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J.K. Rowling … the Anti-Disney? I have always liked J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series (though I must confess I have only seen the movies and not read the books). She writes about wizards and magic and yet the world she creates is populated by characters who still act like real people.
Moreover she is the anti-thesis of the sugar coated Disney pabulum of recent years. Not only do her characters act like real people, when the story calls for it, they die.
l have long loathed Disney for presenting some of the classic children’s stories of Western literature in such a sanitised and castrated form that Disney’s use of the titles is close to being fraudulent (such as the completely inverted ‘Little Mermaid’). J.K. Rowling is made of far sterner stuff and she realises what the focus-group addled hacks at Disney do not… children are also made of sterner stuff.
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I agree as regards the Disney company as opposed to the man himself. I’ve recently been watching a lot of very early Disney cartoons and the most startling thing is how un PC they are compared to current output. They were still somewhat sugar coated but were more positive than PC.
Read the books. The movies are hack stuff.
Oh, and the “critical” (as in criticism) term for what Disney does is “Bowdlerization” still. You may not see it anymore, but is still applies perfectly.
The science fiction book club is offering an annotated Brother’s Grimm this month, with the original, adult only stories.
The last Harry Potter book had a distinct anti-bureaucratic tone, which is sort of interesting, given Ms. Rowling’s background (or perhaps not, I’ve never read any in depth interviews with her.)
It is worse than Bowdlerization, which is ‘just’ to expurgate a book… Disney actually inverts the intended meaning. Little Mermaid, for example, is about self-sacrifice and suffering, quite a depressing tale really, yet Disney would have you think the message is ‘just go for it, honey, and you will get your man’.
A lot of characters die in Disney movies: off the top of my head I can think of Lion King, Bambi, Brother Bear, Pocahontas, Tarzan, there must be others. Often it’s a parent dying too, so Rowling killing off a fairly minor character is a bit tame by comparison.
Mostly right, dc.
Except, it was Bambi’s mother who was shot and killed, not Bambi.
Disney gave me too much real enjoyment as a child in the 1950s to speak really badly of him.
Parents don’t want their children to see reality, and then they grow up and think reaity is a trick fostered on them by the “Republicans” and their nasty conspiratorial penchant.
So, I blame Disney and the parents [i]together[/i], and, I am sorry, but I was the first Potter film, and it is a great thing for kids, perhaps, but I will pass on the others.
Roy
Disney gave me too much real enjoyment as a child in the 1950s to speak really badly of him.
Parents don’t want their children to see reality, and then they grow up and think reaity is a trick fostered on them by the “Republicans” and their nasty conspiratorial penchant.
So, I blame Disney and the parents together, and, I am sorry, but I was the first Potter film, and it is a great thing for kids, perhaps, but I will pass on the others.
Roy
As a former (thank goodness, NOT animation/feature film division) employee I’m the first to admit Disney has some fundamental issues here (and elsewhere — insert some shameless SaveDisney.Com plug here). Certainly when you compare the original literature to what Disney does, you’re going to have real problems. But you’re talking a difference of cultures — 400 years plus a very different audience PLUS a very different medium. Disney is trying to make money, and I don’t think they’d sell nearly as well if they were graphically violent, and depressing. Do you really think people would bring their five-year-olds to see something like that? Or that the five-year-olds would beg for it on video incessantly? They might be made of sterner stuff, but they’re probably not gluttons for punishment (and three days spent in a public school — or trying to wrangle a couple of kids who spent all day in public school — will demonstrate the real value in having simplistic happy entertainment that doesn’t cause additional trauma, questions, or whatever) I’m not saying it’s not a problem from a Global Artistic Perspective, I’m just saying don’t expect Velveeta to be what you’d get at a high-priced wine tasting. A survey of world films seems to yield a whole heck of a lot of films that provide endless quantities of Hard Truths and Graphic Despair; neither of which have EVER been Disney’s line of work (though I’ll yield the point that early films were often racist, sexist, etc.) I’d have to say that the most useful thing to argue is that it’d be better for them to just write their own stories — and yet this method of adopting-and-converting classic tales has really worked well for them (compare the success and longevity Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Beaty and the Beast, the Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Mulan, etc. to Brother Bear, Atlantis, etc. — right now ALL of those first set of films have current merchandise on the stores at Disneyland, while the other two had almost all their merchandise pulled within months of their release)
On a related note, Rowling has a lot of issues herself — look at her bad guys and semi-bad guys (Draco and the entirety of Slytherin house) and ask yourself whether “evil is nasty and rude and wears black” is necessarily the best way of writing conflict. I wouldn’t really hold her universe up as an ideal of complexity in storytelling execution (though I’m a huge enough fan that I’ve actually done the fanfiction thing). Just because one minor character and one semi-major character have died doesn’t mean that the wizarding world is hyper-realistic.
look at her bad guys and semi-bad guys (Draco and the entirety of Slytherin house) and ask yourself whether “evil is nasty and rude and wears black” is necessarily the best way of writing conflict.
AMEN!! I have a serious problem with her ongoing premise that 1) evil characters are simple bullies 2) that bullies have no other good reason to be bullies other than to give the hero a bad time of it and 3) bullies can never be redeemed. About the only ‘bad’ character who has any depth at all is Snape.
I like to think of the Harry Potter world as a really clever re-up of ancient mythology and Raold Dohl silliness (author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). I like that she has made things like mythology and storytelling an interesting thing, but I would be extremely hard pressed to call her story a classic…or as the be-all and end-all of fantasy story telling. One has the desire to say to the fans “good start…now go for the REAL stuff…”
I haven’t read any Rowling, but what Perry said applies equally to Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series. It’s stern stuff indeed. His bad guys have lots of depth, too.
As a child I grew up being read Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes(Link) by my folks… and I simply loved it.
It is just tosh that children need endless upbeat ‘heart warming’ stories.
Amen on the “Evil = Bullies” thing. My (6 Yr Old) daughter were just discussing this, and I was mentioning that there were probably nice kids who were in Slytherin, and there were probably far “nastier” who weren’t dumb enough to start fights with Harry right off the bat.
Mind you, I don’t know that Rowling really thinking that openly about it, but what do I care? As long as she realizes as said in LOTR; “I think one of his spies would-well, seem fairer and feel fouler, if you understand.”as she gets older.
God I sound like such a nerd. I’m gonna go read some Basho or something.
I’m a 100% disney fan and though Disney has changed the original morals of some stories- To me, Disney, is a sense of escapism. Walter Elias Disney earned more money to make more films for us to enjoy, he started with barely nothing, did you know that his first studio was a garage!! Personally I think it’s wonderful that there are so many different versions of the stories, Disney’s is just a happy variety and there’s nothing wrong with that, it gives us something light hearted and fun to watch. If anyone doesn’t agree with his methods then just stick to what you enjoy.
I just happened to stubble upon this place looking for research on composing Disney’s Bambi for my music homework. I just thought that I might say a little something, sorry to bother you all…
Mind Harry Potter is amazing ^_^ thought I might add that
JK does seem to have a problem writing bullies, but you have to admit, she can really write other major villains, ones with human evil (as opposed to stories like Lord of the Rings, where the vilain is just a devil-like deamon).
Lord Voldemort, for example, parallels Hitler, while his Death Eaters parallel the KKK. The idea that so many people joined Voldemort because they thought he’d win the war anyway is exactly what many people in Europe thought about the Nazis. Then there’s Voldemort hating muggles even though he himself is a half-blood, and the Dark Mark as the Death Eaters’ equivilant of the burning cross, and so on.
The only problem with her writing is that the characters are becoming too black-and-white; that is, bullies all being just as evil as they seem.
I’m not sure how to wrap this up so that’ll have to do.
Is Harry potter bad? I have read the Harry Potter books and thuoght everyone acted bad in the books. Harry isn’t even all that good, and when you have bad fighting against half bad, what do you get? Disney on the other hand seems to be good. no one inn disney is half bad, and nothing that i have seen is as evil as Harry potter.
Sarah, I would say that is because people act in a more believable manner in the Harry Potter series and in reality most people are not entirely good.
Disney, at least for the last ten years or so, tends to make things very black and white but their ‘bad guys’ are usually pretty pathetic. JKR’s bad guys are supposed to be BAD. Disney is for light weights 🙂