Okay so everyone knows intense Harry Potter adults are a bit cringe. Harmless but still a little cringe. Sort of like sports fans who I would argue are not so harmless but I digress. While people can read whatever they like (and people can judge whomever they like) I would like to focus on very specific Harry Potter discourse and criticism that is pervasive on the internet. These criticisms are not anything new but discourse flares up everytime JK Rowling opens up her mouth and says something that Harry Potter's milennial and very very liberal fanbase considers a betrayal to their values or if some new IP drops. The game for example. I expect another wave of annoying Harry Potter discourse now that a show is coming out.
Anyways so much of the criticism against Harry Potter just seems… identitarian and pointing flaws at a nonsensical world building. Harry Potter is fatphobic, ableist and time turners make no sense. Slavery bad. Goblins are anti-semitic caricatures. Did JK Rowling know about that? Or did she not? Did she know about anything? Then there's the structural critiques. Harry Potter doesn't enact structural change and upholds the status quo. He ends up becoming a cop. Harry Potter is not a communist.
I can't be the only one who finds all this annoying and misplaced? Like these are books written for 10 years olds and you are a 30 year old. Read another book. You want structural criticism, hard magic systems and well fleshed out world building and racial issues properly addressed then just read another book. I don't understand what these people want from Harry Potter. Like do they want JK Rowling to change the books or something?
Literary criticism is valid. It exists. It should exists. But nothing new has been said about Harry Potter in the last 20 years. The Harry Potter neoliberal conversation is also old and existed way before Shaun made his infamous video.
I think the real problem is that the adults who talk about Harry Potter and exclusively Harry Potter. You could tell that they are going through a derangement syndrome of sorts and now that being a fan is not fashionable they are haters.
Recently youtube seems to have filled my recommendations with Harry Potter video essays. I had to press not interested and do not recommend on all of them but I was surprised at how many of these videos even existed in the first place. So many of these videos are as latest as last month. Ofcourse many are slop youtubers but they have high views. The slop youtubers understand that talking about Harry Potter is lucrative.
Anyways I think some of these people need to put this series to rest. Pick up a different book in the same genre or a different genre whatever you want but diversify. Branch out in your criticisms too. So many comments under Shaun's videos focus on Harry Potter being horrible but very few of them seem to engage with Shaun on his own political level. It shows me that their engagement with politics and literature is shallow. Ofcourse Harry Potter is a children's book it is going to be shallow but these adults seem unable to talk about them without talking about Cho Chang's name.
You have to do better.
by aprlswr