To those who grew up with the books, that may seem slightly baffling. Still, others I’ve talked to say their parents continue to oppose the novels, even removing them from their adult children’s shelves if they move home. Many of us non-readers found that our parents’ opposition to Harry Potter dropped away as we got older, or as the series was completed and its overt Christian influences became clearer - and then were confirmed in 2007 by Rowling herself, who told MTV in an interview that she thought the Christian symbolism had been obvious. The variety of these experiences helps illuminate the complexity of opposition to Harry Potter’s world - something that’s been bolstered as I’ve talked to parents who once opposed the books and have changed their views, and others who still prefer not to let their children read them. A Harry Potter fan in Australia reading the last book in the series. Others felt ashamed about times when their parents told their teachers that they wouldn’t be allowed to read the books along with the rest of the class. Some people spoke to me about bringing home the novels and having them taken away. (I’d fall into this category.) For others, the opposition was much more overt. While writing this article, I’ve had hundreds of conversations through social media and in person with adults across the country who had the same experience.įor many of us, reading the novels wasn’t outright forbidden, at least not through some kind of household decree it was just understood that it wasn’t something we did in our homes. Rowling’s novels or watching the films for religious reasons. I’m among the millennials who grew up not reading J.K. One of the biggest sources of Harry Potter opposition came from Focus on the Family But the phenomenon of conservative Christian opposition to Harry Potter succinctly encapsulates many of the forces that were at play within that group two decades ago - and illuminates a whole group of young adults who felt excluded from the world around them. To some, the reasons may be obvious to others, that makes no sense. It was because in some religious communities - particularly among conservative evangelicals, but also some Catholics and Muslims - the Harry Potter series was viewed on a spectrum that ranged from suspicion to outright opposition. That wasn’t because they just weren’t into books, or because they didn’t know about Harry Potter. The books shaped the imagination of millions of children, who flocked to midnight release parties, dressed as Harry and Hermione and Ron for Halloween, watched the movies, and even now frame their understanding of real-world political events in terms of Hogwarts and He Who Must Not Be Named.īut a sizable chunk of the same age cohort didn’t read the books at all. So what if you didn’t grow up immersed in the wizarding world of Harry Potter?įor plenty of Americans - especially millennials, who were children when the books first came to the US - that’s an almost unimaginable hypothetical.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |