At the end of the book publishing phase for the Harry Potter story, world expert on fandom, Professor Henry Jenkins, speculated on what the success of the franchise means. Now that the film franchise is ending, he has speculated on what this means for future fandom for the series. Jenkins is concerned with the negative connotations of J.K. Rowling’s extension of the Harry Potter stories into a website dedicated to ‘revealing’ further information about the boy wizard and the fantasy world where he dwells.
Harry Potter in Cyberspace
Harry Potter has had a mixed history with cyberspace. Early on, fans behaving like fans stood up successfully against studio might when Warner Brothers legal department threatened action, as Kieren McCarthy documents. Following virulent successful online campaigns by Christian opponents of the magic elements in the novels, US teachers and librarians stood up against the might of local and regional government Potter censorship to assert the novels' literacy benefits.
The ‘Potterverse’, an invented world, where the characters and locations have their fantasy existence, has proved very significant for fans. They have sought to extend it in many ways, and particularly strive to dwell in it immersively, online. It is this kind of fan activity, this kind of fan, who creates film lore, the myths and anecdotes and apocryphal stories that surround a text.
The film is not only about the story but about the actors, the sets, the locations, the author, the insights from companion texts, including the websites. As Jenkins proved decades ago, this is not unique activity for series fans, specifically Star Trek television fans in that instance, but concerns arise when corporate interests try to manage fan activity.
Fantasy matters
Jack Zipes is also concerned with the effect of corporate influence on natural engagement with fantasy. He says, “It is through fantasy that we have always sought to make sense of the world, not through reason. Reason matters, but fantasy matters more. Perhaps it has mattered too much ...”
Zipes discusses how a story can be changed when it is translated from words into images, but also how the opportunity for multiple interpretations can be subdued by commercial blandness. "We can still make many choices as to how we can shape the visions of our fantasies and what types of fantastic products that we want to consume, share, and use. Fantasy involves a certain amount if not a great amount of conscious choices and citizen responsibility, not censorship and conformity or even consensus."
Harry Potter is mainstream culture
Corporate influence is not the same as cultural engagement. Cultural engagement includes cultural uses, such as exhibitions like the Harry Potter’s World: Renaissance, Science, Magic and Medicine exhibition that is touring USA libraries, for instance. These are extensions of the diegetic realities of the stories used as links to hang a history lesson onto, and part of a concerted effort to make science 'sexy' again as a career choice. Harry Potter is therefore a 'useful' text.
Jenkins recognises that Harry Potter as a fan focus is not the resistant, subversive movement that Star Trek fans constituted for over forty years. At a time of fragmentation in media consumption and in society, Harry Potter fandom is a seemingly mass movement. However numerous, Star Trek fans have always been positioned outside the mainstream, but now it is non-Potter fans who are outside the mainstream.
This is further signified by what Kara Lynn Andersen identifies as the transcultural nature of Harry Potterdom, which is cross-age group, transnational and cross-media, a story that transcends boundaries. But Harry Potter has not become what Jenkins calls a transmedia text, it has not taken off creatively to evolve in different forms, and the threat of corporate intervention may be partly responsible for this.
Pottermore is not really more?
Jenkins identifies the strong corporate link of J.K. Rowling with the extension of the Potterverse, and strongly suggests an element of control and conformity, “the walled garden”, that Pottermore will assist in asserting over fans. The Warner Brothers dedicated Harry Potter website has 29 million Facebook likes, but very few spaces for consumer choices and responsibilities such as Zipes recommends. Only time can tell whether the Potter characters and their world will develop into a fantasy that matters enough to transcend limitations and gain longevity.
References
Kara Lynn Andersen (2005) ‘Harry Potter and the Susceptible Child Audience’ CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, Vol. 7 Iss. 2 June
Henry Jenkins (2011) ‘Three Reasons Why Pottermore Matters ...’ June 24 blog post at Confessions of an Aca-Fan http://henryjenkins.org/2011/06/three_reasons_why_pottermore_m.html
Henry Jenkins (2007) ‘Everybody Loves Harry?’ May 21 online article at Confessions of an Aca-Fan
Kieren McCarthy (2000) ‘Warner Brothers bullies girl over Harry Potter site’ The Register 12 August
Jack Zipes (2008) ‘Why Fantasy Matters Too Much’ CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, Vol. 10 Iss. 4 December
Valerie Williamson - Dr. Val Williamson is a freelance journalist and academic specialising in historical and popular culture topics.
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