I believe that one of the main offsets of people to Fantasy & Science Fiction is, sadly enough, religion. There are a lot of people out there who believe that anything that involves magic is evil. I mean, they tried to boycott Harry Potter for crying out loud. Also, it has to do with stereotypes. There are a lot of BAD fantasy novels out there. The same old story. And, unfortunately, you have to go through that section to get to the Tolkien ones. A lot of people just see the surface of fantasy and science fiction and they don't realize that it can have a much deeper meaning. LOTR is one of the most emotionally driven books I have read, but too many people are stuck on books by John Grisham (and many others) and movies such as "A Beautiful Mind" and they are unwilling to open themselves up to a whole new realm of storytelling. I, of course, criticize the human population for many reasons, there close-mindedness is one of the biggest though. Too many people delve into their everyday work & they loose the imaginations they once had as children.
Now, I, being an actor myself look at life from all perspectives. Even ones that may not exist. In acting fantasy plays a big part. One of the books I am reading right now has lots of exercise involving fairytales and fantasy. It says that they have the most wide range of emotions from anything. So we use fantasy to explore this. It is quite releasing.
I wish that people could open themselves up and that Science Fiction and Fantasy can be more important. If the fantasy movies that come out follow in LOTR footsteps then I believe that it is going in the right direction. LOTR is one of the first book to movie jobs that worked and worked well (not including Star Wars).
Well, I think I have written enough. Whew!
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