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Jul232007

Homer V. Harry

Filed under Uncategorized by Albert at 8:27 am

Now it's time for America to respond to the recent cultural offering from our friends across the pond.

 

If I may steal from the Bard, much ado was made of nothing with the releases the past two weeks of a new Harry Potter film and book. One would think that British writer JK Rowling had invented sunshine from all the hype.

I've never read an installment or watched a silver screen moment of this fantasy series, so I'll withhold critical assessment of the work itself. But a cursory appraisal of this Harry Potter phenomenon only furthers my belief that England hasn't had a creative mind who can reflect its society - although Zadie Smith has potential - since good ol' Charlie Dickens.

A world of sorcerers, talking cats and flying brooms can stir the mind and soul only so far.

The Brits will be well served to watch what Oregon native Matt Groening unveils this Friday. If The Simpsons Movie in any way matches the brilliance of past seasons of the television series, the Patriots will have scored yet another win over the Redcoats.

Granted, yellow, four-fingered people, some with blue hair, are a bit fantastical themselves. But no one better illustrates the pathos, weirdness, silliness and - oddly enough - moral joys of life than Bart, Marge, Chief Clancy Wiggum, Montgomery Burns and Cletus Delroy Spuckler.

If any mainstream pop culture creation can mirror life at all, it's the animated nerds, creeps, gluttons and morons of The Simpsons.

Stand aside, Harry Potter. Here comes our modern-day George Washington: Homer Simpson.

 

Viewing 5 Comments

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    "England hasn't had a creative mind who can reflect its society - although Zadie Smith has potential - since good ol' Charlie Dickens."


    Seriously? Because that means you're writing off Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman, CS Lewis, Richard Adams, Mervyn Peake, Brian Jacques, George Orwell, H.G. Wells, and P.G. Wodehouse, just to name a few.


    Personally, I think reflecting one's society is overrated. As soon as the society changes or disappears, that writer's work is valuable only as a piece of history.


    If, however, the writing also reflects timeless truths and the fundamentals of human experience, then it will stand the test of time, which is why people still read long-dead authors like Dickens and Shakespeare.


    I'll be interested to see if Rowling's novels stand the test of time or are merely a pop culture phenomenon, soon to be relegated to the VH1's inevitable "I Love the Aughts." Maybe we should start a pool.

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    There are no talking cats in Harry Potter.

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    I find it highly offensive when people attempt to critique the creative endeavors--whether they be books, movies or any other art form--which they have not actually read, seen or otherwise experienced. And while I couldn't possibly defend the talent of JK Rowling--because I have never read any of her books--I don't think reflecting on England's society is her intent. It's FANTASY it's not supposed to be social commentary. Judging art of a particular genre for not being another genre is like judging a chandelier for not being a good mural.

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    This is possibly the most incoherent and ignorant comparison I've seen in recent memory, and bravo, because there is no shortage of ignorance or incoherence on the Internet. Books compared to a TV series? Reading compared to watching? And, uh, NO BRITISH writers worthy of your reflecting-society nod since Charles Dickens? I can only conclude that you don't read much or you might not be so quick to dismiss the British literati.


    It might interest you to know that NHPR just ran a program last week comparing Rowling to Dickens. There are striking similarities in the mania surrounding their work, that their work struck both literary and popular chords -- even that both presented their stories in a serialized fashion. Both created characters the readers truly care about and both were not afraid to make shocking or unpopular decisions about those characters' fates.


    To echo kaitlyn, I don't believe there are talking cats in Harry Potter, unless they appeared in a chapter mysteriously left out of my books. There IS a professor who can TURN INTO a cat, as well as a talking HAT that dispenses housing assignments to first-year students. But I am hard-pressed to remember a talking CAT. Perhaps in your cursory appraisal you have simply confused Ms. Rowling's series with an episode of "Sabrina the Teenage Witch"?


    Homer Simpson is our modern-day George Washington? What? What? That makes absolutely no sense at all. Now you're comparing an animated cartoon character to a historical figure with absolutely no explanation. What on earth are you trying to say here?


    "The Simpsons" movie will no doubt be received well by its longstanding fandom, but many argue the series hasn't had a great season in the last 10 years.


    That's really neither here nor there since a TV cartoon is an entirely different animal from a novel.


    So, tell me when in your lifetime you saw the kind of lines outside bookstores Rowling's final novel inspired. For a BOOK. Not a movie. Not a video-game system. A BOOK.


    And explain to me why you find it necessary to cast stones at one phenomenon to uplift another.


    Maybe before you instruct the "Redcoats" (and really? Redcoats? You are aware that the Revolutionary War is over, right?) in your next pop-culture lesson, you could actually try reading one of the books instead of dismissing the entire series in this cloud of pretension you've emptied your thesaurus into and tried to pass off as critique.

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    It's one thing to be close minded about something. Everyone has rights to their opinion.


    But to publicly critique an author at the same time that you admit you've never read any of her books, or even seen the movies derived from them... Wow, that takes a special kind of ignorance.


    Incidentally, I also enjoy the Simpsons. But perhaps you'd learn as much as (or more) from actually reading the Harry Potter series as they would by watching the Simpsons.

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