Apparently, Harry Potter has a drinking problem. In a New York Times article at the end of July, Tara Parker-Pope explored the role alcohol played in the latest Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Parker-Pope says she was “taken aback” by the drinking scenes and the audience’s reaction to them. Other parents interviewed for the article also expressed dismay at the inclusion of such scenes.
The problem may not lie with the Half-Blood Prince movie and book, but rather with the intended audience. An Associated Press article from July broached the subject of age appropriateness. Some parents and librarians are suggesting that the later Harry Potter books (#'s 5-7) are not appropriate for younger children.
When the first Harry Potter book was released in 1997, it was clearly a children’s book, intended for 9-11 year-old readers – in other words, Harry’s classmates. The subsequent books came out one at a time, allowing readers to mature with Harry. Now, however, readers can get all seven books at once, allowing a young child to read the entire series, complete with its darker and more grown-up later books, in one sitting.
Even if the viewers or readers are older, the drinking "problem" still exists for some. The drinking scenes in Half-Blood Prince occur in social settings – Harry, Ron and Hermione visit Hogsmeade one weekend; in another, Prof. Slughorn is hosting a Christmas party. The alcohol only comes into play in situations where it might also come into play in the "real" world. The drinking aspects never really seem integral to the plot, until Ron accidentally drinks some poisoned mead.
Since I don’t have children myself, I can’t really comment on how it might affect impressionable young minds. As a reader, however, I can say that the alcohol mentioned in the Harry Potter books never seemed to be an issue at all for me. In fact, based on the way Rowling wrote about butterbeer, I always assumed it was the magical world’s version of root beer or ginger ale. Furthermore, it feels unrealistic to expect Harry to remain “pure” and above any age-related behaviors. Certainly, he wasn’t drinking mead when he first started Hogwarts at age 11. But by age 16, especially coming from a European country, one should reasonably expect the pub and a pint to come into Harry’s story. (In fact, in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, during which Harry was 13, there is a scene in which our mighty trio go into Madame Rosemerta’s pub and drink butterbeer, thereby solidifying my contention that butterbeer isn’t actually alcoholic at all.)
Perhaps it is reasonable to question the portrayal of alcohol in the most recent Harry Potter movie, but I’m inclined to give Rowling – and Hollywood – a break. It’s a movie, based on a work of fiction. Just because I saw Dumbo doesn’t mean I think elephants can fly (and if you want to get picky, Dumbo partakes in some alcohol as well). As one parent mentioned in the NY Times article:
“The Harry Potter universe is not our own. Trying to put 2009 American norms into play seems kind of silly. Plus, in a world where dark wizards are kidnapping or killing people on a regular basis, a little under-age drinking is the least of their problems.”
[Photo Credit: Google Image Search]
0 comments:
Post a Comment