[HPforGrownups] Re: Of cliches and characterisation

[Ebony Elizabeth Thomas]

No: HPFGUIDX 20458

Rebekah wrote:

>To be honest, I never even *thought* about half of these topics when
>I first read the books. The fact that Dudley is fat, and the over-use
>of the word 'fat' in the books never even stuck in mind, let alone
>the 'main characters are boys', and 'the bad boys are blond'
>arguments. It's nice to have something to think about, but maybe most
>of you are thinking about it a little too much?
>
>There are some really interesting and plausible ideas, like snape is
>a vampire etc...Which makes me wonder- when you lot first read the
>books, did you just read it, and think "Oh no, that isn't right, JKR
>called Dudley fat" or "How come the nerdy ones all wear glasses" and
>the such like? Just interested.


Great question!  To be quite honest, I didn't think about half of this stuff 
when I was re-reading Books 1-3 in relative isolation... prior to GoF, I 
only had my students to talk to, and they are surprisingly adept at picking 
up subtleties.  Like FITD--I first learned of *that* from a bunch of seventh 
and eighth graders, not Penny (although she helped me see that they weren't 
just pulling my leg).  ;-)

Yet my students delight in the Dursleys for the same reason that they 
delight in Roald Dahl's exaggerated characters.

You'd be surprised at children's ability to discern between fiction and real 
life.  Recent trends that show this "loss of judgment" in the present 
generation note the symptom but not the disease--when children are raised by 
unlimited television viewing, unlimited video game playing, and unlimited 
use of the Internet, of course that becomes their reality.  (Electronic 
media may make convenient babysitters for harried and self-absorbed 
postmodern parents, but they certainly are not programmed to teach 
morality.)

Another issue that's been bothering me:  I don't think it's valid to say 
that JKR is being intentionally PC by sprinkling in so-called "ethnic" 
characters.  I'm sure the books would have sold just as well if all the 
characters had been white, just like a lot of children's books with an 
all-white cast sell well.  (Which is why I laugh at those who bemoan the 
tide of multiculturalism in kidlit and education in general--they must not 
have been to the children's section in their local Borders lately.)

I know the selling point of the books for me was not the "diversity" 
inherent in them.  Forced multiculturalism is not authentic IMO and useless 
in teaching children how to live.

I would have still used HP in the classroom even if there were no non-white 
characters, although perhaps fielding the question again that my fifth-grade 
valedictorian asked in a quiet voice when we finished reading *Anne of Green 
Gables*--"were there any black people living back then?"  Another kid in 
passing:  "No, we were all slaves."  Both question and answer pricked me... 
the innocence of the question, the inaccuracy of the answer.

My students (with the exception of one child, my classes are entirely black 
and Hispanic kids--we also have a sprinkling of Vietnamese, Laotian, Hmong, 
and Middle Eastern kids) largely identify with the main characters in the HP 
series for the same reason I do--we know them better.  So my girls tend to 
identify with Hermione (as I do), my boys with Harry, Ron, or even Draco.

But it does make them feel better to know that there *are* people like them 
in this world, that their presence hasn't been ignored or utterly 
eradicated.  They're still young yet, but one day they'll know what it's 
like to be objectified... I'm glad to say it hasn't happened as often for me 
as it does for my grandmother, but it does happen.  A lot.  Either you're a 
purple people-eater... or the Invisible Man.

So it was a nice surprise and almost a shock for me when I noticed that 
there were characters of different races--and it shattered some stereotypes 
I had--because I never thought that England was all that diverse of a place. 
  Quite the contrary.

I really like the way Rowling handles ethnicity--she mentions it, then lets 
the kids act like all the other kids instead of venturing into dangerous 
ethnic stereotypes like too many writers do.  Not all Asian kids are passive 
and whiz-kid smart.  Not all black kids are loud and have bad diction.  Not 
all redheads have fiery tempers.  Not all the overweight kids are bullies or 
bullied.  The unspoken message I got was:  "They're just kids, gosh darn it, 
and let's just get on with the business of learning magic and growing up."

Having said that, I have noticed an undertone in the rhetoric of those who 
complain that multiculturalists always want to make *everything* 
non-Western, gays always want their orientation represented, and feminists 
want gender stereotyping eradicated.  I think I do understand the 
understone--I translate it as "not everything is *about* you and your 
kind"--which is actually a true statement, but I do a considerable amount of 
head-scratching over the unspoken sentiment attached to it.  If times 
change, but people don't, then those who have a problem with people who do 
not fit into their cookie-cutter view of what humanity ought to look like 
and act like must find other ways, means, and terms to express their 
dissent.

In Harry Potter and in real life, I'm far less interested in quotas than I 
am in truth in representation.  I've been told what I "ought" to do as a 
writer of fiction ever since I began publishing and converted to 
Christianity in the same year... and I resent it.  I think a writer's job is 
to always tell the truth at any cost... and so much writing in real life is 
*not* the truth, but half-truths, lies, d--ned lies, and statistics which 
all contradict each other.

Jo Rowling has no social obligations to *anyone*.  She's a storyteller, not 
a genie.  I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it until I'm blue in the 
face... which, looking in the mirror, would be quite a feat indeed.  ;-)

After all, when your work includes this sort of truth in representation of 
the world you live in, that's not politically correct IMNSHO.  It's just 
plain *correct*.

--Ebony AKA AngieJ
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