[HPforGrownups] Re: open letter to JKR

[rebecca]

No: HPFGUIDX 155657

> Susan McGee said:

> Oh, goodness, but fiction, movies are a very powerful way of working
> on our imagination. If they are good literature, good films (meaning
> extremely high quality that cause us to suspend disbelief) then they
> have REMENDOUS power to change attitudes because they work on the part
> of us that is feeling not thinking.....There are a ton of examples,
> most recently the DaVinci Code, but books like Gulliver's Travels,
> Gone with the Wind, Stranger in a Strange Land..(I'll make a list if
> anyone is interested).....

Rebecca now:

Fiction and movies can work on some individuals and highlight social issues 
or present an argument, but the real tools of change typically come from 
outside these venues - the only books that have ever radically changed 
anything in societies were books like the Bible, the Torah, and the Koran. 
For example, Gone With The Wind (which happens to be one of my favorite 
books) didn't really highlight the plight of slaves during the Civil War, 
Uncle Tom's Cabin presented that much more effectively if you ask me.  The 
DaVinci Code *is* fiction, and many of the "facts" Dan Brown put forth on 
his website about it and in interviews are not entirely correct. (And no, I 
do not subscribe to a particular faith and base my opinion about the book in 
a very open frame of mind. Even scholarly Elaine Pagels, one of Brown's 
supporters, acknowledges that.)   While I personally get the message of 
Stranger in a Strange Land, I think it is poorly written and fault Heinlein 
for his inability to make the reader get emotionally and psychologically 
involved with the world and characters he created. If an author can't do 
that, then to me he/she has failed to convey the message properly.

You cited Gulliver's Travels - where you aware that it was edited by the 
publisher because some sections were too overtly inflammatory for the Whig 
controlled Parliament at the time? Like Swift's publisher, I believe that 
sometimes *less* detail is far more compelling in this regard. JKR, like 
other authors before her (CS Lewis, Tolkien, and Pullman) writing epics or 
coming-of-age fiction, has used allegory effectively to make her views 
known. Equating bigotry with class or blood prejudice in a fictional world 
to me is far more effective in swaying reader's opinions or start them 
thinking on topics such as equality for all rather than depicting a 
controversial (like it or not, such a thing probably would be so to some 
people) specific set of  real-life people in the series.

Rebecca