Photo by Johnny Henriksen
A recent (and widely commented on) CNN.com article reports that some viewers of the film Avatar are so desperate to occupy the fantasy world of the film that the thought of having to return to day-to-day reality here on earth leaves them depressed or even suicidal. “When I woke up this morning after watching Avatar for the first time yesterday, the world seemed … gray. It was like my whole life, everything I’ve done and worked for, lost its meaning,” wrote one young man on a fan forum.
This may sound somewhat extreme, but this is simply an example of a common phenomenon I call “getting caught up” and which a number of psychologists have studied under the label “narrative transport.” The fact is that it’s fairly normal for human beings, at least in our society, to become so immersed in stories that we feel like we are actually there. And if we really like the story we become caught up in, we don’t want to leave it—as when you don’t want to put down a book you’re reading, or don’t want it to end.
The work of developmental psychologist Paul Harris helps us to understand why human beings are so likely to become caught up in stories. By the age of two, children’s play includes complex pretend episodes that are based on imagining what some situation—such as being a firefighter or a princess—would be like. In other words, even very young children can project themselves into an imaginary situation and proceed to consistently think and talk from that situation, keeping it separate from the real world. They don’t have to plan this, they just take off and go.
Michael Tomasello’s work on the differences between cognition among non-human primates and humans provides a compelling explanation for this remarkable ability. Tomasello attributes much of the difference between the mental abilities of humans and our closest relatives to our unique ability to put ourselves “in the mental shoes” of others and easily grasp what they are up to. This cognitive ability to adopt other perspectives is what makes elaborate pretend play so easy even before our brains are fully developed. And it is also what makes it possible for adults to plunge themselves into a fiction so deeply that—for awhile—it seems and feels like the fiction is real.
For better or for worse, we live in a society in which the capacity for becoming caught up in fictions like movies, television, novels (as well as games like sports contests) is a fundamental part of our way of life. The joys of becoming caught up in entertainment are a big part of what many of us live for. In this sense, we are like those of firm religious faith who believe that a genuine paradise awaits them, except that we don’t even have to die to get there.
So, when we read about weird people who don’t want to come back to this world after visiting the vivid reality of another, we might want to consider if they are really so weird. I suspect that most of us have had the same experience at some point.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Isn’t the problem with the fans is the opposite one: rather than fantasizing too much, their problem is their inability or refusal to fantasize/narrativize their everyday lives. In a way, what they really want is Avatar to not be a fantasy, they want it to be a documentary. But, accepting the rough definition of “being in different mental shoes”, then surely the gap between fantasy and reality must be preserved to serve it’s purpose in our lives.
The empiricist idea that this gap represents a fundamental flaw with fantasy should be turned around: that reality does not conform to our fantasy is the fundamental flaw with reality, and this provides motivation and meaning which lets us change reality to approach the fantasy.
I think this also relates to a previous post “Newsweek has it wrong, celebrities are not real” where the author writes that celebrity is a form of art that doesn’t have to create the pretense of reality — the implication is that not having to create the pretense avoids a basic flaw. But I think this echoes the Avatar fan problem – in a way, celebrities are attractive because we want to fantasize that we aren’t fantasizing. There is related cultural phenomena like reality TV shows, memoirs replacing fiction, behind-the-scenes documentaries about movies.
I wonder if this is a sign of a social taboo against pretense and fantasy, a consequence of the 60s emphasis on authenticity, spontaneity, naturalness, against artifice, etc.
There’s a lot of interesting stuff here, although I don’t think I agree with all of it. But certainly I like your point that there is something very appealing, in today’s culture, about fantasizing while convincing ourselves we are not doing so. You are right that this shows up in the fascination with reality TV; where does this come from?
I have more to say about your comment, but I’ll have to think about it. I’m headed out of town for a few days, I’ll probably return to this next week. Thanks for your thoughts.
I want to take the opportunity to respond further to this intriguing comment. First, a minor matter: I wouldn’t trace the concern with authenticity to the 60’s, because this is an idea that goes back further to the explicit “modernism” of the early 20th century. (So, for example, it shows up in the Beat literature of the 40’s and 50’s) That may seem like a pedantic point, but I think it may be important because both “authenticity” and 60’s culture are modified forms of Romanticism, a perspective that is friendly to the idea of narrativizing one’s life. In the spirit of discussion rather than disagreement I’d say that the distinction you are trying to draw has to do with fantasies that have some connection to a person’s reality and those that don’t. It reminds me somewhat of what the British psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott labeled the difference between play and fantasy (the latter being a negative term, in his usage). What healthy adults should have, he said, is a capacity for creative play. And he tended to see some of the offerings of modern society—entertainment, drugs, etc.—as failed substitutes for that creative play, substitutes that ultimately led in the direction of addiction and rigidity.