Ok, so there’s this very self congratulatory piece in the SMH today by Bryony Gordon on why she hates Harry Potter and anyone who loves it. You know, I get jaded with the world, I get fucked off by how it runs, I get not giving a fuck about the footy grand final etc and despair over the fact that more people will vote for Australian Idol than in a federal election. But this just takes jaded and tries to turn it into a streetwise badge of honour – and jaded by what exactly? Well by other people’s joy in reading fiction it appears – I mean I read the whole damned thing beginning to end looking for something so salient as a point, and as close as it gets is ‘YOU! GROWNS UPS!!! STOP HAVING FUN!!!’.
Is there some nasty culture surrounding Harry Potter that I’m unaware of? Hexings and jinxings with some kind of hate-crime link? Are the injustices of the world becoming more pronounced due to excitement over the adventures of Harry, Ron and Hermione? Are parents neglecting their children? Giving up on real life battles? In short is there any *actual* reason for the bug up this author’s arse, or is she, as it appears, just a boring wanking killjoy?
I mean you know, I am NOT pretending that these books are the beginning and end of an enjoyment of fiction – I’ve finished reading the whole series again and I can see plot flaws, and gender issues, and I have my frustrations with the books individually and as a whole – however, at the end of the day, at 33 (gasp!) I have not lost my ability to lose myself in a book, fall in love with characters, enjoy unexpected silliness and take joy in immersing myself in a world of fantasy and magic.
So far as the movies go I’ve been quite ‘meh’ about them. The tendancy to dumb down the characters and the issues in order to attract littler kids makes for a fairly ordinary movie I think. HOWEVER, life isn’t all Tolstoy and and Eco is it? I mean FUCK people! Life is hard and tiring and sometimes it’s nice to just find the fucking fun, you know – to put on your favourite b-grade flick, to jump around to a little Black Eyed Peas, to eat a greasy burger OR to indulge in flying through some funny, quite well written, easy to read fiction aimed at teenagers! There is comfort in the familiar and Hogwarts, Gringotts, Privet Drive and The Burrow welcome you home just as surely as a pair of flannel pyjama pants and a cup of tea.
But according to some, life is not frivolity and silliness – at the ripe old age of 18 it is time to put fun behind you and embrace the seriousness of Princess Diana’s death!
This is the interaction the author describes presumably to illustrate her coworkers moronic futility of existence, as set above her cool and life giving cynicism:
But then some dolt that I work with said, “The new Harry Potter film is out soon.” – and said it with the sort of glee usually reserved for lottery winners or people who have just discovered that they are pregnant. “How old are you?” I sneered. “Thirty-four and three-quarters,” beamed my colleague.
Well hi, I know which of you two I’d rather be friends with if you’re going to sneer at people for their enjoyment .
I let out a pained groan, put my head in my hands and began to weep openly at my desk.
Yes, you’re SO right – it’s your *co worker* who has the problem with age appropriate behaviour and idiocy not you! You wept openly at your desk that another human found some joy in their life upon the imminent release of a new movie (a movie that wasn’t ‘Oh wow, locking people up and forcing them to kill one another is just so fucking SEXAY’)? I’m no doctor, but I’d suggest getting the fuck over yourself.
The first Harry Potter book was published in June 1997. That’s 12 years ago. Twelve years! Think of all the things that have happened during that time. Princess Diana died in August that year. The twin towers of the World Trade Centre have fallen. We have gone to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. America has elected its first black president. Yet the way people harp on and on about Harry Potter, you would think that all of these things were trifling irrelevancies.
And? What the fuck? No, the way they harp on about Harry Potter, you’d think they’re excited to see a new movie. I would NOT assume that they believe it to be more consequential than Obama’s election, since unlike you I’m not quite that much of a twit that I think there’s any connection between the excitement and major political developments. And excuse me? We should no longer enjoy fiction cos Diana is dead? What? She seemed like a nice enough woman, I reckon she might have enjoyed a spot of Potter reading? And I’m pretty sure that if she didn’t she wouldn’t need to piss on those who did.
Then we’ve got some rot about the kids being too old in 2011 to play kids in their final year of high school – they’ll be 22 at the most and if Daniel Radcliffe ever grows out of his baby faced look I’ll be surprised. Oh noes people have seen his pee pee, oh noes they don’t act 13 in public (she missed the bit about Crabbe being arrested for growing pot!).
Here we seem to get a little closer to her (potential) point:
I know that mature fans of Harry Potter claim it allows them to escape to another world, that it helps them to feel young again. But when the first one came out I was 17 and by the time that the final movie instalment is released I will be 31. That doesn’t make me feel young. It makes me feel really, really old. And there’s nothing magic about that.
Dude. If you’re feeling old and jaded at 31, and you can’t find any magic in your life, might I suggest that is your problem? Kindly don’t take it out on those of us who still think we might have a few good years and a couple of decent giggles left!
Just another person trying to tell the world that what she likes is ‘better’ than what ‘the others’ like and – the poison corollary – that makes her better than the rest. We need to stick up for people’s rights to like what they like, provided we stick the general entertainment sphere. People use arts, music, sports for different purposes, as you allude to. Where one person is looking for challenge and stimulation, another is looking for fantasy or comfort or an unchallenging giggle. What’s odd here is announcing there are more important things in the world than HP(which, duh) and then writing the article about HP.
[...] Why *I* hate try-hard Harry Potter dissers and the boring articles they produce [...]
I love HP.
My enthusiasm isn’t quite what it was while the books were still coming out, but I’ll always be fond of them, flaws and all.
Well. She’s not invited to my birthday party.
I’m turning 33, and we’re dressing up like pirates and going on a pirate ship down at the dock.
Having fun – gleeful fun – is not a bad thing. Sure, if it’s not *your* thing it’s not fun, and I also don’t invite my more serious friends to my pirate-party.
This is one of the best things I’ve read on this issue (judging other people’s tastes on the basis that they’re insufficiently high-brow) I’ve ever read.
Found it via the Hoydens.
Thanks for writing it.
Favourite anecdote time! When HP7 came out, I was in a children’s-fantasy-literature paper at uni. EVERY tutorial discussion we’d had in the first five or so weeks of class had, at some point, involved people bringing up Harry Potter to illustrate their points.
So one of the lecturers starts off the lesson with, “Hey, everyone, I know Deathly Hallows is out this weekend, and I just want to say that we would really appreciate people being courteous and not bringing up spoilers in class for those who take a bit longer to read things.”
A woman next to me *rolls her eyes* and says in a thoroughly-disparaging tone, “Oh PLEASE, like we CARE.”
I’m eternally proud of myself for turning around and asking her, “So why the fuck are you in a CHILDREN’S FANTASY LITERATURE COURSE again?”
“Yes, you’re SO right – it’s your *co worker* who has the problem with age appropriate behaviour and idiocy not you! You wept openly at your desk that another human found some joy in their life upon the imminent release of a new movie (a movie that wasn’t ‘Oh wow, locking people up and forcing them to kill one another is just so fucking SEXAY’)? I’m no doctor, but I’d suggest getting the fuck over yourself.”
I love your blog. this is such a beautifully satisfying response.
I’m currently going through a few Masters and Doctoral degrees which talk about the contribution to youth literacy that pop culture books (like the Harry Potter series) make. If you’re interested, I could blog it for you – if it’s okay to reference this post to start?
Ah. Yes. She also says that her spirit crumbles and her blood curdles at “Yes, your bottom does look big in that”, so no wonder she feels washed-up at 31. She’s not exactly the deepest billabong in the catchment.
Here’s hoping she salvages some joy in her life out of things other than a pert bum and a haughty sneer, or her next half-century is going to be a pretty gloomy one.
Harry Potter is awesome. End of story.
I thought The West was bad :S
Yes – the books, despite some flaws are to my mind a well written funfest. She’s got a knack with making the mundane magical, with an unexpected burst of humour, with conversation. I feel she doesn’t quite do so well on boy/girl stuff, however it’s a reasonably accurate representation of how things *are* as opposed to how they *could* be in many respects. I was disappointed that certain themes didn’t play out (the veil, stuff around Draco etc) and there are some pretty hefty holes in logic/plot at times (the Ministry of Magic is open after hours to 6 random teenagers when there’s no security on board and they suspect someone’s after the prophecies? Really?) – but on the whole, I love love love them, particularly the first four. And generally I’ve had little expectations from the movies and was wildly disappointed by the first two, but I like watching them get older, I like looking for the differences in directing, I like that this movie seems to say ‘Well let’s make more of the magic/muggle worlds colliding and the propensity for some action there’ – and you know, if I can’t have a new book I’ll take what I can get!
I still think she should say ‘Bugger what I said, I’ll write a book that spans the gap between the end of book seven and the disappointingly hokey post script’ – cos I wanna know what Ginny and Hermione DID not JUST that they married and popped out sprogs – these were two seriously fiesty girls-becoming-women with brains and attitude – what did they study? What did they pursue as careers? Did they just settle with Ron/Harry? Were there bumps (like ‘Hey nonghead, stop being so paternalistic I’m fighting alongside you from here on in and not being left at home’)? And what of Ron and Harry – was everything just easy and conflict free when there was no more You Know Who??? What of the Death Eaters? etc etc.
How can you not love pirates??
Hey thanks skepticlawyer! I was just remembering my mother in law – they were ABC cop show fans and something came up about television and I mentioned Buffy – and she did this trilling ‘OH well *that’s* not very highbrow is it?’. I had no idea what to say – ‘Well actually if you watched it I think you’d find it far more critically engaged and aware than the shit I’ve seen you watch’, ‘Well I guess it’s not THE BILL!!’, ‘What? Fuck off rude-o!’, and ‘Well I suppose you’ve got to start from an acceptance that the medium of television itself is somewhat low brow!’, or ‘Well I always make sure I round it off with a little Wagner’?
Well put QoT. I can’t imagine she had anywhere near a satisfactory riposte!
Yeah, no worries re referencing, and I’d be interested to read it. Make sure you whack a comment on here when you’re done to invite people back your way.
Yeah, wow. I’m not much of a fan of the ’suck it up princess’/'rub some dirt in it’ train of thought, but for REAL! If you’re eternally crushed by not being 16, life is going to be slow, painful and unnecessarily depressing. Somewhat like her article.
I like it: short, succinct! I agree, I loves it, and if Hogwarts was real, for shiz I would bail and go learn spells with Harry Ron and Hermione (I feel certain we would be friends!;p). I can even get people not liking it, but FFS, give an actual reason rather than ‘You’re so OLD it’s grotesque!’
WTF would anyone *want* to be 16 for anyway? As I remember it, it was hideous.
I really enjoyed the Harry Potter books – I definitely think there is better children’s fantasy out there (Phillip Pullman and Diana Wynne Jones spring to mind) but as someone who’s also 33, I see absolutely nothing at all wrong with reading kids’ books. They are often better written that adult books.
Agreed re Phillip Pullman (haven’t read Diana Wynne Jones), but yes, HP is still a lot of fun, and you’re right – far better a Harry Potter than a Jodi Picoult I would have thought.
Nine years ago, right before Goblet of Fire came out, literary critic Harold Bloom wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal about how bad the Harry Potter books are, in that high-and-mighty ‘brilliant contrarian’ manner. I was twelve, and it pissed me off. My dad got all excited by the fact that someone was criticizing Harry Potter, and about how Bloom must’ve been right and all the fans knew nothing. Even though he had never read the books to vet their quality himself! Some people seem to just want to piss all over what other people find enjoyable, for no good reason.
Yes, I seem to know plenty of people like that, my father included.
I think killjoys are evil. I’m not a reader of the books (I don’t know why – it just never sang fro me, but that’s okay), but I don’t have any problem with my frieinds reading them – I re-read The Moomin Saga on a regular basis, FFS. Things that make you happy are important, especially when there’s all kinds of horrors in real life that can’t be wished away or ignored.
She’s just horked that she isn’t happy like they are, and wants to spoil their fun.
I used to be one of the assistant mods on an etiquette board, and I remember one bitch who decided it would be a great demonstration of her contempt for everyone who liked HP and was excited about the last book to spoil the ending in a completely unrelated but active thread.
That’s just someone who takes joy in stealing other people’s happiness.
I know that mature fans of Harry Potter claim it allows them to escape to another world, that it helps them to feel young again. But when the first one came out I was 17 and by the time that the final movie instalment is released I will be 31. That doesn’t make me feel young. It makes me feel really, really old. And there’s nothing magic about that.
Oh dear. Someone’s getting older and doesn’t like it. Boo flippin’ hoo. By the time the final Potter movie is being released, I’ll be forty, but gods above, that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up reading for pleasure.
Disdain for the fans of Harry Potter (and fans of fantasy and science fiction writing in general) is a form of snobbery. According to people like this, to be a proper grown-up, one has to read Serious Books by Serious Writers, things which mostly spend their time on the “Literary Fiction” shelves and are very worthy and wordy and post-modern. Expressing a taste for “genre fiction” (be it romance, horror, crime, science fiction, or – worse still – fantasy) is an expression of over-prolonged adolescent fixation on silly things like Enjoyment, when everyone knows Literature isn’t something you read to enjoy. It’s something you read as a duty, as a way of keeping up with the Jones-Fforbeses, and as a way of displaying one’s intellectual prowess.
For myself, I’ll stick with reading books I like – which tend to be various types of genre fiction for the most part (crime, fantasy, science fiction) – rather than forcing myself to plough my way through the latest worthy bestseller. If it means I don’t fit in with the Fitzgerald-Smythe-Fotheringtons of this world, well, so be it.