[HPforGrownups] Re: Bigotry in the Potterverse

[Rick H. Kennerly]

No: HPFGUIDX 188063

sartoris22 wrote:
> Rich:
>
>  I think the movies do a better job of showing the 
> multinational absorption of the UK than the books because they are a 
> visual medium, but that's mostly a failure of careful reading and 
> knowledge of dialect:
> '
> sartoris2:
> What I find most curious about the books is their treatment of young women. Although Hermione is an integral part of the trio, we never see her interacting with other girls. There are countless scenes of Ron and Harry interacting in their dorm room with the fellows, but none of Hermione interacting with her dorm mates. 
rick:

A little geeky here, but JKR switches back and forth between Harry's 1st 
person narrative and a wonky kind of 3rd person limited-omniscience 
POV--like watching a movie shot by a tipsy elf with a camcorder perched 
on Harry's shoulder--so we seldom know much more than what Harry can do, 
see, think, or feel or, more accurately sometimes, what Harry THINKS he 
does, sees, thinks or feels.   So there is no real reason to muddy the 
narrative with Hg's routine dorm room social life. 

Besides, while it's subtle, JKR does hint at Hg's life out of the frame 
by having her well-connected about what's going on with the other girls 
in school.  She knows about Cho's woes, all about Luna, and in OOP 
demonstrates by her looks and tiny actions that she knows Ginny has set 
her sights on Harry.  In fact, most of the boy-girl relationship 
information in all 7 books comes from Hg. 

It is significant that Harry was almost Harriette, as JKR says in many 
interviews.  In some ways Harriette would have been the too obvious 
choice for JKR.  In the end, any book that gets tens of thousands, maybe 
millions of boys excited about reading has to be a good thing.  That's a 
tough demographic nut to crack and at more than twice the page count of 
a typical juvenile book, a tough sell as it was. 
> And Hermione, except for Ginny, has no female friends, and even Hermione and Ginny aren't BFFs because Hermione is always hanging out with Ron and Harry. True, Ginny and Luna get some attention in the books. But Ginny seems to come out of nowhere, suddenly appearing as this fierce hottie in the sixth book, then quickly forgotten in the seventh. 
But that's the way it often happens, some little girl suddenly blossoms 
into womanhood and full hottiehood overnight.  And while Ginny may not 
play much part in the narrative track in DH, she's never far from 
Harry's mind throughout the first half of the book and is in there 
pitching spells like a lodge brother at the end of the book, even though 
she's underage and everybody tried to keep her sequestered in the ROR.

In many ways if the series were to continue, I'd very much like to see 
it retold from Ginny's POV.  I find her intriguing.  She grew up tomboy 
with all those brothers, but also protected.  She knows her mind and 
she's confident in her abilities.  For some reason I always equate Ginny 
with another of my favorite juvenile characters Scout in To Kill a 
Mockingbird.  Scout was clearly a literary precursor to the girl 
empowerment movement
> Luna is one of Rowling's most interesting inventions and serves as a nice counterpoint to Hermione's pedantic certitude, but Luna is another outsider who never fully comes out from the cold. 
But if there were ever a place for weirdos and outsiders, where better 
than the Wizarding World?  Actually, HP and the MoM Drones were more of 
a social anomaly than Luna.  I think it's brilliant that JKR portrays 
most of the WW as wierdos and eccentrics we'd see--and avoid--on the 
street in Muggleville, taking them for panhandlers, bums, and the 
insane.  They all dressed in Muggleville like they'd raided a thrift 
store drop-off box and had to settle for what they found. 
> In the epilogue, didn't you want to find out what happened to her? For some odd reason, I hoped that she married Neville or Dean. Alas, we never discover if Luna is accepted in the wizard community. 
You and a lot of us thought Neville and Luna were a match.  It's not in 
the epilogue but JKR does say in interviews or chats that she doesn't 
think the Longbottom-Lovegood match would have suited Neville because 
Luna was a bit too loonie for him.  She marries a naturalist, we're 
told, somehow related to the author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to 
Find Them. I, too, which she'd be introduced earlier and had a bigger 
role. 

> The Potter books are strangely male-centric and reinforce, to me, a notion of male supremacy. I've read comments from Emma Watson about the books exhibiting girl power, but, if anything, they occasionally exhibit Hermione power. To me, there's a current of traditional sexism that runs throughout the books, and I find that somewhat disheartening.
>   

I'm not a woman but I am a radical feminist (I think men should turn 
everything over to women so we can go fishin') and I think women come 
off quite well in the books--except for Fleur in GOF, but JKR seldom 
misses a chance to ding the French--sharing equally in positions of 
power and evil as well as home and hearth. 

I just don't see the traditional sexism in the books. I do see 
differentiation, but JKR's got to tell a story and it's the differences 
that propel the characters.  It's Hg who is smarter and better at almost 
everything off of a broom and more quick witted than either HP or RW.  
Her skills and daring shine in book 7, where she is the one to save the 
trio's collective bacon.  Hg is the one quietly packing that little 
purse and preparing for any eventuality at the Burrow.  She is 100% 
ready to go as soon as the DEs attack the wedding, looses the DE as they 
flee from the MoM, does all the healing, provides wise relationship 
counselling, and is the one throwing up protective charms and spells 
nearly as soon as they hit the ground on that 100 page camping trip.  
She quick wittedly tarps RW at the Lovegoods so that the DEs see HP 
before she apparates them out. 

She's clearly more than a mere academic, she thinks ahead and applies 
her knowledge.  If that's not girl power, I guess I just don't get it. 

Having said that, I've often wondered of JKR ever felt a twinge of 
feminist guilt about how Fleur came off in GOF; she failed two out of 
three tests against men and was "rescued" both times.

-- 

Rick Kennerly
Virginia Beach, VA
www.mouseherder.com 
<http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=1213141578&ref=name>



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