On Wednesday, Wellington in New Zealand was occupied by an army of wizards, elves and hobbits. An estimated 100,000 geeks showed up in fancy dress to celebrate the premiere of The Hobbit ? the latest addition to the never-ending cycle of Tolkien movies that threatens to run on to doomsday. Of course, it?s possible that some of the ?hobbits? in the crowd weren?t actually wearing fancy dress at all. Pale skin, hairy feet and short stature are fairly common among fantasy fans. If you spend your entire life living in your mum?s basement playing Xbox and eating Wotsits, then you?re unlikely to grow up looking like Daniel Craig.
If popular culture holds a mirror up to society, the success of these films can only reflect a retreat from reality. Many have lost themselves in the politics of HBO?s Game of Thrones, which deals with a series of wars between families living in some mythical land wherein clothes are fast going out of fashion (the characters? habit of delivering dialogue in the nude has become jokingly referred to as ?sexposition?). There are now millions of citizens of World of Warcraft ? an online, role-playing game that allows socially awkward teenagers to hunt and slaughter each other. And for the more innocent, of course, there?s Harry Potter ? the success of which has blurred the lines between children?s and adults? fiction. Thanks to J K Rowling, you can hear otherwise intelligent people talking about a kids? book as if it was Dostoevsky.
At the root of all of this virtual reality is real greed. The Hobbit is a great example of how Hollywood has franchised fantasy and encouraged its fans to run away from real life. The book is relatively short, yet Warner Bros has turned it into a three-part cycle, with each part running at about two and a half hours. If they could break each one down into tablet format, they?d cure insomnia for good. The idea is to a) create the sense of an epic ?event? and b) drag that event out over three movies so that three times the usual amount of ticket sales can be squeezed out of it. If you bothered to see part one, then you?ll have to see part two to find out what happens next. If you?ve managed to stay awake through part two, then you?ll obviously want to see how it all finishes. Doubtless there will be a sequel to this prequel: Gollum the Musical.
The goal is to get the audience hooked on the studio?s product ? and some literally become addicted. A 2008 study found that 10 per cent of Harry Potter readers experience the classic symptoms of substance abuse: loss of sleep and appetite, obsession with the material and withdrawal pains when they complete the last book of the series. A book acts as a gateway drug to a wider Potter experience: fan forums, toys and movies. Video games are probably the most pernicious aspect of this fantasy market. They?ve become so addictive that gamers have started to move in with each other to pool resources. The hook is that tawdry lives are elevated by fantasy in the same way that alcohol convinces a man that he is bigger and better looking than he really is. ?By day I deliver Domino?s pizzas. But by night, I am King of the Lizard people!?
Of course, that doesn?t mean that the fantasy industry is without art ? although it?s certainly not to my taste. I can?t stand the Tolkien movies. To me they are plodding and dull ? largely centred on a handful of hairy dwarves on some inane quest to take something to somewhere else that will make something terribly important happen involving an old man with a beard who played Dracula in the Hammer Horror films. The dialogue is pretentious and often consists of lists that matter only to the initiated (?You must visit the Tree People of Thrag who will take you to the Well of Umdingo, which leads to the underground kingdom of the Trolls of Handbag Mountain? etc). If there?s any pleasure to be taken from this borefest, it?s seeing once great British character actors getting a final shot at making enough money to buy their mobile home outright.
But what is worrying is the cult-like following that the Tolkien films have encouraged. Many of the acolytes seem victims of arrested development ? detaching themselves from the real world with its real people and its real challenges. In the same way that superhero movies actually emasculate the audience by convincing them that their problems are so big that only a man in a cape can solve them, so the fantasy racket returns us to the emotional paralysis of early childhood.
The true horror comes when someone can no longer tell the difference between what?s real and what?s not and they end up living their lives as dwarves or wizards. It?s only a matter of time before the Tolkien cult grows so big that we have to treat it like a serious part of our culture. Expect Labour councils to snatch children from foster parents because they?re a member of a political party that is anti-orc. It?s only a matter of time.
