Pre-viewing impressions of PoA

[Shaun Hately]

Posting this here, because I intend to post in more detail on these points
after I've seen the film. This is an edited version of a post I sent to the
movie group yesterday.

Well, the thing is - at some schools, some boarding schools, kids
*do* wear their uniforms during a lot of their free time - and the
more traditional the school the more likely this is - I suspect that there are
relatively few boarding schools in Britain today where uniforms are worn all
the time, but Hogwarts has always struck me as a very traditional place, with
attitudes that are a fair bit behind our Muggle world on issues like that.

The kids not wearing the uniforms outside school hours isn't a huge problem
for me personally - but it's not unrealistic for them to wear out of those
times - I've got nothing against the change, but I don't think this is
inherently more realistic. Incidentally at the school I attended in the late
1980s/early 1990s - an Australian school based on the very traditional British
model - they actually had to force a great many of us to change out of our
uniforms - they didn't *want* us to wear them outside school hours that much,
because they were expensive and they didn't want them damaged - but most of us
had no incredible desire to change.

I haven't seen PoA yet, because it's not out here until Thursday - but what
I've seen in shorts and previews, my problems with the uniforms are not so
much that I don't like them - I do. Nor is it with the fact that they don't
always wear them. It's that the uniforms have changed - not incredibly, but
noticeably. This is the third movie in a series and I would have preferred it
to remain fairly visually consistent with the first two films. Schools -
especially traditional schools - don't change their uniforms that often (the
school I attended hasn't made a major change in a century now). One change I
don't *really* have a problem with, because that could happen - but I now
worry that every future director will feel they have carte blanche to make any
changes they like - and a different uniform (even subtly different) every year
would get annoying.

Something I think many fans may be unfamiliar with - especially American fans
- is that Britain has a very long and very large tradition of 'school
stories'. Stories set in boarding schools mostly. These school stories form a
massive literary genre with its own conventions, and JKR draws on these
conventions heavily in writing her books - Hogwarts has a lot of influence
from the schools in these stories.

And quite a lot of fans in Britain and the Commonwealth are familiar with
these stories - probably not so much children, but people in their late
twenties or older - many of them will know at least some of these stories. And
for quite a number of these adult fans part of the reason Harry Potter appeals
to them is because it *does* follow those conventions, it does fit into that
genre.

The first two films, for all their faults, also fitted into the genre pretty
well - the uniforms, the way the classrooms look, etc. From what I've seen of
PoA (and I'm reserving final judgement on this until Thursday when I see it),
I'm relly not sure it's followed those conventions as well - and I think
that's largely down to the director. His background means he's not likely to
be that familiar with the genre, if at all, and he won't understand why
certain things might be important to some people and so he makes decisions
that they don't like that much.

I'm not saying he should have stuck slavishly to the genre - but I think quite
a few fans aren't even aware that the genre exists, and if they don't know
that, some of the reasons some people don't like the film may not be that
intelligible, because people won't understand why seemingly irrelevant details
such as a uniform and clothing *matter* to some people. It matters to some of
us because part of the reason Harry Potter appealed to some of us was because
it is a 'traditional British school story' at its core. It has a lot more to
it as well - but for those of us who grew up reading the hundreds of books
written in that style it's very much there.

For me, part of the reason Harry Potter appealed to me when I first
encountered it was because Harry's joy at discovering Hogwarts was so familiar
to me, based on my own experiences winding up at a school which was in the
very traditional British model at 13, after years of reading about such
schools. Those feelings - of the type of school Hogwarts is portayed as being
matter to me. And the first two movies really did do quite a good job of
showing that resonance. I'm just not sure that PoA will from what I've seen so
far. It may be a better film in so many other ways - but if it doesn't have
that, it's not the same for me, personally.

And strange as it may seem to you - issues like the kids not wearing their
uniforms outside of school hours matter - because in those books, in the books
that belong to that genre, in the vast majority of cases, the kids *do* wear
their uniforms outside school hours. That's a feature of the genre - it's not
universal but it is commonplace.

So on one level, that does matter to me.

I don't expect everybody to agree - but I do hope that people can be at least
aware of the genre of schools stories and the influence it has on some
people's perceptions here.

The one bright spot for me - the ray of hope I suppose - is that JKR is very
obviously aware of the genre in her writing, and knows it's "rules" and chose
to use them. And she likes this film - so that makes me hope it won't be as
bad as I fear. Although comments I've seen today about her not caring about
issues like whether shirts are tucked in or not, makes me wonder once more...

It's not that I'm going to hate the film - I very much doubt I will. From what
I've heard, I think I'm likely to agree with far more of the new decisions
than I disagree with. But this is a real issue - and I just think many fans
don't understand why it is - especially, as I say, the American fans, who are
much less likely to have had any real exposure to this genre (and younger
fans, even in the UK and the Commonwealth aren't that likely to have it either).

Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
      (ISTJ) | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia