The brain needs to check out every so often and treat itself to a little holiday.
Lets have no reminders of war or elections or the suffocating omnipresence of imminent environmental collapse.
Instead, lets roll ourselves up in the cushiony blanket ofsomewhere else.
Unless we love them.
They have houses to spare and cash on tap.
What could be more escapist?
Who lives like this?
Nobody, which is why the fantasy has such a powerful draw.
Why isThe Officesuch a perennial hit, especially among Generation Z?
Because of the community on show an oddly fantasy-escapist community in the gig economy and home-work age.
Parisians wouldnt recognise either of them as reality, which is the attraction.
The past, after all, is a different country.
There we have it: wealth, community and otherworldliness the three categories of escapist fiction.
So many successful shows and movies put ticks in all three columns.
Harry Potters a rich wizard who lives with his friends in a castle.
Frodo Baggins is a rich hobbit who goes camping with his mates.
Its the escapist recipe.
