"(D&D)... game that launched a million junior high school wedgies."-- Time

[LostSoul]

I don't think that "Fantasy" was anywhere on the general public's radar screen until Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Even now, fantasy isn't very big at all for most people.

I think it has something to do with most people wanting to live in the real world (or having fantasies that don't deal with sword & sorcery, but sex, money, and power).

 

[NoOneofConsequence]

Superficial: check

ill-informed: check

quoting important authors without fully understanding their work: check

failing to acknowledge the longstanding film tradition of sf, heroic fantasy, historical fantasy et al: check

massively us-centric vision of worldwide cultural trends: check


Yup! Sounds like Time (tm) to me!


I wonder how Vivien Sobchack feels being quoted in this article?

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

The success of any literary fantasy, besides Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, is, in the larger scheme of things, almost unnoticeable. Books are not even in the running when it comes to popularity; movies and TV are the cultural touchstones that reach everyone.

Maybe in the USA. Over here in Germany, books are really big business. In fact, the same seems to hold true for most of Europe - I faintly remember that many of the top bestselling US authors actually make most of their sales on this side of the Pond...

 

[mythago]

It's a Time magazine article. "Here's a hot new trend that we just discovered, and here's an article filled with incorrect 'facts' and half-assed conclusions" is par for the course, on any topic.

That said, Celebrim is quite right. Journalism relies heavily on the "me and my buddies" school of thought; if the reporter and his/her friends all think X, then clearly X is a new, overwhelming trend that everybody is following.