Skatecoards and broomsticks (was and is backlash)

[davewitley]

Al wrote:
> 
> Then I saw Harry Potter skateboards ...
> 
> Let's just consider the image, there.  Harry Potter and 
> skateboards ... in my opinion, and please yell at me if I'm wrong 
in 
> *any* way ... belong to two completely different subsections of 
> children's culture ... if I were to go up to the kind of child who 
> uses a skateboard in Britain, and ask him what he thought of Harry 
> Potter, he would likely laugh at me ... I just thought that the 
very 
> idea was so, so tacky.  

Well, my 13yo is a keen (if only moderately skilled) skateboarder, 
loved the HP movie, and reread GOF after watching it.  He is also 
fairly careful to manage his image - more so than his parents and 
probably even his sister.  My guess is that he chooses his moments 
for one or the other.  He doesn't have to talk about HP when 
skateboarding.  The HP skateboards might therefore be a marketing 
failure - though quite possibly younger kids would be quite happy to 
get one - but I don't see the idea as fundamentally flawed, except in 
the sense that all merchandising is.

> Do you agree that there's 
> potential for a backlash, or not?  If not, why not?  Are people in 
> the fandom beginning to get bored with Harry?  Are we suffering 
from 
> burn-out?

I also think JKR has already got a bit of a reputation as a recluse, 
so if she emerges and does an interview at Christmas it's hardly the 
final dissolution of the world as we know it.  She now faces the 
dilemma of all famous people - if she responds to public demand , 
she's a publicity-hungry media manipulator; if she doesn't, she's a 
sulky recluse who doesn't appreciate that it's from the fans that 
she's made her money.

What we the fans would like is for her to be on-tap 24 hour a day to 
answer all our detailed questions about Hermione's age, while writing 
the next three books like a maniac.  I think the answer must be to 
lobby for cloning of human beings to be legalised as fast as possible 
as these silly medical ethical objections are clearly interfering 
with our fundamental human right to enjoy ourselves this instant.

David