What does fantasy mean to you? That’s what a university research team is hoping to find out.

Ernest Mathijs, professor of film studies at the University of British Columbia, is helping to coordinate a study of The Hobbit film trilogy in order to investigate international cultural attitudes toward J.R.R. Tolkien’s book, Peter Jackson’s adaptations, and the myriad meanings of fantasy in general.

Mathijs and his colleagues Martin Barker and Matt Hills from Aberystwyth University in the United Kingdom initiated the study, the World Hobbit Research Project, which consists of an online survey questionnaire which has been designed and translated with the help of an international team of 146 scholars from 45 countries. The survey will remain accessible until the summer of 2015, when the team will begin analyzing responses and publish findings this time next year.

Photo courtesy of World Hobbit Research Project

“I think this project presents the first time a truly comprehensive global survey has been undertaken that respects the diversity of audiences from all cultures. This was a big impetus behind our decision to have the survey available in more than 30 languages, including so-called minority languages such as Welsh or Māori. Their voices count too,” says Mathijs.

Global impact

Ernest Mathijs invites you to participate in a collaborative journey of discovery. | Photo courtesy of World Hobbit Research Project

The questionnaire asks participants various questions regarding the recent Hobbit film trilogy, their views on the nature of fantasy and what role they believe it plays in the world. According to Mathijs, the survey is

designed to measure enjoyment of the film, allowing audiences to use their own words to vocalize their views. So far, over 30,000 responses have been submitted.

Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937, introducing the world to Middle Earth and its inhabitants, locales, politics and artefacts. To date, The Hobbit has sold over 100 million copies in more than 50 languages around the world. Moreover, Peter Jackson’s film adaptations of The Hobbit and its sequel, The Lord of the Rings, have furthered the spread of Tolkien’s Middle Earth on our Earth. It was this global reach that had Mathijs and his team wondering what fantasy means to worldwide audiences.

“I saw how people near me, such as my brother, were captivated by it, and that has always intrigued and puzzled me. It was clear that these were texts and worlds that meant a lot to them, and that they became (for some, such as my brother, a die-hard fan) pathways and guidelines for life,” Mathijs says.

Bringing fantasy to life

This is not the first time Mathijs has probed the meaning of fantasy to audiences. In 2003, he and his colleagues undertook a Lord of the Rings international audience research project, gauging responses to Jackson’s first movie trilogy. Researchers from 18 countries designed a questionnaire that was translated into 14 languages and gathered around 25,000 responses. From that project, they learned that audiences were increasingly accepting of fantasy, taking a fictional children’s book very seriously and mining it for real-life relevance for their spiritual journey in an increasingly complex world.

“The LoTR project noticed that audiences were very keen to give political interpretations: comparisons were made between then-U.S. President George W. Bush and Sauron, and between terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the ominous towers of Middle Earth,” says Mathijs.

With the release of The Hobbit trilogy, the rise of social media tools and increasing global distribution of epic fantasy films, Mathijs and his team think the Hobbit project is in a much better position to analyze cross-cultural comparisons as well as to find out how audience attitudes toward fantasy have evolved or changed in the last decade.

Let your views of The Hobbit be known. Visit worldhobbitproject.org for more information.