I wrote a post a couple of months ago about Harry Potter and why I don't like it. While I have many reasons, one of the reasons that has stuck with me the most is the same reason my mom didn't like it when she first read it back in the Nineties. That reason is this: all the "good" guys are really mean. It really stuck out to me because this is a franchise supposed to be for young children, and yet it heavily features characters who constantly (and I mean constantly) are mean.
It's no secret that the Dursleys and Draco Malfoy are mean. But possibly the only person that is not mean is poor Neville. Harry and Ron make fun of Hermione constantly, heedless of whether she can hear them or not. It gets to the point where they're so mean she ends up crying in the bathroom and almost gets killed by a troll. Hermione herself is stuck-up and snobbish and flouts her superior knowledge any chance she gets.
It's no secret that the Dursleys and Draco Malfoy are mean. But possibly the only person that is not mean is poor Neville. Harry and Ron make fun of Hermione constantly, heedless of whether she can hear them or not. It gets to the point where they're so mean she ends up crying in the bathroom and almost gets killed by a troll. Hermione herself is stuck-up and snobbish and flouts her superior knowledge any chance she gets.
via GIPHY
Harry is drawn to dark magic and wants to learn curses so he can get revenge on his family for being mean.
And it's not only the kids. Their role models are also mean. Hagrid gives Harry's cousin (and for the life of me I can't remember his name) a pig tail that he has to go to the hospital to get removed. Both Hagrid and Harry find the situation hilarious. The house of Slytherin bullies everyone, and everyone else bullies the Slytherin because they're the "bully house." And then there's the head of the school, Albus Dumbledore himself. The whole situation with the house points being connected to sport championships and student demerits is ridiculous anyway, but, due to Harry breaking the rules, Slytherin legitimately won the house championship. Dumbledore made it as far as the awards ceremony still letting Slytherin believe they had won. Then, at the very last second, he awards enough points to Gryffindor to give them the championship instead, jerking away the Slytherins' hope. Cue wild celebration by the rest of the school. This was incredibly mean.
And it's not only the kids. Their role models are also mean. Hagrid gives Harry's cousin (and for the life of me I can't remember his name) a pig tail that he has to go to the hospital to get removed. Both Hagrid and Harry find the situation hilarious. The house of Slytherin bullies everyone, and everyone else bullies the Slytherin because they're the "bully house." And then there's the head of the school, Albus Dumbledore himself. The whole situation with the house points being connected to sport championships and student demerits is ridiculous anyway, but, due to Harry breaking the rules, Slytherin legitimately won the house championship. Dumbledore made it as far as the awards ceremony still letting Slytherin believe they had won. Then, at the very last second, he awards enough points to Gryffindor to give them the championship instead, jerking away the Slytherins' hope. Cue wild celebration by the rest of the school. This was incredibly mean.
via GIPHY
Now I have no problem with flawed main characters. True-to-life human beings (whether they're actually humans or not) struggling to overcome character flaws and do the right thing despite the circumstances and despite themselves is what makes stories so amazing. Watching fictional characters make mistakes, learn from them, and grow inspires us to do the same when we get into similar circumstances. My biggest problem is with how the characters' flaws are portrayed.
One of the most beloved characters in pop culture is Spider-Man. Spider-Man is an American icon and instantly recognizable to the majority of the world's population. I personally love Spider-Man. Ever since I first saw Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man on TV at five or six years old, I was hooked (although I didn't understand the radioactive spider part and thought getting superpowers from an ordinary spider was the epitome of stupid). However, while I love the Raimi trilogy (yes, even Spider-Man 3, I don't care what my sister says) and adore the MCU version, the Andrew Garfield version...well...
There are many (many, many) reasons why the Webb duology didn't work. But one of the main reasons, I think, sits with the main character, adorkable nerd Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man. Peter Parker is supposed to be a nice, gentlemanly young man who dotes on his aunt, gets praise from practically every old lady he meets, turns all the ladies heads (mainly because he's nice to them, unlike their boyfriends *cough cough* Human Torch *cough cough*), and only gets the reputation for being a jerk around some people because he walks around with his head in the clouds all. the. freaking. time. and causes people around him trying to reach out and be friends to think he's ignoring them, when really he's wrestling with more angst than the star of a teenage drama. Both the Tobey Maguire version and the Tom Holland version nail the heart of this character, if not quite looking like they stepped right out of the Sixties comics. But Garfield's Peter Parker is almost unrecognizable.
via GIPHY
From the beginning of the movie, Garfield's Peter Parker is mean. He steals an Oscorp worker's badge and smiles when he sees him get dragged out. The classic selfish moment that led to Uncle Ben's death is made so much worse in this movie. After playing around with his newfound powers, this Peter tries to buy milk at a store and is a few pennies short. The cashier says sorry, you have to have the full amount. As he stalks away to sulk, a thief demands money. Of course, Peter does nothing, and I'm sure you can guess what happens next. Then comes the scene in the gif above. Flash Thompson's bullying goes from cliche movie bullying in the Raimi trilogy to mainly just vocal harassment in the MCU and in the comics, but in this movie, Flash pretty much bullies people whose names don't end with "eter" and "arker". Nevertheless, Peter takes the opportunity of his newfound powers to smugly show off in gym class and make Flash look like an idiot. This isn't portrayed as an immature mistake Peter needs to learn from, but as a triumph for the main character. Indeed, Peter just becomes more and more immature and mean as the duology goes on.
Far from being a dark portrayal of the character, this was supposed to be just another fun iteration of Spider-Man, someone children for generations have looked up to and loved. Harry Potter is wildly popular and beloved by millions. Both are enjoyed by children everywhere. And yet the main characters, the ones that children, and often us as well, look up to and emulate, are not good people. What does it say about us as a society that we can overlook or just not even notice this type of behavior in the people we call heroes?
This doesn't necessarily mean that these stories should never be enjoyed by anybody, but I question the wisdom of exposing young kids to them. Children won't know any better. They are predisposed to make bad decisions, as everyone is born a sinner and the younger the person, the less knowledge and experience that person has of anything resembling morals. Young children aren't going to be able to recognize the vindictiveness and revenge in both Webb's Spider-Man and the Harry Potter characters as wrong and not something they should practice. Before indiscriminately giving any media marketed towards children to young children to enjoy, we have a heavy responsibility to be cautious. In the Raimi trilogy, Peter Parker makes many mistakes, it is true. But these mistakes are almost universally portrayed as mistakes. Not so with Webb's Peter Parker and most of the characters in Harry Potter. They make many mistakes, but none are portrayed as such. Instead, this is acceptable and even praised behavior. I know most parents out there would not truly want their children acting like the characters in these movies and books. So why do we promote the said movies and books as good to our kids? Why do we call Harry Potter "good vs. evil" when it really isn't?
I say all this mainly to warn viewers to exercise caution. I analyze everything I consume and take everything with a grain of salt, partially because I'm just naturally suspicious, but it seems like most of us simply take in everything we see, never question it, and move on with our day. This can be very dangerous, especially when choosing what to expose young children to. Now, the level of caution you exercise with this and similar media must be decided on your own for each individual family. Whether media with heroes of questionable behavior that is endorsed by the movie or book warrants simply a conversation with your children on what is and is not okay or waiting on the movie or book until the child is older must be decided by you, but we must all recognize and be conscious that this is something that needs to be examined and decided before we can exercise this level of caution.
Just because something is popular or it contains our favorite heroes does not mean their behavior is okay. It's not okay to be mean, and our popular stories shouldn't show that being mean is okay. Only once we are aware of this problem in our media can we seek to counteract it. We need to be aware of popular media that endorses behavior we know is wrong. And maybe, while we're in this new-found spirit of discernment, we should rethink bringing our very young children to PG-13 movies just because Spider-Man or Batman is in it, or because it has dinosaurs and your kids love dinosaurs. (Those movies are PG-13 for a very good reason.) Just sayin*'. Not every movie made with topics that kids like are made for kids, especially young kids, and if something is not made for kids, we probably shouldn't be showing it to our kids.
*This may seem slightly off-topic, but I just found it very disturbing when I went to see Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and a family with young kids (and I mean young) was in there. The kids themselves weren't disruptive, but the mom told her kids "look, he's crying" at a point when one of the dinosaurs seemed to be shedding a tear. Now, I'm not one to judge someone's parenting, but if your children are so young you're still in that mode of talking when watching a movie, perhaps they shouldn't be there. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is a very graphic movie about dinosaurs eating people. One man gets his arm bitten off by a dinosaur (and then he's eaten, naturally). This is not a movie for most children under the age of ten. Can you say psychological trauma?
This doesn't necessarily mean that these stories should never be enjoyed by anybody, but I question the wisdom of exposing young kids to them. Children won't know any better. They are predisposed to make bad decisions, as everyone is born a sinner and the younger the person, the less knowledge and experience that person has of anything resembling morals. Young children aren't going to be able to recognize the vindictiveness and revenge in both Webb's Spider-Man and the Harry Potter characters as wrong and not something they should practice. Before indiscriminately giving any media marketed towards children to young children to enjoy, we have a heavy responsibility to be cautious. In the Raimi trilogy, Peter Parker makes many mistakes, it is true. But these mistakes are almost universally portrayed as mistakes. Not so with Webb's Peter Parker and most of the characters in Harry Potter. They make many mistakes, but none are portrayed as such. Instead, this is acceptable and even praised behavior. I know most parents out there would not truly want their children acting like the characters in these movies and books. So why do we promote the said movies and books as good to our kids? Why do we call Harry Potter "good vs. evil" when it really isn't?
I say all this mainly to warn viewers to exercise caution. I analyze everything I consume and take everything with a grain of salt, partially because I'm just naturally suspicious, but it seems like most of us simply take in everything we see, never question it, and move on with our day. This can be very dangerous, especially when choosing what to expose young children to. Now, the level of caution you exercise with this and similar media must be decided on your own for each individual family. Whether media with heroes of questionable behavior that is endorsed by the movie or book warrants simply a conversation with your children on what is and is not okay or waiting on the movie or book until the child is older must be decided by you, but we must all recognize and be conscious that this is something that needs to be examined and decided before we can exercise this level of caution.
Just because something is popular or it contains our favorite heroes does not mean their behavior is okay. It's not okay to be mean, and our popular stories shouldn't show that being mean is okay. Only once we are aware of this problem in our media can we seek to counteract it. We need to be aware of popular media that endorses behavior we know is wrong. And maybe, while we're in this new-found spirit of discernment, we should rethink bringing our very young children to PG-13 movies just because Spider-Man or Batman is in it, or because it has dinosaurs and your kids love dinosaurs. (Those movies are PG-13 for a very good reason.) Just sayin*'. Not every movie made with topics that kids like are made for kids, especially young kids, and if something is not made for kids, we probably shouldn't be showing it to our kids.
*This may seem slightly off-topic, but I just found it very disturbing when I went to see Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and a family with young kids (and I mean young) was in there. The kids themselves weren't disruptive, but the mom told her kids "look, he's crying" at a point when one of the dinosaurs seemed to be shedding a tear. Now, I'm not one to judge someone's parenting, but if your children are so young you're still in that mode of talking when watching a movie, perhaps they shouldn't be there. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is a very graphic movie about dinosaurs eating people. One man gets his arm bitten off by a dinosaur (and then he's eaten, naturally). This is not a movie for most children under the age of ten. Can you say psychological trauma?
