"Harry Potter" Valley

I am a Harry Potter fan....there I said it. I always have been--ever since book 1 and 2 saved my life while I was temporarily living in the Dominican Republic. Aside from their salvific qualities, it's an amazing story. And the movies are amazing. So, I waited with a gnawing hunger to go and watch the 5th movie--Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix--which was finally satisfied yesterday. And the wait was worth it. I was mesmerized (and I've known how it ends for years), enchanted (hah!), and drawn in both by the lush visual quality of the movie and the theatrical ride that every HP movie since #1 has almost guaranteed before you walk in the door.

But as I walked out of the theater into the blinding, glaring 93-degree heat yesterday, I felt sad. I was experiencing, what I'm sure is the Harry Potter let-down--not because the movie was a disappointment (far from it) but because I won't get another visual dose of Harry for another 2 years. I felt like I'd just had the best 2 hour and 38 minute period two old friends could have and that friend has up and gone, of course promising to come back but not for awhile. Surely, I will watch this 5th installment at least 20 more times before...this year ends. I will pick apart every detail, I will analyze every single DVD extra offered on the DVD that will surely (IT MUST!) come out in time for Christmas shopping, I'll even read the book again. But yesterday, as I was assaulted by glaring reality as I exited the movie theater, I realized that the line between fantasy and reality has become blurred for me: I strongly identify with Harry and his crew...I feel like we're friends. What I wonder is whether or not I should be worried.

I'm pretty sure I'm not insane, but I also don't feel normal admitting that a character out of a book (and now movie) actually informs the way I act. I left the movie feeling all of these emotions: sadness, worry, a sense of triumph and empowerment. I also happen to be reading book 7 right now and even as I write this I'm worried for Harry, Hermione, and Ron even though I know how the book ends (if you're going to chastise me for skipping to the end of almost every book I read, get in line). I get that sense of fulfillment--admiration really--in ways my real life does not provide. It has real consequences outside of the movie. But is that a bad thing? Is it because I've become so sensitive and socialized into a world of pop culture (in which I've admittedly immersed myself) that "everyday, ordinary reality" seems just that--not extraordinary. And, if movies/books/tv can influence people in a positive way (make them feel empowered and even emboldened) should we be okay with that? Of course, the flip side is the negative impacts on which we always seem to focus. And at what point, then, does the creation of pop culture become something of morality--an embodiment of a certain value system "hidden" within the media of film or novels?

I feel lucky that J.K. Rowling seems to endorse a value system governing society that can be read as a "tolerant" view of the way the social world should work--Dumbledore and those who follow him seek what is "right" (which in her case means "equality" and "democracy") and those happen to coincide with my ideals. For me, Harry is the model of a freedom fighter, answering the call to accept and fight a war on the side of justice as opposed to fascist, racist Voldemort. What about those items of pop culture that spew and endorse hate? Should any of these producers be held accountable for the value systems inherently injected into their art if we sense that those items become the basis for action based on those value systems within?

Okay...too heavy...come back. I'm just saying...I love Harry Potter. The series, yes, but also the character. And Hermione and Ron and Lupin and Sirius. James and Lily. Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonigle. Ginny, Fred, George, Bill, Charlie, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. I feel their pain, their worry, their joy. I've watched Harry (through Daniel Radcliffe) grow from a boy to a man--and I still like him. And maybe that's why J.K. Rowling is a genius. She's allowed me an every other HP Fan to be part of the family and part of the fight. And I love that. This is only the 5th movie--imagine what will happen to me when the 7th movie (the final, final installment of anything Potter to ever be created) is over and done with. I'm already planning Harry Potter Marathon Screenings just to keep the dream alive.

Marketing of Sherrybaby

Just an addendum to my previous post. I thought this was interesting. The cover of the DVD shows this picture: Sherry the bedraggled woman. You can see her either going or coming to a job interview. She doesn't look happy. The skirt is maybe a little too pink. Clearly, just a woman trying to do good.
But, this picture was not the mass-marketed version. That was this:
In this one, she looks different and, frankly, like she could use a little support (and I mean that in a lot of ways).

What I wonder is why they chose such a different look for the DVD when this "halter top" Sherry is the predominant image of Sherry we get in the movie and in all the trailers. I don't know, but I found that while I was searching around for pictures and thought it was worth mentioning...or at least questioning.

My First Venture into blogging movies: Sherrybaby

This movie has been sitting on "My Q" on Blockbuster for months. Finally it arrived on my doorstep and given my new-found sense of getting things accomplished, I had the gumption to watch it. From trailers, it looked great.

But something was off.

Sherry is a woman coming home from jail after having done some hard time for stealing to get drugs; she's going through a 12-step program, living at a half-way house, and trying to get her relationship with her daughter back. The girl, Alexis, doesn't remember Sherry, having been raised by Sherry's brother and his wife.

Here's where the wheels started coming off. We're only 10 minutes in, by the way. Sherry is consistently portrayed as "a good heart" who's been dealt an awful lot in life. She, admirably, is trying to get past that and be the parent that she knows she can be; I'm just not convinced and that's what's weird about this movie. Sherry is framed as this downtrodden heroine who we should root for, but I don't. (And I feel guilty about it because I should...I should be on the side of a woman who's persevering and overcoming). I don't. I feel pity, which makes me feel even guiltier--and maybe it's because she's still such a woman-child who's trying to grow up through her own daughter who calls her "Sherry."

Maggie Gyllenhaal is awesome in this, but Sherry isn't and that's the problem. I want to root for Maggie for portraying the sloop-shouldered, raggedy-haired, fawn-eyed make-good woman. But there is no character there. People have relationships: Sherry does not. People have dimensions--again, Sherry does not. It's almost as if slinging a poor white woman just out of the clink onto the screen would be enough to make this work. I don't think this does. It's a disservice; it allows us "viewers" to fall back into all the ready, generalized, idealized stereotypes we've gotten used to assuming are true. I hate when movies do this; it's lazy. Well-conceived and executed details were skipped: who is Sherry and what motivates her? Her desire to break free from past parental relationships? To break out of her current social situation? Just wanting to be happy? Attention to any of these might have given us some insight into a woman of dealing with the consequences of of choices made through the experience of a certain socio-economic status. She's trying to "make it right" without any kind of past framework to guide her. "Making right" is a scary world. But Sherry was done the disservice of being written off by the writers as a floozy who gave in to the demons of her past life; even her creator didn't think she could do it. We have the portrayal of a "white trash" woman embodying everything that label implies (all of which is stereotypical and too simple).

And she seems to deserve more than that.