Potterliteracy

I’m sure many of you are big fans of Harry Potter. Similar to my discussions with other children’s media such as Disney films, I want to make more people aware of the interesting concepts that would otherwise be overlooked when looking at Harry Potter media. In particular, I want to discuss the issues illuminated by Burn’s article on “Potterliteracy”. In relation to my previous discussions of the “death” of childhood with the advent of new media and technology, I’d like to pinpoint how Harry is differently portrayed as the “hero” in proportion to how childhood is viewed in comparison with adulthood, and how new media determinism is a result of this. I’ve decided one effective way is to dissect the Aragog (the spider king whose a friend of Hagrid’s) scene in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
In Harry Potter text media (book), even though Harry is portrayed as the hero, he is nevertheless still considered a “child” who inevitably still needs the guidance and protection of an “adult.” When the spider minions surround Harry and Ron, Ron’s car comes to their rescue, wiping out the spiders through action, while Harry couldn’t do much to alleviate the situation. In this case, the car can be seen as the “adult” guardian who comes to the rescue of the “children” in distress. In the words of J.K. Rowling, all the verb actions are happening to Harry instead of him performing the actions. This places him in a position of the victimized when he’s supposed to be the hero. In the filmic version of Harry Potter, however, Harry at least gets to use his wand twice to save Ron. Ron actually drives the car instead of the car driving itself. In addition, they made this scene even longer in the film because we, as an audience, expect to see the protagonist actually perform certain heroic actions. Even in the film, Harry and Ron have limited ability to escape. In the video game, on the other hand, we only see Harry and not Ron after the cut scene. Instead of running away like in the book and the movie, however, Harry (who we as audience get to play with the controller) strategizes and not only stays to fight the little spider minions and successfully killing them, but also faces Aragog himself.
With the degree of interactivity and how Harry is represented as the “heavy hero” (with not just participation but agency in the video game) rather than a relatively helpless child, we can argue that the transformation in the representation of Harry Potter is a result of new media determinism as it constructed a change in childhood between the game and the book. Once again, we can relate back to Buckingham’s After the Death of Childhood: Growing Up in the Age of Electronic Media.

Boy Culture

As the kids today consume children’s media, they are inevitably falling under the brainwashing spells of new media determinism. There is a blurring of boundaries between childhood and adulthood, especially when all the “adult secrets” (discussed in the previous post) are revealed in a click of a button. Childhood is now viewed as both threatened and threatening. Before new media such as the television and Internet, however, “boy culture” dominated young social life. Jenkin’s article, “A Tale of Two Childhoods”, digs deeper into this notion of boy culture and how it’s evolved under new media determinism. When boys were done with school during the Industrialization age, they would explore their identity through play in the outdoors rather than going home. They imitated and reenacted adult male activity to grasp a firmer sense of adult ideology, simultaneously shaping their identity to fit in with their social world. For example, they might engage in role-play like cops and robbers or reenact what they’ve seen in real life. With the advent of the television and computer into the household, however, there was an inevitable transformation of boy culture, as the “home region”, or space of self-exploration, comes indoors. The negative stereotype of the boy who stayed in and read books as the “bookworm” did not apply analogously to the boy who stayed in and consumed video games, a different new media other than text. Instead of using their imagination to transform a stick into a shotgun rifle, boys could now play competitively through LAN or online video games and virtually shoot each other with damn realistic portrayals of guns. Boys can even engage in the exploration of world issues in video games, such as Call of Duty, a game that teaches a lot about war history. In addition, their social circle is no longer restricted to the neighborhood children around the block, but expands infinitely when playing video games with others online. As a result, the degree of interactivity sky rockets. The great mobility associated to the outdoors in boy culture is still no match to the divine access given by the World Wide Web. On the other hand, however, this facilitated form of play severely influences the development of imagination, as technology does all the creative thinking for us. No longer do children need to imagine contexts of play as they once did in the outdoors when modern video games already simulate a virtual world with prescribed representations of characters and objects for them to interact with. In a sense, the pricelessness of original imagination and pretend play that is the essence of childhood has been lost. If you are interested, David Buckingham further illuminates the "death of childhood" in his book, After the Death of Childhood: Growing Up in the Age of Electronic Media.

Pokemon

Many people might not notice, but the media exerts a big influence on people, especially children. Think back on your childhood and your favorite kinds of symbolic play (pretend play or roleplaying), and how the different media (TV shows, websites, etc.) shaped the way you carried out the play session. Let me provide your with a personal example. When I was approximately five to six years old, my favorite past time, whether alone or with my friends, was to indulge myself with anything related to Pokemon. I was an avid watcher of the Pokemon television show as well as a passionate collector of Pokemon cards. Occasionally, I would play the Pokemon Gameboy video game. My favorite time with Pokemon, however, was engaging in role play, most of the time with my slightly-younger family friends, Austin and Aaron, who made frequent weekend visits. In recollection, we would act accordingly to different characters and Pokemon creatures from the cartoon show, but we also used our imagination to expand beyond. Sometimes I would be Professor Oak, the knowledgeable Pokemon scientist in the quest of updating my Pokedex, an electronic handheld Pokemon index dictionary represented by my drawings on paper or imaginatively. We would sometimes conduct “research” on various Pokemon, creating sketches of the newly discovered ones, and sometimes also gathering all of our Pokemon toys and cards as props to set up our “Pokemon laboratory research facility” within my room. When we would leave our “laboratory” to go explore the wilderness, catch Pokemon, as well as battle evil enemies, our role within the sociodramatic play session may change. For example, I would change my role of Professor Oak to playing my Austin’s Pikachu in battle. We would set up a “fort” outside my room to distinguish between research and exploration sessions, or in case there are “intruders”, substituted by stuffed animals, random furniture or our parents, who we treated as our ultimate enemies in the game.
The Pokemon show established a particular context that interested me and illuminated certain aspects of social culture, science and technology that I would’ve never thought of exploring in my sheltered six-year-old life. Despite providing a general premise for the schemas, scripts and characters in my own narrative (scenarios and storylines composed during play), the Pokemon show stimulated my imagination beyond my independent capability and bestowed me with proper intellectual resources to structure my narratives and play. Through my role play sessions, I was simultaneously exploring my identity, placing myself in various imagined contexts to see how I fit in.