Thursday, July 22, 2004

Via Ith, I see that the French don’t appreciate the Harry Potter novels.

A French literature professor at a teachers’ training institute thinks Harry “glorifies individualism, excessive competition and a cult of violence,” which he thinks is bad. A philosophy professor responds that Harry Potter is a socialist tract. The Star summarizes:

The five Harry Potter books—enormously successful in French translation—are stuffed with “neo-liberal stereotypes” which caricature approvingly the “excesses of the Anglo-Saxon social model,” (Ilias) Yocaris wrote.

Thus all representatives of the state (the Ministry of Magic) are lampooned as ridiculous, or incompetent or sinister. Harry goes to a “private” school, whose “micro-society” is a “pitiless jungle” that glorifies “individualism, excessive competition and a cult of violence.”

Public institutions are unable to protect individuals. Au contraire, Harry Potter and his friends find that they have to break the magical state-imposed rules to protect themselves from evil forces. [ed., links deleted]

2. Excessive competition, I wouldn’t say it’s excessive but pretty normal. Kids compete against each other on all levels. I think it’s actually pretty healthy for kids to learn how to deal with competition and how to be competitive.

3. A cult of violence? Yes, there’s some violence in the Potter novels, but I seriously doubt it’s developed to a cult level. Talk about hyperbole. As for the lampooning of the Ministry of Magic folks - that’s sort of ridiculous coming from the French. Lampooning our representatives of state is OK in real life, but criticizing the same in a novel is a bit hypocritical. I find the Ministry staff to be portrayed moderately fairly - the whole point of the novels is that Voldemort has spies everywhere, including within the Ministry. Not all state representatives are cheery and helpful.

And the “socialist tract” thing? Aren’t the French socialists? I don’t see that at all in the novels, but maybe I’m missing something.

...Le Monde last week published an equally erudite reply to Yocaris. Far from being a capitalist lackey, Harry Potter is the first fictional hero of the anti-globalist, anti-free market, pro-Third World, “Seattle” generation, according to Isabelle Smadja.

...Harry and his friends show great concern for the “house elves,” the unpaid servants of the magical world. The fact that the elves are mostly content with their lot is, says Smadja, a “pertinent” critique of globalization.

Even worse, many of the wicked characters have French names, such as Voldemort (flight of death) and Malfoy (bad faith).

Actually, the Harry Potter books are about optimism and hope, argues King at SCSU Scholars, quoting Diane Durante of (shudder) Capitalism Magazine. Good can triumph over evil, if it’s got the guts to fight.