I always knew it – and it’s great that science has officially stepped in to confirm it:
Harry Potter teaches tolerance.
Eh. “Tolerance” is a shitty word. I take that back. Let’s use “decreases discrimination” – which is a great quality in an extended fairy tale. Indeed, the series shows kids that whether you were born magical or are a mere muggle, everyone deserves to play Quidditch if they’ve got the goods and don’t juice on mystical good-luck placebos before the big game.
This experiment – where groups of kids read certain passages about the story’s characters being victimized for being a bit different from the rest of the kids, seemed to translate to greater empathy in general for dissimilar individuals. For the kids who identified with Harry, they began to relate more to groups of IRL people they’d learned about being treated unequally – be they gay or just visiting from another land mass.
I’ve always liked this series (even though I’ve only watched the films).
That’s because beneath the captivating sugar-crusted treat for the eyes and mind that is Harry Potter runs an undercurrent of supercharged multi-level relate-ability. It appeals to whatever age group decides to sit down and indulge it before losing themselves forevermore in Rowling’s aesthetic alter reality. From going to new schools and having douchey teachers, feeling different and thusly judged by peers, and even some of the teacher drama – there’s real life representations at every level. And since our brains love looking for patterns, we thrive on film metaphors like Malfoy dissing on mudbloods. (I’m allowed to use that word because I am one.)
What’s great is that through its drama, the ideology can translate to daily interactions. And even though only the kids identifying with the Potter Protagonist seemed affected, it’s still a win and a half in my book. The movies from my youth tried, but missed the mark saying I needed fairy dust and a prince with a white horse to be happy. So, it’s nice to see a scar bearing character and his friends show that you have to overcome a lot and work really hard to harness and maintain even the intrinsic magic with which you’re born.
(See? My childhood idols were “angry all of the time” too).
So, even if your prince scarface and mine have different white horse fairy dust…
… we’re all the same at the end of the day. And that’s what it’s all about: tolerance.
To cocaine people who seem different from us.