Abstract

Mass culture is regarded as space of realization of different forms of escapism, which is understood as the result of human desire to get liberated from the routines of everyday life. Escapism, which has existed in different epochs and in different cultures, has become wide spread today. The reasons are, on the one hand, the extension of the realm of everyday life, demythologization of culture, on the other – great technological opportunities, which allow the escapist to construct his own fantastic worlds with the help of new technologies. In mass culture the escapist gets a lot of opportunities to implement his fantasies, which may have different and contradictory consequences for real life. Such forms of escapism have been examined as fantasies embodied in different literary genres and screen forms, mass tourism, creating attractive images of «Orient», and virtual reality as the most important space for creating «other-worldliness». Mass culture, with its cult of game and entertainment, creates rich possibilities for different forms of escapism. Popular literature allows the reader to get immersed in the romantic world of love or a fantastic fairy tale. Screen arts, from cinema to computer art, make this immersion still deeper and more exciting, and virtual reality, which has embraced the whole world with the advent of computer era, drags in both children and adults, creating new worlds, where people choose their identity by themselves, construct their surroundings. Cultural industry creates new forms of entertainment and games with its commercial profit in view, but for an individual a quest for «other worlds» may turn into a dramatic break with reality.