Why does the fantasy genre have such a bad reputation?

[Mervi]

Exactly - the "made-up stuff" argument has always sounded so odd to me. I mean, most of fiction is made-up stuff. Sure, some of it might be based on reality, or inspired by it, but if those who argue that speculative fiction such as fantasy or science fiction is somehow weaker because dragons and elves and colonizing faraway planets isn't "real", I'd like to ask how real they think are the serial-killers and super talented detectives and heroic soldiers they are reading about? (Obviously, I'm not including things like memoirs, autobiographies and non-fiction here.) I... simply think it's a sad world where people think that dragons aren't possible.

But anyway, digress if I go that way. (There's a whole rant bubbling under the surface about how humanity would never advance on anything if we didn't imagine "impossible" things.)

I believe one of the reasons fantasy is so often belittled is because we think that fairy-tales are only for children. This has of course not always been the case, but by banishing the make-believe to the children's room, we've somehow managed to make ourselves think that we've grown up - not just as individuals but as a society. I think redchild is right in saying that myths are deeply ingrained in the human psyche. And although I'd argue that fantasy IS escapism in that it often takes your imagination out of this world (and that's a good thing!), that doesn't mean that you can't deal with real problems in an imaginary world. Sometimes, I think it's easier to recognize (for example) social problems when they occur in an imagined culture and then contrast to what you leaned from such a story to the ~real~ world. (Good) fantasy still carries in it moral teachings and high values that are so often completely lacking in (modern) literature, the same kind of stuff we used to find in fairy-tales. And I believe many readers take some of those things with them when they close the book after the final page, so that they always carry with them parts of the imagined reality and especially what they learned of themselves and other humans while visiting it. I guess this is actually the very thing that some people find problematic or even dangerous - I just think it shows that we humans still have a hunger for the such things.