british article on LUMOS
well, this would have been an even better article if the person HAD actually read all the books in preparation for covering the conference, but still, there are some interesting observations.
MERLIN, interested in hearing your response to this article.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1837941,00.html
jo
MERLIN, interested in hearing your response to this article.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1837941,00.html
jo
posted by jkr2 | 7:28 am
11 Comments:
What a bizarre report. !
She travelled halfway round the world to cover the conference but couldn't be bothered reading a few books before she left? What shabby journalism.
I wish I had that kind of excuse for a free trip to Vegas.
i know.
the first skim through i got a few laughs and kind of shrugged like *yeah, we are a bunch of dags aren't we*,
but then i read it more closely and was quite annoyed.
there was almost some self hatred anti female stuff going on.
that's why i was interested to see what merlin thought (being a bloke, and having actually been at the conference too. and being one of those who comes at the whole thing from slightly cerebral of centre).
here's merlin's response for the punters playing at home...
it's about halfway down the comments of this unrelated post.
http://www.mugglematters.com/2006/08/snape-24-and-dead-dumbledore.html
Yeah, weird anti-young-women enjoying themselesv kind of thing.
It's so condescending, like "hey, check out these fruity people who dress up and talk about wizard books. Aren't they weird?" One of those articles where you know the writer is just hanging out for a bunch of readers to agree with her and join in the bitch-session., so she'll feel validated.
I reckon more adults need to start reading "kid's" books and dressing up!
Aye!
In re-reading my response I still wonder at some points "dude ... you're kind of being a jerk aren't you?" But also, I guess some of my flare up may come too from what you pointed out Sumara, about the "excues for a free trip to Vegas" ... Pauli footed the bill for me going and I was really grateful for it, and it's kind of pumped the MM site up a bunch and I'm trying to do a good job of being informative to readers and stuff - and I never would have been able to afford to go myself paying for it ... and even at that, with Pauli's business going well right now and other things, he and my sister still aren't making the pages of "lifestyles of the rich and famous" or anything ... so the response this woman had really kind of set me off and I was sort of like ... "I don't know who paid for your ticket, but if they and you can afford that kind of a bill for a review that comes off as this kind of 'mere curiosity' thing ... you may be from the 'liberal' camp but you ain't from the poor side of the tracks." which was some of the reason of using the example of working construction ... just to kind of say, "you think you're 'giving a people a titilating taste of the sordid side of life?' - you ain't seen nothing ... I quit the first house-framing crew I was ever on because half the guys on that crew were running coke for a local back-woods version of a cartel and the rumor was somebody had ratted a bunch of people out, and I didn't want any subpeonas for what I might have heard on the job or any threats concerning maybe having gotten such subpeonas - and the one of the guys, who they called "hairback," who was with the cartel family really not liking me and realizing that the other drug-runners on the crew I would be a little surprised if they had killed anyone, really surprised if they had done it without really strong 'business' reasons, but Hairback was the one guy I hsvr ever worked around who I would not be surprised at all if he had done and would be surprised if the 'business' reasons were not just an excuse ... or another crew I worked on, a guy either smacked his finger or cut it or something that made him bleed and the crew chief was like 'don't let him get none of that blood on you ... Brenneman's got deiseases they aint even got names for yet'" ... so I was a bit snarky but I really do think the lady has some "class snobbery" going on.
But I think you two have a pretty insightful take on it, on the whole thing of the anti-feminine thing, which is really kind of saddening. I mean, Rowling has some interesting takes on things, as far as Lockheart's affect on women and his attempted affect on Harry and Ron in the cave antechamber ... but it's not the same thing, we never find a perspective of substantially "looking down" on Ginny, Hermione or Molly etc ... Rowling seems to approach it with a sense of a sort of mystery that enables us to find the humor in it, not mindless humor, but rather that kind of humor that has humility at its core. When Hermione asks McClaggen in HBP and starts talking about it with Parvatti, Harry thinks "it's amazing the depths to which girls would sink to get revenge" or someplace else in that book Harry thinks something about girls' minds being so wierd ... but I think this is intentional irony on Rowling's part when taken with some of the stuff Harry and Ron pull.
But this reviewer lady ... you're right, there is that undercurrent of having bought into some sort of very subtle misogyny. To me, as being a said bloke, I do find the female mind mysterious on both fronts ... Ie exasperatingly confounding (here deliberately using that word to echoe what Hermione does to Cormack at the keeper trials, which Jo will get and Sumara will not till she gets to book 6 :) ) and frustrating at times ... but also completely and utterly sublime. As a "theologian" or whatever, you learn all the arguments for the existence of God: Anselm's ontological argument, argument from design ... all that. And if I were having a serious discussion with an atheist or a fence-sitter seriously looking for answers I would probably try to discuss those somehwat without getting too dry and all that ... but particulary as a guy I have always found the most compelling argument for the exisyence of God to be the "argument from beauty" ... which is my name for the simple fact that women exist - "how can there be that much beauty in the world and their not be a God?" ... now Maybe there is a converse argument that works on women for the fact that men exist ... but being, as noted, a bloke, I am not privvy to that info :) for me guys are either "cool you're on my side and an ally - and you better pull you're weight when push comes to shove" or "cool, you like to play darts too ... that'll at least pass some time" ... OR I am saying "ok, you have made it clear that you are the enemy ... it's down in the rule book, I simly must start punching you in the face right this very instant"
Sumara, on reading kids lit and dressing up
I loved the line by Depp in that one interview you provided the link to ... about going through depression when the character is over, and keeping the costume and just prancing around the house to entertain their kids ... I loved that, especially the word "prancing"
i'm trying to imagine merlin prancing and not quite managing it....
sumara, i really agree with that feeling of looking for someone to have a bitch with feeling. like all the readers will be nodding and going "yeah, you're right...".
oh well.
people get paid for wierder things.
ahhh, certain things nobody will every see except as the last thing they every see :) Merlin "prancing" is one of them LOL (not that I would kill over that, just saying one could easily die of laughter from such things)
Oh, I dunno, did you see that photo of Merlin in his wizard's cape? Just add a feathered hat and some pantaloons, and then he'd have to be prancing. :)
Though to be honest I'd definitely prefer Johnny Depp's prancing (no offense, Merlin).
i'm snorting, sumara! SNORTING!
not intending any disrespect, merlin.
i'm sure you'd look very fetching...
Indeed! ... I wouldn't be caught dead in pantaloons :)
And I too would much prefer Depp prancing ... and I say that both as said possible prancer and as obsevrer (and in any other way possible, and even in those that are not theoretically possible ... just to cover the bases).
tee hee... what a good giggle. :)
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