Authenticity in Fantasy

Today’s generation has been overwhelmed with media and advertisements to the point where we have a newfound appreciation for authenticity. The internet has provided the everyday person with the ability to take any media such as video, songs, and pictures and to edit them and repackage it as a new item. Movies are pirated and streamed online, songs are downloaded and remixed with other songs, and pictures are photoshopped for comedic effect. Nothing seems to be safe from being tweaked or changed. This is why there is an appreciation for the authentic in our culture, because something that is pure and untouched by second market hands feels more official and proper.

As we talked about in class, rap music has become an incredibly popular form of music and many try to associate it with its African origins to give it authenticity. If we acknowledge that rap came from a culture that produced music for reasons other than making money, it seems to validate rap music as an extension of the more authentic style.

One of the biggest complications for a fantasy movie is when it is based off a best selling novel. Movies such as Lord of the Rings, Twilight, and Harry Potter are some of the more well known movies, but this trend has been seen in some lesser known films as well such as Eragon, Inkheart, Stardust, and Percy Jackson that all started in the novel form. It becomes a difficult balancing act for the filmmakers to decide how to create a movie that is both faithful to the novel it is based on as well as manage budget and time constraints.

These fantasy movies, especially the lesser known ones, are mostly going to be profitable because the fans of the books will be going to see the movie. They already have an interest in the subject matter and will be more likely to pay the ten dollars to see the novel they love on the big screen. Unfortunately for the filmmakers, however, the fans are also looking for authenticity in the movie. The core audience for the movie will be the people who already have images in their head as to how events should play out in the movie for it to be accurate to the book, but this is not always possible for the filmmakers. Not everybody has the same ideas for how events should unfold, and not everyone has the same tolerance for how much editing and changing can occur from the source material.

Authenticity is an important factor in popular culture, and it is nearly impossible to maintain authenticity when a book is turned into a movie. It is practically a cliché to say, “The book was better than the movie”. It may be necessary for fans to approach these films with a different attitude, however, and to take the film as a new production, a new creation of the material that will have to take some liberties. As an audience we have to be forgiving and understanding, and take the new product as something with its own type of authenticity.