Harry Potter Marxism

İstanbul goes comic strip crazy

For as recent decades have shown, the barbed humor of this diverse arts medium not only has the power to engage the attention of millions of avid followers of all ages worldwide but has proved to be a potent weapon in the tackling of unspoken and otherwise taboo personal and political struggles from both the past and the present.

Last October marked a considerable step in the development of a comic network in Turkey with the establishment of İstanBulles, the First International Comics Festival of İstanbul, a 10-day event curated by comic book historian Didier Pasamonik. Inspired by the encouraging response to October’s events, Pasamonik returned once more to the Turkish cultural capital, where he has played an integral role in the coordination of the “Comic Strips in the Second Degree” exhibition, which opened on Thursday at the İstanbul French Institute in the city’s Taksim neighborhood.

Curated by French theorist Thierry Groensteen, one of the foremost scholars in the comic medium, the exhibition was part of this year’s Angoulême International Comics Festival, a mass four day event widely recognized as the world’s biggest comic festival. Established in 1974 with the modest aim of providing a meeting platform for comic enthusiasts and leading cartoon masters of the time, the festival now sees over 200,000 visitors flocking annually to the unassuming French town of Angoulême, which has fast gained a worldwide reputation as the global “Capital of Comics.”

Running throughout the summer months until Sept. 10, “Comic Strips in the Second Degree” is essentially based on parody takes, well-known fantastic and legendary heroes, and images from the cinema, literature, myth, television and art worlds, presenting them in the “second degree,” with a satirical spin to form variations of a self or a personality that ultimately become characters themselves. Familiar names featured in the exhibition include Harry Potter, Robin Hood, Conan, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, various superheroes, characters from the television series “The Simpsons” and the Mona Lisa with her piercing gaze conveniently stifled by the head of a large duck.

p2pnet news » Blog Archive » A Marxist Harry Potter?

| Movies:- “You cannot imagine how his ideas caught me, Harry, inflamed me,” Hogwarts head and master wizard Albus Dumbledore says in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the final Harry Potter book.

Under discussion is rival wizard Gellert Grindelwald, Dumbledore’s friend, and now Dumbledore’s homosexuality has being revealed by Potter author J.K. Rowling, a, “new realm of interpretative possibility” is opened up, says the Telegraph , going on:

Already symposiums are held in universities around the world to debate issues such as “Moral alignment and meta-narrative in the works of J K Rowling”; and “Comrade Potter: A Marxist Reading of Harry Potter”.

Academic attention will, “shift from Harry to Dumbeldore and the headmaster’s sexuality will give a new texture to the novels, colouring the way in which they are read,” says the story.

And could this take on a deeper, darker meaning?

“It is quite possible that the intolerant evangelical Christian Right in America will start burning Harry Potter books because, they claim, the headmaster of Hogwarts is a predatory homosexual who corrupts vulnerable minors (Harry is an orphan, remember),” the Telegraph, states, adding:

“After all, they have done it before, on at least a dozen occasions. On March 26 2002, for example, the Rev George Bender of the Harvest Assembly of God Church in Butler County, Pennsylvania, gathered his congregation for a Harry Potter book-burning.

“He claimed the books encouraged witchcraft and celebrated the occult.”

Laura Mallory, a mother of four from Georgia, would agree.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald , she wants the Potter books taken off the shelves of school libraries.

“My prayer is that parents would wake up, that the subtle way this is presented as harmless fantasy would be exposed for what it really is: a subtle indoctrination into anti-Christian values,” the story has a saying, adding:

“A homosexual lifestyle is a harmful one. That’s proven, medically.”

But UK gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, “welcomed the outing as a victory for ‘tolerance and understanding’,” says the SMH.

“My only disappointment is that the author didn’t make Dumbledore’s homosexuality more explicit in the books,” he says.

Critical perspectives on Harry Potter

Re-reading Harry Potter

A Companion to Aesthetics

Marxism and media studies, key concepts and contemporary trends

The rhetorical power of popular culture, considering mediated texts