Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of discussion regarding various movies/shows “lacking” realism. Whenever a movie has “realism,” it would be praised. Or whenever an adaptation diverts from the source material, people would say the diversion is “necessary” for realism.
Why is realism considered an important aspect of fiction? If you’re watching a fantasy movie with elves and mages, why would you bring up realism? If you’re watching a zombie apocalypse show, why would you demand realism? The point of fiction is to be fictitious, isn’t it? I do believe immersion and character authenticity are important, but “real-world” realism doesn’t feel important at all. If I consume fiction to escape reality, why would I want it to be real? I could just watch a documentary or read non-fiction for that.
As a writer, creative freedom is very important. When I write a new story, I want to be able to create events in whatever way I choose. Imagination is meant to have no bounds. If I worry myself with realism, my imagination becomes shackled. However, I like to do some research for my books. With Armored Piercing, I researched soldier ranks, weapons, vehicles, military tactics, and locations from an atlas. Getting these correct was important to add to the immersion of the books. But I did not create my action scenes with realism in mind. The plot of Armored Piercing 1 is quite unrealistic. Soldiers going rogue to go on a multi-country pursuit of an enemy isn’t something that can happen in real life. If I were to rewrite the book “realistically,” the whole book would just take place in that one Canadian base.
Interestingly, I got a two-star review for Armored Piercing 1. It was two sentences long and the reviewer commented that he “didn’t believe I was ever in the military.” The funniest part about this comment was that I never claimed to be a former soldier, so how is this a valid criticism? I have noticed a subset within the military fiction community that is obsessed with realism. They’ve decried things like “unlimited ammo” and “inaccurate” portrayals of flag officers. They also don’t see legitimacy in non-soldiers writing military fiction. Perhaps, that was what the reviewer meant by saying he “didn’t believe I was ever in the military.” The unspoken rule is that only “soldiers” can write military fiction. That’s extremely silly because almost all writers write about people who don’t live their lifestyles. Star Wars, one of the most popular franchises, was not written by an astronomer. If writers were only allowed to write stories that match their lifestyle, nothing interesting would ever get made.
There’s this video from this YouTube channel, Accented Cinema, that gives a good reference to what I’m talking about (i.e. realism vs fantasy). RRR, a very popular Indian movie, leans a lot more into fantasy. As mentioned in the video, many films from India prioritize the fantasy element. The fight scenes in RRR are so out there it almost plays off like a cartoon, but they have a level of creativity that’s not seen in typical Hollywood movies as of late (and most Hollywood movies aren’t that realistic anyways despite the filmmakers wanting to make “realistic character studies”). If the movie was made more “realistically,” the fight scenes would be drastically tamer. (Check out the video from Accented Cinema below!)
I do concede that some sort of realism can add to the quality of fiction. Grounded thrillers and action adventures can be very enjoyable. Also, going too far into the fantasy direction can lead to an outlandish story. However, an extreme focus on realism stifles creativity and fun. I certainly wouldn’t have any fun writing a “realistic” book. More likely, I’d quit the book out of boredom.
So, why is realism in fiction so important to so many people? I have some possible answers; 1) there’s a conspiracy to ruin fictional entertainment by trying to make it as miserable as real life, 2) a group of people who don’t see fictional works as legitimate is trying to use realism to “fix” them, and 3) people immersed in these fictional worlds wish to live in them for real, so they want these worlds to become “realistic.” Whatever the reason, I hope we don’t lose sight of the draw of fictional storytelling: to escape real-world problems and get immersed in worlds that are different from ours.