The Virtues of Reverse-Escapism

On the nature of escape and its surprisingly varied forms

Image from Weapons / Warner Bros.

One of the biggest reasons that people have always turned to books, TV shows, and movies is the emotional getaway that they offer. When we’re immersed in the plights of made-up people in alternative realms — whether cartoonish, fantastical, or gratingly realistic — it’s easy to forget about our own problems. We can turn a blind eye to the anxieties and pandemonium of our personal worlds.

But one of the greatest values that many find in entertainment isn’t the ability to flee from the problems that we have, but in finding a new lens to examine them through. We can’t directly relate to Harry Potter when he uses magical spells to fend off mystical creatures or snake-faced antagonists, it’s true. And yet, so much of the enduring appeal of J.K. Rowling’s world is rooted in the allegorical nature of the story. We see ourselves in Harry, Ron, and Hermione as they confront stand-ins for the evil that we inevitably confront in life — from bad teachers and cruel classmates to cowardly politicians and sadistic leaders.

In Jurassic Park and all of its sequels, while viewers are unlikely to ever face off against velociraptors or towering T-rexes that have broken free from their enclosures, time and time again we see the message behind the movies play out in our culture. “Just because we could, doesn’t mean we should.” We’re a species with a self-defeating habit of letting genies free from bottles. And in those dinosaur-laden safaris, we’re granted a vicarious and stakes-free thrill ride through one of the biggest what-ifs that many of us spent our childhoods envisioning.

In Everything Everywhere All at Once, there’s a mesmerizing relatability to the protagonist’s journey through the multiverse, not because we’ve figured out how to transcend our own realities, but because all of us wonder about the lives that could have been. The alternate universes where things function differently.

But one of the most powerful aspects of the movie for me is the way it captures the chaotic nature of the world we live in — the equal parts stultifying and enlivening nature of life on this tiny blue dot that’s overflowing with fleeting consumerist delights, existential dreads, and a million and one reasons to laugh, cry, and dance. Our planet brims with pop culture references, an endless palette of shows and movies we’ll never find the years to watch and books we’ll never live long enough to read. What’s so cathartic about the movie isn’t that we understand precisely what the protagonist is going through in her too-surreal-for-words odyssey, but the oblique way it encourages us to grapple with the relentless deluge of a world that stops for no one.

So many of my favorite films are alluring to me, not because they offer escapes, but because they force me to confront ideas that are overwhelming. Interstellar deals with concepts that are soul-crushingly immense, from climate change and our cosmic smallness to the prospect of letting life pass us by and missing out on time with the people we love most deeply. It holds a spot in my heart, not because it’s an adventure that takes place on such a staggering scale (that’s certainly some of the appeal), but because it makes me feel a depth of emotions that few other films manage to.

Of course, some stories are plain and simple escapes. They invite us to turn off our brains as we revel in whatever its writers or directors have in store for us. Superhero movies almost invariably fulfill this function for me. Watching any film from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there are often some greater themes at play. The good vs. evil trope is never far from sight and other themes are almost always part of the mix— even if rarely explored with much depth. But for me, so much of the call to see each new superhero entry is the excuse to revel in bombast for the sake of bombast. Super-powered showdowns for the sake of super-powered showdowns.

I don’t see myself in Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, or Spider-Man. But in their adventures, that escapist function presents in its rawest form. It’s rarely as easy to slink away from my world as when I’m watching cheesy caricatures in tights come to life and trading blows with super villains and cosmic threats. Those additional themes I allow to wash over me.

However, much of the value that I find in entertainment stems not from escapism exactly, but something I’ve actually begun referring to as “reverse-escapism.” Nowhere is that element more alive for me than within horror movies. I love them, not because they take me away from the plane I’m living in; so often, the settings in horror movies feel eerily close-to-home. But it’s that close-to-homeness — and the visceral discomfort of watching protagonists tackle hauntings, otherworldly threats, and gruesome scenarios that I’ll certainly never find myself in — that makes my reemergence from the stories feel like such a calming respite once the credits roll.

Being immersed in the dismal, disturbing realities that most horror movies traffic in, it’s hard to call my time with them an escape. The element of escape comes once the movie reaches its conclusion and the dark realities of my everyday life are made to feel small. Benign. In the United States, it’s hard not to feel a certain sense of despair when we consider the constant influx of bad news that so many of us spend our days steeped in.

In many ways, it’s ironic that, when the state of the nation is so dark, I often find myself gravitating toward the most petrifying, foreboding horror movies that I can find instead of the realm of bright and happy cartoons or the comfort movies of my childhood. When I do, so often there’s something that feels off about getting lost in such colorful and optimistic worlds. They feel saccharine. Synthetic.

But horror has a reliable habit of trivializing crises that, throughout my days, feel insurmountable. Even as my country teeters toward an autocratic form of government, our collective struggle doesn’t sound so horrendous when I consider the perils that protagonists are faced with in The Walking Dead, The Last of Us, and Train to Busan.

Whether the death and zombified resurrection of loved ones, or an onslaught of malevolent vampires, demons, ghosts, or otherwise creepy cryptids, it’s hard to walk free from such stories without a certain sense of, “Y’know, life could really be a lot worse.”

War and disaster movies fill a similar void. Watching John Cusack and his family escaping apocalyptic demise by only inches in 2012, it’s easy to feel like our bad leaders and feckless politicians aren’t all that dire a threat. When the earth is literally cracking apart at the seams and towering tsunamis are crashing over the Tibetan mountains, suddenly Secretary of War Pete Hegeseth just sounds like an Onion headline.

Watching Dunkirk, Fury, Saving Private Ryan, Warfare, or Braveheart, I’m not only relieved to be watching such high-stakes stories unfold from the comfort of my home, but I’m reminded of the awful scenarios that humanity has overcome in the past. Even Schindler’s List offers hope as we consider our perseverance over foes once thought undefeatable.

There’s nothing cheery about the plots of those films; they’re stark in their colorlessness. And yet, they serve as a discordant kind of band-aid over the wound of living through such troubled times. They’re hardly escapist. But in reducing what so often seems utterly irreducible, they help instill me with a more optimistic attitude toward life on this ever-spinning planet.

What keeps me coming back to these stories isn’t always the illusion of alternate realities, but the strange comfort of seeing the one I know reflected, refracted, or obliterated. Art doesn’t have to take me away to offer relief. When I watch people endure the impossible — whether they’re dodging dinosaurs, slashing through demonic forces, or cascading directionlessly through the multiverse— I’m reminded that the threats of my daily life aren’t always as enormous as I make them out to be. That doesn’t make our frenetic world stop. But through these stories, I can gain my footing and breathe a little more easily knowing I’m not alone in trying to make sense of chaos.

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