Why is it that fantasy is widely discredited?

Your question should more accurately read "Why do I feel like fantasy is widely discredited?" And the answer, I would guess, is persecution complex.

Seriously, most people will give you a funny look unless you say "newspaper journalist". Just ignore them.

I honestly don't think it is. With a generation having grown up with Harry Potter being read in the mainstream, and the success of the Lord of the Rings movies and Game of Thrones on HBO, more and more people go looking for that sort of story when they're seeking out a book.

If fantasy was once treated with 'disdain,' I don't know that it really is anymore.

It's not.

Writers of the most un-distainable literary fiction win Pulitzers for homages to fantasy.

No one less than stuffier than thou Harold Bloom admits to a fantasy novel as one of his favorite books and includes both the works of John Crowley and Ursula K Le Guin in the Western Canon.

Even the New Yorker is publishing fantasy stories. They had a whole science fiction themed issue.

I've told people in supposedly snooty literary NYC, where I work, that I write fantasy for fun and possibly for serious, and no one has ever given me the side eye.

I get more side eyes for admitting to writing in omniscient POV than fantasy

Up until about the 70's, SF and Fantasy were often put down by literary snobs, ahhh literary experts.

Today, not so much as all genres are pretty much on equal footing. As a matter of facts, SF&F even has its own courses at many colleges, taught by literary experts...

If anyone feels that SF&F are still the bottom of the literary barrel, then my feeling is they are not well read.

But of course, SF&F may not be for everyone, and that too is OK...

Caraauthor said:

Many may disagree with such a statement, but frankly in my experience it is true. When I tell people I write fantasy they gave me a look of... Disdain? Yes, that is the only word for it. I tell them my ideas and they smirk, while writing their silly romance novels and autobiographies.

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Well, maybe they are just smirking at you because you make your disdain for their silly romance novels and autobiographies so clear.

If someone puts down fantasy or romance to me, I tend to view that as more of an indictment against them than the genres they are maligning.

Snobbery is the public face of insecurity. A person doesn't feel any need to "position" themself as superior if they don't fear there's nothing particularly special about them.

In other words, snobbery is an attempt to convince oneself of something. It isn't a realistic assessment of the world; it's a band-aid trying to hide the bruise on one's ego.

Ah, yes. They or their estates are failing all the way to the bank.

I can see where this attitude might come from. Most of the creative writing majors I knew in college wrote everything to be literary or contemporary. I was encouraged to do the same in my creative writing class, but fantasy and science fiction are my loves, are what actually got me into reading in the first place. Why would I write something I wouldn't want to read? Yes, some literary is very good, but me attempting literary would be a train wreck. And I'm okay with that. No matter what anyone else says, I know what kind of writer I am. They can look down on my fantasy all they want, but I wouldn't choose to have it any other way.

That being said, I don't think this view is as pervasive as it once was. Successes like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and ASoIaF have made fantasy more acceptable.

Disdain for various genres is highly nation specific, I'd imagine. For example, in Finland, people adore literary books, while spit upon fantasy. Some time ago, when I was riding the subway, some total stranger came up to me and insulted me for reading a fantasy book, while saying he gleaned universal truths from a literary book and told me to put the rubbish down from my hands. It's partially for this reason that I strive to write in English instead of Finnish, since not only is the market bigger(hardly anyone publishes local fantasy here), it's also better for my feeling of self-worth, as I won't be ridiculed by strangers face-to-face for it.

I'm a Quality snob, myself. I've seen Quality mainstream lit and crap mainstream lit. I've seen Quality fantasy and crap fantasy. Now all you have to do is figure out what I mean by Quality.

carlstevenswriter said:

I'm a Quality snob, myself. I've seen Quality mainstream lit and crap mainstream lit. I've seen Quality fantasy and crap fantasy. Now all you have to do is figure out what I mean by Quality.

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Quality with a capital Q is subjective, Carl. Criteria for judgment of a text range from aesthetics to the reading experience. The reading experience itself varies from individual to individual in that we don’t all relate to a work in the same way. While the author’s skill in the act of writing can and does enhance or impair that experience, what each of us brings to the reading experience determines what we take away from it. For instance, there are texts in the literary canon that I admire and enjoy and there are those I do not, just as there are texts I admire and enjoy that will never be part of the literary canon. IOW, a text I experience as quality literature will not necessarily be another’s experience of the same text.

Caraauthor said:

they smirk, while writing their silly romance novels and autobiographies.

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They feel the same about it as you do about romance....

Pot, kettle, black?

jjdebenedictis said:

Snobbery is the public face of insecurity. A person doesn't feel any need to "position" themself as superior if they don't fear there's nothing particularly special about them.

In other words, snobbery is an attempt to convince oneself of something. It isn't a realistic assessment of the world; it's a band-aid trying to hide the bruise on one's ego.

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I'm going to second this, pausing for just the briefest moment to point out that OP's reference to

their silly romance novels and autobiographies.

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is - well - a teensy bit snobbish.

But what I'm really hoping for is that we can turn this into one of those literary v genre threads. Can we? Please? And then we can take it out to TIO and it



I love TIO

Okay, I will answer the question that the OP asked. Remember please, that I'm only saying this because someone asked why someone else might dislike Fantasy. I'm not intending to incite the entire Fantasy community. I would kill and die for your right to write whatever genre you love, promise! And, I've read enough really good fantasy to know there are people out there writing really good fantasy.

I don't like fantasy where I have to work twice as hard to understand half as much. There. I said it. Some [okay most] fantasy that I've run into is akin to reading in a foreign language for me. And, I suck at foreign languages. Mi espanol es muy terrible. I won't remember what a gasordinplat was, and I have to go back and find out. If it has more than, oh say, seven made up words, it's gotta be so completely engrossing that I remember them. Otherwise, it's time to throw the book across the room and call it a day.

Also, I'm not fond of the Earth-mother-mystic trope. And, again, I run into it mostly in fantasy. She's magical, but she just didn't know it. Or, she's the matriarch because she's the most powerful/cryptic. Or, she's the incarnation of Spring walking the [insert planet here]. But she's always nearly perfect.

I like flaws -- hard, rough edges that people try to hide but can't. I like rage and violence or at least hypocracy. I like things that make you wince. I like taboo and fear. If the EMMT isn't going to be hurt, or preferably hurt someone because of a flaw, or in some other way be tried by major fire that CHANGES her, then I'm through reading.

Oh, and I don't want a D&D session written out; it's only amusing while you are playing the game.

*goes back to writing smut that could only be euphemistically called romance since the horror novel is stalled*

I know a few people who genuinely loathe anything fantasy/sci-fi related. They are people who prefer "real life situations" and watch television shows like Survivor (because we know that's not at all scripted) and The Amazing Race. Maybe some CSI and other stuff.

My thoughts are that, yeah, it's just a matter of taste and preferences. But, some have a weird phobia or mental block when it comes to the genre. Some are unimaginative and possess very little in regard to creativity themselves. Others had parents or significant others try to "force" the genre on them and are still rebelling. I had a friend whose boyfriend made her watch all three original Star Wars movies and she has professed a hatred of all things "mystical or space-like" forever.

And, think about it, Twilight is considered "Fantasy." That doesn't help anyone's case. At all.

I totally get not liking fantasy (or SF, or mysteries, or literary) that is just a checklist of tropes. But "I don't like fantasy because... elves are stupid/I hate made-up words/I don't want to read someone's AD&D campaign/etc." is a weak argument against the genre. It's like saying literary fiction sucks because it's all tedious wangsting about college professors obsessed with their penis. Yeah, there are lots of books like that, but it's hardly an accurate description of the genre.

Well, I think there is a difference between "not liking" something personally and discrediting it as valuable literature or a worthwhile diversion.

I can understand why some people would not personally enjoy fantasy. There is a lot of fantasy I don't personally enjoy. Not personally enjoying something doesn't discredit it. I don't enjoy horror, or thrillers, or zombies, but I can still appreciate that there are works in those genres that are brilliant art and great entertainment.

Fantasy and SF is definitely not *discredited* as either potential literature or mainstream entertainment, at least not anymore, if it ever really was. I don't think anyone can say, and be taken very seriously now days, that something with fantastic elements can absolutely NOT have any literary value, or that it is entertainment only for lonely D & D nerds. When people have publicly said things like that (example: NYTimes review of Game of Thrones on HBO) they've been pilloried for their ignorance.

Huh, strange, I've never had that. Ever.... Then again maybe I'm just blissfully ignorant, like a parent who thinks everyone else is as thrilled with my little bundle poking them with snotty fingers.

Personally, I figure if it's not written in a dead language, it probably sucks.