Lewis' "On Realism"+ Explosions

“But even if all this were granted—and the last item takes a good deal of swallowing—the position would seem to me entirely artificial; something thought up in defence of a desperate thesis and quite out of tune with the experience that we have when we receive stories.”—Lewis’ “On Realism,” pg. 64

Reading Lewis’ discourse of “On Realism,” it’s brought to my attention just how much the concepts of the realistic and fantastic are conjoined in modern times. And we, the audience would feel amiss if they weren’t.

For example, consider the common activity of attending a movie in-theater. Before the feature, we know there will be film trailers meant to encourage the day’s audience members to pay for films forthcoming. Unfortunately, big name film studios and producers rely on some pretty old tricks for peaking our interest: if the film is about romance, expect ridiculous slow motion snippets of passion inserted therein; if the film is about action, expect ridiculous scenes of cars and buildings exploding. Now if you watch the attending crowd, you’ll find that most these days are not enthralled by this goading. And I would suggest to you that this is because the relationship of the unlikely to the likely has been severed.

Why should we care if ten cars flip in the air in epic succession—all to the Slavonic dances of Dvorak if—we have no context (i.e., realism) to inform us as to why we should care to attend.

The human mind demands this union.