Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that uses magic or other supernatural elements as a main plot element, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic and magical creatures are common. Fantasy is generally distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror by the expectation that it steers clear of scientific and macabre themes, respectively, though there is a great deal of overlap between the three, all of which are subgenres of speculative fiction.

In popular culture, the fantasy genre is predominantly of the medievalist form. In its broadest sense, however, fantasy comprises works by many writers, artists, filmmakers, and musicians, from ancient myths and legends to many recent and popular works.

Fantasy is studied in a number of disciplines including English and other language studies, cultural studies, comparative literature, history, and medieval studies. Work in this area ranges widely, from the structuralist theory of Tzvetan Todorov, which emphasizes the fantastic as a liminal space, to work on the connections (political, historical, literary) between medievalism and popular culture.

Fantasy (1938 magazine)

Fantasy was a British pulp science fiction magazine which published three issues in 1938 and 1939. The editor was T. Stanhope Sprigg; when the war started, he enlisted in the RAF and the magazine was closed down. The publisher, George Newnes Ltd, paid respectable rates, and as a result Sprigg was able to obtain some good quality material, including stories by John Wyndham, Eric Frank Russell, and John Russell Fearn.

Publication history

The first U.S. science fiction (sf) magazine, Amazing Stories, was imported into the U.K. from its launch in 1926, and other magazines from the U.S. market were also available in the U.K. from an early date. However, no British sf magazine was launched until 1934, when Pearson's launched Scoops, a weekly in tabloid format aimed at the juvenile market. Soon Haydn Dimmock, Scoops' editor, began to receive more sophisticated stories, targeted at an adult audience; he tried to change the magazine's focus to include more mature fiction but within twenty issues falling sales led Pearson's to kill the magazine. The failure of Scoops gave British publishers the impression that Britain could not support a science fiction publication.

Fantasy (Aldo Nova song)

"Fantasy" is the debut single by Canadian rock musician Aldo Nova and is his most popular work to date. Released on his eponymous debut album in 1981, the song climbed to #3 on the Mainstream rock chart, and #23 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. The song was featured in a flashback sequence in the final episode of the popular television series Rob & Big. A cover version of the song, performed by Steel Panther, is the current theme song for the MTV show Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory.

VH1 listed it at #78 on its countdown for the 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 80s.

Music video

The video shows Aldo performing with his band at a concert. It is best remembered for its intro, which starts out with a man holding an electric guitar and two bodyguards holding machine guns, waiting for someone. Then comes a helicopter, landing from the sky, and Aldo comes out in a very contoured leopard-print suit, being escorted to the stage. When they encounter a locked door, which the bodyguards can't open, Aldo grabs his guitar and fires a laser into the door and it opens.

Woman

A woman is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent. The term woman is also sometimes used to identify a female human, regardless of age, as in phrases such as "women's rights". "Woman" may also refer to a person's gender identity. Women with typical genetic development are usually capable of giving birth from puberty until menopause. In the context of gender identity, transgender people who are biologically determined to be male and identify as women cannot give birth. Some intersex people who identify as women cannot give birth due to either sterility or inheriting one or more Y chromosomes. In extremely rare cases, people who have Swyer syndrome can give birth with medical assistance. Throughout history women have assumed or been assigned various social roles.

Etymology

The spelling of woman in English has progressed over the past millennium from wīfmann to wīmmann to wumman, and finally, the modern spelling woman. In Old English, wīfmann meant "female human", whereas wēr meant "male human". Mann or monn had a gender-neutral meaning of "human", corresponding to Modern English "person" or "someone"; however, subsequent to the Norman Conquest, man began to be used more in reference to "male human", and by the late 13th century had begun to eclipse usage of the older term wēr. The medial labial consonants f and m in wīfmann coalesced into the modern form "woman", while the initial element, which meant "female", underwent semantic narrowing to the sense of a married woman ("wife"). It is a popular misconception that the term "woman" is etymologically connected with "womb", which is from a separate Old English word, wambe meaning "stomach" (of male or female; modern German retains the colloquial term "Wampe" from Middle High German for "potbelly"). Nevertheless, such a false derivation of "woman" has appeared in print.

Woman (1918 film)

Woman is a 1918 American silent film directed by Maurice Tourneur, an allegorical film showcasing the story of women through points in time. Popular in its day, the film was distributed in the State's Rights plan as opposed to a major distributor like Paramount or Universal. This film has been preserved in private collections and in major venues like the Museum of Modern Art and reportedly the Gosfilmofond Archive in Russia.

Some scenes were shot at Bar Harbor, Maine. It was here that one of Tourneur's cameramen, John van den Broek, lost his life while filming a scene close to the raging Atlantic Ocean. His body was swept out to sea and never found.

Prints of this film are held at Cineteca Del Friuli, Germona, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Gosfilmofond of Russia, Moscow.

Plot

As described in a film magazine, a modern man and woman quarrel and, in reaction to his wife, the husband recalls all the women in history who have failed their husbands or lovers. Being in an unpleasant state, he recalls Adam in the garden with a very vain Eve who disports herself in a Broadway fashion and causes the downfall of caveman-like Adam. Then he dwells on the hideous betrayal of Claudius by an unfaithful Messilna. Next he recalls the useless ruination of Abelard by the charming Heloise. Following this episode he remembers Cyrene and the fisherman, where the wife basely deserted her husband and children to swim once more in her seal skin that had been hidden from her for many years. A particularly disagreeable episode in which a young woman during the American Civil War sacrifices a wounded soldier for a bauble. After this the modern woman returns and pins up a Red Cross poster, and the modern man sees the many women of today as more or less uninspiring. An epilogue noted how World War I made men realize the true value of women, and that women are working towards victory through good works in the Red Cross and other jobs.

Woman (1968 film)

Woman (여 - Yeo) is a 1968 three-part South Korean film directed by Kim Ki-young, Jung Jin-woo and Yu Hyun-mok. The film was based on ideas of Kim Ki-young's wife, Kim Yu-bong, and Kim directed the last third.

Synopsis

The film is a melodrama about a man who falls in love with a woman while traveling to Seoraksan. The man becomes infatuated with the woman's hair. The woman, who has a terminal illness, promises to leave her hair to the man after she has died. Later the man finds that the woman has died, and her hair has been sold to someone else. He then has a romantic relationship with another woman who turns out to be his mother.

Cast

Notes

Bibliography