying machines, conjuring illusions, innovatory limelight and other effects (in Islington in the 1890s, the genies in Aladdin were called after the new gases, Paraffin, Benzoline and Colza).

And once again, if you haven't read From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers by Marina Warner, well, you really must.

Hans Christian Andersen: An Outsider's Tale

Found a nice article about HCA which draws primarily from the biography Hans Christian Andersen: The Life of a Storyteller by Jackie Wullschlager. (And in building this link I discovered that the paperback is currently 58% off cover price at $8.90 on Amazon. Don't know for how long, but that's a great price on a new book.)

Read the entire article at: Hans Christian Andersen: An outsider's tale by Bruce Emond.

The world's most famous storyteller - his fascinating tales were favorite bedtime reading for the children of his era in the 19th century, and more recently have been given the Disney treatment for millions more around the world - lived a life that was not so much a fairy-tale, replete with a neat, all-ends-tied-up ending, but a saga of struggles, loneliness and the quest to find himself.

Most of those who read his stories know little about Andersen the man, save for him being Danish (there was a schmaltzy Hollywood biopic many years ago starring Danny Kaye) or, perhaps, for the younger generation, the oft-repeated intriguing rumor that he had homosexual tendencies in a time when it was still a love that dared not speak its name.

There have been few biographies of Andersen written in English, the most comprehensive written by journalist Jackie Wullschlager in 2000. Drawing on Andersen's own memoirs, his personal papers and contemporary accounts from his lifetime, Wullschlager portrays a brilliant man who was driven to succeed despite being riddled by neurosis and a complicated array of emotions - oversensitive, proud and quick to take offense - that sometimes worked against him.

New tower in the Emirates — Nakheel Tower

The latest design attempting to breach the dizzying heights of the Burj Dubai has been revealed as the multibillion dollar Nakheel Tower. Designed by the developments wing of major investment company Nakheel, the tower will be more than a kilometre high, covering a space of around 270 hectares, and will become home to around 55,000 people, a workplace for 45,000, and is hoped will attract millions of visitors each year. 09 more images and video after the break...

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South Side Gayathri Jayaram

Gayathri Jayram 06 more images after a break...

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Ashley Greene - Heading to Aroma Cafe for lunch

 Ashley was spotted filling up a parking meter before meeting a friend for lunch at Aroma Cafe 05 Jan 2010. Next she’s at the gas station, talking on the phone. And then she’s walking with her hair pulled back! I’m glad to see Ashley in the oversized sunglasses. 10 more images after a break...

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Pictures we never seen before

Pictures we never seen before, 34 more images after a break...

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