Randolph E Schmalz

Dr. Ann Haugo

Theory and Crit. 479

05/09/2013

Harry Potter and the Feminist, Critical Race Theory Alchemical Amalgam

After 10 years, 4,195 pages, over 375 million copies

and eight films much has been written on the Harry Potter

novels, films and the general phenomenon with great

specificity and analysis. And there is more to come to be

sure. The film industry turned J.K. Rowling’s seven books

into an octology, a word not currently in the dictionary

but used frequently in reference to films. Formerly an

eight part series was an octad and a seven part series, a

septenary. In fact a book series of seven had no term

before now. There is still no real agreement as to what a

seven part series should be termed. Prior to Harry Potter

any series after four was considered to reference film.

What about the Hardy Boys? One could argue it’s an

impossibility to separate the films from the novels

regarding this series in particular. They’re wrong. Albeit

there may be a valid argument on some level, however there

is undoubtedly a chasm of difference between the literary

and the filmic. Film has innate limitation whereas the

imagination has none. But, when we get to imagination and

things of the sort, we enter the land of subjectivity and

so the plethora of novels of all things Harry hit the

shelves and the trite discussions like the one that began

this piece began and continued and continue.

The various readings for 479, Theory and Criticism,

didn’t literally reference (save the occasional picture)

visual materials, however the power of the visual was

discussed in several sections, Elam’s “Indiana-coffin”

(Emmett Till) picture comes to mind as one of the more

powerful images, though not seen, but described. The

narrative had a far more profound effect of the same

occasion as depicted in the famous photograph simply

because it was describing a visual element. The picture

set the moment in stone, much like the images of Harry

Potter will forever be burned into our minds as the films

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that represent Rowling’s story. Can you see anyone but

Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter? We accepted Michael

Gambon as Dumbledore upon Richard Harris’ death, but

Dumbledore was not the lead thrust of the story. And many

Harry Potter fans lamented the death of Richard Harris, not

only for the obvious reasons of the loss of a great artist

and actor, but perhaps, for some, more profoundly over the

loss of “the real Dumbledore.” We had to accept Gambon as

Dumbledore beginning with the third movie, The Prisoner of

Askaban. Ironic that was the movie Alfonso Cuarón directed

and is currently considered and arguably so, the most

theatrically and artistically successful of the eight.

So, here I wrestle with all this information, the

funny arguments about inventing words to describe the

literary accomplishment, comparison discussions as to

which movies are better than which, directors too. In a

bit we’ll hit on the fact that Rowling revealed that

Dumbledore was gay, so of course it’s tempting to view

this massive body of work through the eyes of an elderly

gay man, albeit instrumental to the story, but not the

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story itself. I searched for a somewhat original spin, not

only on the individual stories, but the overarching

message as well. The Reality Check and the accompanying

race theory didn’t seem viable, as the European point of

view on race is an entirely different subject, though

there is some value in examining it secondarily and will a

bit later. There’s the cultural impact, of course, to be

considered, the enormous popularity and its subsequent

effect, but its enormity is inarguable and unfolding

before our eyes. The Harry Potter films have had an

enormous impact on many levels we all agree. But, where

might there be disagreement with the film’s, and

originally Rowling’s intentions in terms of theme and

message?

I posit there is a subconscious feminist theme to the

Harry Potter film series that is at the heart of its

success because it touches us in ways we can’t quite

understand in a conventional manner. There is a cyclical

element to the series. The hero essentially experiences

the same set of circumstances eight times. Harry does so

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with different levels of complexity and layering in terms

of the evolution of personal character, setting and depth

of plot. But, the stories within the overarching story of

“the boy who lived” are arguably formulaic. Harry’s

circumstances in the very first episode pit him for a

second time against his nemesis Voldemort (the first being

when he was a year old with no real memory of the event).

The villain’s plan, here and always, is to obtain an

object, set of circumstances, or in the end the free will

of the hero himself, only to be thwarted inexplicably, by

Harry, with the help of his friends and more importantly

others more experienced and often unseen. This is

Rowling’s genius. There are subplots afoot before they are

fully revealed, many leading nowhere near the main theme.

The author has in fact compared the organization of the

fantasy world of Harry Potter to a mathematical endeavor.

Certain parts of the equation needed to reveal at a

precise moment for reasons we now understand; it was

always about Lily and the love a mother has for her son.

But, the importance of the latter is revealed in bits of

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information through the cyclical nature of the action and

given circumstances. We are programmed to concentrate on

story and plot and all the interesting little gadgets of

the fully formed meta-world as we march down the seemingly

linear, very natural narrative to which we are all too

accustomed. In the end we are fooled as to the true

message of Harry Potter. We are misdirected because the

same story is replayed in expertly disguised versions with

very few true elements key to the through-line of the plot

being carried with the story, which she works like a

malleable piece of clay.

Through the cycles of Harry’s trials and tribulations

we are slowly but surely shown the idea that women are at

the heart of all things living on any level, in any form.

In Prisoner of Azkaban we see a decided change in Hermione’s

character. She is empowered by who she is becoming. And

all Lily had to do was stand in front of Harry’s crib to

put the future into motion; the ability of the female to

act contains power. It is described as old powerful magic

from the mouth of Joseph Fiennes, the Voldemort we know

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from the films. He acknowledged its power and dismissed it

quickly as he does most that he finds distasteful,

arguably part of his downfall. Ah hubris!

Lily was not a feminist by any conservative account.

She was an opinionated, independent woman evidenced by her

dismissal of Snape so early on in life. How hard did Lily

work to save her friend from the clutches of evil in

Snape’s case? She didn’t; she was offended and unwilling

to forgive her long time childhood friend. It wasn’t Lily

at fault in some twisted, reverse Oedipal indication; she

dismissed him long before the events that begin the film

series. But, Lily was the driving force of things to come.

It was her choice of mate that set the scene and the given

circumstances of our complex friend Snape and the whole,

really quite simple, story. I hold that Snape stands alone

as the sole representation of the masculine in the series.

Rowling is revealing her own feminist ideals through these

characters and the ways they interact. Snape is by far the

most complex character in the series, inscrutable to the

children at best and a private man among his peers. But,

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the male is a necessary lynchpin in procreation and so

must be represented, ever-present and disposed of when his

purpose is served turning the school presumably to Minerva

McGonagal the next headmistress of Hogwarts School of

Witchcraft and Wizardry when all is set right post mortem.

A new era will dawn led by the female sensibilities of

Minerva McGonagall.

Voldemort is a sexless villain. He is indicated as a

male, but exhibits no sexuality at any time in any of the

films. He is a helpless eunuch long since damned by Lily’s

sacrifice. I wonder if Voldemort could have ever really

harmed Harry. I don’t deny the existence of other forces

surrounding our hero, but if there is one element of

Harry’s life that rules his actions and others’ actions

often to great lengths, lies in Lily’s original sacrifice.

We meet Harry at the age of 11, seven movies later he

makes it to his parents’ graves. It’s a long time to

literally be running in circles. A circle set in motion by

his mothers sacrifice and currently by his good friend

Hermione Granger (who has long since been revealed as the

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character Rowling based on herself) a character always

ready with any information the plot may need at any given

moment, the spell or plan to move them along. A secret

agent of sorts meant to slow them down as evidenced by

Dumbledore’s words in the Kings Cross scene in the final

and eighth installment of The Deathly Hallows. This is a world

powered by women. From Mrs. Weasly’s shrill admonitions to

the almost masculine villain, Voldemort.

Harry returns to the same place every year in each

film, from the same female dominated household, save the

last two films and subsequently presented with a mystery

to solve. It’s the Nancy Drew Mystery’s at Hogwarts from a

certain point of view. And Hermione is the perfect device

to introduce any information at any time; she is the

“know-it-all.” She is truly close to “knowing it all”, in

terms of their academic world. Hermione saves their lives

on countless occasions based on her intellect, ability to

plan and anticipate multiple outcomes of any given

situation. Again, Harry and his best friend Ron would have

been left in very precarious situations if not for

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Hermione’s scholarship. She is so much the glue of the

trio that when we see Ron and Harry becoming more

magically active, it is in contrast to Hermione’s

established mastery.

Many gateways through which Harry must travel

throughout the films are first and foremost driven by his

mother’s sacrifice. It’s his mother’s dying voice he hears

when a Dementor (a particularly ugly product of the evil

that abounds) gets the better of him. Seemingly always he

works because of, or with a woman’s help including

Quidich. We see a woman placed directly in Harry’s path as

an obstacle on more than one occasion. Order of the Phoenix

truly underlines this theme with the ultra obsessive

Professor Umbridge and her foil, the cackling ghost,

Moaning Myrtle. The latter just happens to be standing

sentry at the opening to the Chamber of Secrets (second

movie). Again, another symbolic female barrier the male

boy hero must traverse to reach the goal that saves

mankind for another day. It’s the Ravenclaw ghost standing

between Harry and the last piece of Voldemort’s soul

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(other than the snake) at the end of the tale. Perhaps

this is Rowling’s comment on the more militant feminist we

found described in the Fortier and discussed in class. The

films didn’t need to go out of their way to send a

traditional feminist message. Rowling created a world for

the films devoid of the trappings of reality’s anti-

feminist sentiment.

J.K. Rowling has publically announced that the

character of Dumbledore was gay. She didn’t want to bring

it into the books or movies for reasons of what she termed

“distraction.” She essentially didn’t want it to become

about Dumbledore’s homosexuality. But, again we have a

touch of the feminine sensibility at the heart of the

story and driving the story. There is certainly maleness

in a very traditional sense as we’ve discussed and seen in

Snape.

Remember, however, our hero is a happenstance hero

due to a woman’s actions. Snape, once evil, turned to the

side representing good. But, what was his symbol of this

good side? It was Lily. She simply wouldn’t stand aside

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when the fruit of her body was threatened. Would you stand

your ground? Harry’s father stood his ground too, but it

had no effect, his strings were cut like a puppet with no

safety net in place for his family, ineffectual and

emasculated, dead. He did buy time to allow Lily to get

into position that set into motion the story that has

changed lives. It is a story at its heart about a woman’s

ultimate sacrifice for her son.

Race is never mentioned in the films in any

conventional way. However, the representations of the

other races Rowling created (goblins, elves, separate

human delineations: wizard, muggle and squib, one who was

born to magical parents however possess no magical powers

themselves). The way in which these different

classifications are viewed and treated is a symbolic

stand-in for racial commentary. It is said Goblins aren’t

to be trusted. We are told by Ron that the Wizarding World

accept that House Elves want to be enslaved; yet the main

House Elf in the plot, Dobby, very much enjoyed his

freedom. The scene of his death was meant to underline

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this theme. The small elf was happy to die free, in the

arms of his friend. The cost of freedom embodied in the

small effeminate creature cradled in the arms of our hero,

still not quite a man is an excellent symbol of perhaps

another meaning of the films of Harry Potter. In a

subsequent scene a goblin is surprised by Harry’s

reverence toward the House Elf and the care in which Harry

took when he buried Dobby’s without the use of magic by

hand. In the world of the films the lesser races died for

the mainstream after all; the goblin had reason to wonder.

The House Elf in question had also been programmed to

cause himself physical pain to punish his perceived bad

behavior. The very garb he wore was the “mark” of the

House Elf’s enslavement, so Dobby explains in Chamber of

Secrets. This particular racial read of the story is

secondary commentary, but I believe support to the main

Feminist thread I’ve delineated. Many of the same

standards to measure equality between the races are used

to determine equality between the sexes as well.

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Harry’s tasks must be completed on a timetable. He

must complete his task without his mentor or friends at

his side before he reaches manhood. This point is critical

to my theory in that no truly male presence influenced

Harry in the end. He was raised in the Petunia dominated

atmosphere of 4 Privet Drive, following her orders for the

first eleven years of his life. And almost immediately

upon entering Hogwarts he has Hermione to fill the vital

role of power female. The entire story is based on this

idea of “the boy who lived,” not “the boy who lived, grew

up to a strong, male, patriarchal figure and finally, in

the end, predictably defeats Voldemort.” No, the women and

their children are the heart and soul of Warner Brother’s

films not the traditional patriarchal model we’ve come to

expect. The patriarchal narrative is still there for those

that need it; again, part of Rowling’s genius. It was this

unexpected, lengthy journey of J.K. Rowling’s brand of

feminism educating Harry as she educated us. The very word

“boy” conjures images of androgyny, pre-pubescence,

something almost feminine perhaps.

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Even on the evil side of the fence in the films, the

strongest figure other than the androgynous, barely human

Voldemort is Bellatrix LeStrange. Her force as a sorceress

is made clear as unequalled in terms of her ability to do

absolutely anything to anyone at anytime. When we finally

see Lucius Malfoy in contrast to his wife and son, we see

his weakness for the first time, when the power of the

female was present for that first time we’re allowed a

peak inside their home encircled with strutting peacocks.

Prior to that moment all we ever saw was Draco and Daddy

here and there. This is an intentional withholding of

information on the part of the author to draw attention to

the moment when it finally happens. We see Lucius and

Narcissa together as husband and wife, parents of Draco

Malfoy for the first time. And it’s not until the last

movie we’re allowed to see the other side of all we

experienced with the Malfoy family. Draco does not come to

the “winning” side at the end of the final installment he

goes to his mother. After all he’s been through, let’s not

minimize the pain of those who have to live with actions

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they’ve taken in the name of a cause in which they once

believed, or joined out of cowardice to die for one’s

principals. And after Draco joined his mother, the father

hastily, almost oafishly followed, classically looking

over his shoulder while his wife and son marched on, never

turning back. Again, we see the will of the female make

the first gesture of reconstruction, even before the

outcome is known, but somehow Narcissa knew and walked on,

nay walked away. She knew it was done and so it was. Call

it woman’s intuition.

In terms of the films created from the works of J.K.

Rowling I think we’ve seen the message of a liberal

feminist who’s tendency is to want to work within the

existing patriarchal system. I don’t think eight movies

from seven novels come from Warner Brothers with anything

but a veiled liberal feminist message.

Seeing the primary problem as gender that women have

to tackle at various points in the plot to clear the way

for the hero. For Liberal Feminists, it means, working

within the existing system to get women into positions of

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power. In the world of Harry Potter it is a clearer more

theatrical assertion of the feminine power I’ve delineated

and more. I’ve not addressed Harry’s female peers, other

than Hermione wherein lies examples of not only the

predominant brand of Liberal Feminism expressed in the

Harry Potter stories. But examples of Radical or Cultural

Feminism along with Social Feminism are there as well in

contrast and competition to and with each other. There are

indirect examples to be drawn from the non-human creatures

symbolizing aspects of Mankind: the Centaurs warlike

nature, the brutality of the Giants and the greed of the

Goblins to name just a few.

But, more closely related to the other two

alternative Feminist movements we see, Luna Lovegood

working outside the system, quietly accepting the

intertwined nature of a perceived patriarchal system

having been raised by her father primarily (her mom died

when she was only a bit younger than when we meet her in

the story), she supports her father’s arguably capitalist

endeavors with the newspaper she distributes. One could

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argue his current efforts of running a free alternative

newspaper is mere investment toward a more capitalistic

endeavor in the future, a future for which Luna shows

support. And finally Luna had the confused gender issues

that can accompany the loss of a same sex parent and was

primarily raised almost exclusively by her father, their

bond evidently having gone beyond a normal daughter/father

relationship. They were more best friends and mutual

support than father and daughter. They came to depend and

rely on one another, or perhaps it is that Mr. Lovegood

responded well to Luna’s having stepped up to fulfill some

of her mother’s duties. Again, we see the female holding

the family together in tragedy, even at such a young age,

all evidenced by the state of the father when Luna went

missing. He began to come apart at the seams and even was

willing to trade Harry’s life for Luna. Luckily Luna was

more of a social feminist or the situation may have turned

out worse for her (i.e. working within the system).

For my third and final example of the modern

stratification of Feminism we find in the Harry Potter series

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we have the Radical, or Cultural feminist represented in

contrast to the main idea of the Liberal Feminist. The two

terms are not interchangeable (Radical/Cultural Feminism)

but very close in meaning. They tend to valorize women’s

culture as distinct from the culture of men and would, for

example, propagate the “earth mother “ ideal. Professor

Sprout is an ideal “earth mother” example, literally

caring for the creatures that come from the wizard’s

version of Botany, the earth. Along with Madame Hooch, the

flying instructor, symbolically representing a female’s

ability to literally fly higher and faster than a man. We

see the value of all three by comparison and contrast in

the films. In Liberal Feminism we see an acceptance of the

patriarchal as the norm and the female’s innate ability to

outstrip their male counterparts. Ironically, Hermione,

our symbol of Liberal Feminism hates flying. From a

symbolic point of view Rowling is possibly saying that

even though a woman can possess strength in a myriad of

processes, lines are drawn, however, Hermione drew this

particular line herself. Hermione will not cross that

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imaginary line in much the same way Professor Umbridge is

intractable regarding the other side of the spectrum.

Umbridge seeks control over her entire world, a world

seemingly run by the patriarchal structures in Rowling’s

fantasy world. But, is this a world run by the patriarchal

standards of old, or are we being shown a glimpse the

coming transition? Hermione is the liberal feminist still

seeing men as the norm to which women need to become

commensurate (i.e. equality). Her S.P.E.W. (Society for

the Preservation of Elfish Welfare) endeavors serve as a

perfect metaphor of the Liberal Feminists constant

struggle. A Liberal Feminist is not a woman who has given

up the fight for equality; the prototype simply has

expanded her views as to what should be included in the

argument. For example, and again, Hermione’s S.P.E.W.,

serving as our metaphor here from the films, is the

Liberal Feminist’s tenet of finding value in a woman who

tends to a household either primarily or solely. The elf

stood in, symbolically, for women and Hermione’s efforts.

It’s a middle ground in which both men and women recognize

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there are issues and slowly we expand our purview and find

a place where we can co-exist. And isn’t that the

overarching theme of the Harry Potter films, peaceful

coexistence regardless of race, gender or any other device

that creates separation between sentient beings? The

answer is yes, of course. Harry Potter tells us that

anything is possible regardless of any societally

perceived limitations. A strong feminist message is

contained among the many statements Rowling attempted to

make, but it’s only one. I believe there is so much more

to be mined from the filmic counterpart of Harry Potter. The

series serves as a sort of manifesto of how to be with

each other. When the formulaic and fantastical is stripped

away we find solid advice for humanity.

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WORKS CITED

Baggett, David, and Shawn E. Klein, eds. Harry Potter and

Philosophy: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts. Peru: Open Court

Publishing Company, 2004. Print

Cherland, Meredith. “Harry's Girls: Harry Potter and the Discourse of Gender.”

Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. Volume 52, Issue 4

(2008):

pp273-282.

Colbert, David. The Magical Worlds of Harry Potter: A Treasury of

Myths, Legends, and Fascinating Facts. New York: Berkeley

Books, 2004. Print

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Fortier, Mark. Theory/theatre: an introduction. New York:

Routledge, 2002.

Print (pp. 107-131) *

Haugo, Ann. “Drama Theory and Criticism.” Illinois State

University. Room 115, Bloomington, IL. 23 April 2013.

Class Lecture

Krunoslav Mikulan. “Harry Potter through the Focus of

Feminist Literary Theory: Examples of (Un)Founded

Criticism.” Journal of International Social Research. Volume 2.

Issue 9 (2009): p288-298. Milner Library Online PDF

Reinelt, Janelle G., and Joseph R. Roach, Eds. Critical Theory

and Performance.

Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007.

Print*

*Refers to assigned reading specific to Feminism and

Critical Race Theory topics.

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