Free the Muggles!
July 14th, 2009
Harry Potter and the Fascist Ubermensch:
Harry Potter frightens me. In case you’ve been in your box for the past week, film number six is about to come out, and all Azkaban is breaking loose amongst children and adults desperate for another fix of the boy wizard’s fantastic escapades and Alan Rickman’s sexy voice. Now, I love Harry Potter, I do. I stayed up all night reading it on my eleventh birthday, and cried at the end because according to the rules of the book I was destined to be a Muggle forever. But as an adult and a political animal, these phenomenally popular books throw up some serious issues. Just what kind of story is it that 21st century kids are getting hooked on?
The entire premise of the Potter franchise fetishises primogeniture, heredity and aristocracy: the Wizarding world is a glittering ubermensch, and those lucky enough to be born into it are destined for a life more resplendent and exciting than anything the rest of us Muggles (non-magical humans) can hope for. We are told, time and time again, that apart from his jolly old sporting prowess there is nothing that remarkable about Harry apart from the circumstances of his birth and of his parents’ death; he is born and fated to be The Chosen One, The Boy Who Lived, acting out sequential showdowns with His Scariness just in time for the summer holidays. Potter readers learn that have a happy, free life, one has to be born special, which is presumably the reason the author donates to the Labour party. [...]
In other news, last week’s Torchwood demonstrated that Britain really is the 51st state of the USA…
[Via IanVisits]
