HW#9: Magic Realism

When I first heard about the Tim Burton's (2012) film Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter what imidiately cross my mind was the original novel by Seth Grahame - Smith. Smith cleverly mixed History and Mythology together to create an epic story. The story & film basically focuses on Abraham Lincoln's journey to the presidency but with a twist, suggesting that Lincoln entered the presidency and begining the Civil war because of the slave trade and slaughter by Vampires. He evidently win the battle against the vampires, end the war and frees the slaves but as history goes get assasinated.
Now this got me very fascinated with the entier thought, Why do they mix reality with mythology in not only books but commonly in films?

From my research, I found that an article called Magic Realism (Allen B. Ruch &
Tamara Kaye Sellman, Editor of Margin - 2003)
The article states that Magic Realism was first applied in the turn of the century.
The term magic realism, originally applied in the 1920's to a school of painters, is used to describe the prose fiction of Jorge Luis Borges in Argentina, as well as the work of writers such as Gabriel García Márquez in Colombia, Gunter Grass in Germany, and John Fowles in England.  These writers interweave, in an ever-shifting pattern, a sharply etched realism in representing ordinary events and descriptive details together with fantastic and dreamlike elements, as well as with materials derived from myth and fairy tales.  Robert Scholes has popularized metafiction as an overall term for the large and growing class of novels which depart drastically from the traditional categories either of realism or romance, and also the term fabulation for the current mode of free-wheeling narrative invention.  These novels violate, in various ways, standard novelistic expectations by drastic -- and sometimes highly effective -- experiments with subject matter, form, style, temporal sequence, and fusions of the everyday, the fantastic, the mythical, and the nightmarish, in renderings that blur traditional distinctions between what is serious or trivial, horrible or ludicrous, tragic or comic.

To sum that all up, the article merely states that Magic Realism takes the real world elements and adds fictional and in this case myth in the story. It is a genre where magic elements are a natural part in an otherwise mundane, realistic environment. Although it is most commonly used as a literary genre, magic realism also applies to film and the visual arts. Realism as we know is the elements of the real world, or commonly known as "as it is", Magic Realism basically mixes myth or supernatural elements in place to the realistic story.



Coraline (2009) is an example of Magic Realism in film, a little girl enters a mythical world.



Like many writers, Gabriel García Márquez has been inextricably linked to a style of literature known as "magical realism." Literature of this type is usually characterized by elements of the fantastic woven into the story with a deadpan sense of presentation. The term is not without a lot of controversy, however, and has come under attack for numerous reasons. Some claim that it is a postcolonial hangover, a category used by "whites" to marginalize the fiction of the "other." Others claim that it is a passé literary trend, or just a way to cash in on the Latin American "boom." Still others feel the term is simply too limiting, and acts to remove the fiction in question from the world of serious literature.

~ Allen B. Ruch &
Tamara Kaye Sellman, Editor of Margin - 2003

So, returning to the the question at hand, why do this, mix reality ans myth together? Well, in my opinion, I believe it brings us a step forward of our daily thinking, our daily imagination. It not only entertains us but broadens our minds and imaginations.

Concepts like these are always an interesting topic, an now a days Magic Realism is highly adapted by the community and in most cases cultures.

Literatures and films that express Magic Realism not only shape the creative aspects of imagination but also give us a grasp on the mythological cultures that are commonly over looked by society. In some ways, it's an educational topic to persue. Which brings up another question, how's this realte to Slender? The fact is, Marble Hornets simply followed the path of Magic Realism, a young film student stalked by a mythical creature; and as stated Magic Realism enturprets fantasy with reality.

I strongly believe that despite uncredits by past scholars reputing Magic Realism as no form of art, I believe that it is an exsistance and does grow strongly in our modern culture and society.

many of the books and film we see are influenced by Magic Realism. I believe that future writers and directors must continue holding on this but keeping a good detail and lenght between over doing and under doing.

Other then that, check their facts, what you wish to believe is entierly up to you in myth or reality.