A Movie Nearly Every Night: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)
Dir: Chris Columbus
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Richard Harris, Maggie Smith

Teens, always trying to get attention

Teen lit is an interesting genre. It's basically the same basic story: Coming-of-age, dealing with adult feelings in child bodies, etc... and the characters usually are special in some way to set them apart from "normal" teenagers: The poor boy gang fighting for humanity and recognition in The Outsiders; Twilight has vampires dealing with teen lust (virgins, blood, repression - you do the math); and Harry Potter has wizards dealing with ... well, oddly enough for a book about starting your adult life, these kids are constantly dealing with death.

I don't think I'd seen this first film since it was in the show and it was interesting to watch it again with the benefit of knowing what goes on later. What gets me about this series is how the emphasis is always on making these characters children. They are constantly referred to as children (especially in The Order of the Phoenix, where it's so constant as to become distracting) and they are treated as children by the single, somewhat sexually stifled members of the Hogwart's teaching staff. But rather than encouraging these children to grow into adult wizards with responsibilities and their special talents focused and controlled, the adults continue to treat them like pawns while reminding them always that they're going to die. Sucks for you, children.

A lot is made of death in the 4th book/film -- I remember when it came out and all the hush talk about which character was going to die and, God! I hope it's not Ron and that kind of thing -- but it came as something of a shock to hear gentle old Dumbledore announce to the students on Day 1 of the first film that students who visit one of the floors of the castle could die. Not detention, but death. Ghosts of the dead roam the school, Voldemort (whose name, not to be mentioned, includes "death") wants to kill Harry, and, of course, a lot revolves around Harry's dead parents and how they died and why.

So why do they keep calling these pre-teens "children," even after their voices change and they come to school in suits? Remember, children, adults make the world a risky place for you (how is it no one has fallen to their death on one of those moving staircases?) so know your place and keep it. It's like Hogwarts is preparing them not to be adult wizards with any kind of power to do anything, but killing their spirits to make them nameless clerks in the muggle civil service --- special and yet not special enough to have responsibility -- and though they fight against this by proving they're capable of saving the world or whatever the story calls for at the time, based on what the other wizards have grown up to be, is there really any hope that they will be any different than those sad, empty wizard professors? If they're special, won't they die like the Potters or Gary Oldman? Or, if not, if they live to be responsible adults, will they be tramping down future pre-teens who walk through the doors of Hogwarts? Makes you wonder.

It's a crazy world these wizards have. By the way, kind of weird that a couple of dentists would allow their daughter to study there, but, meh, muggles are just as crazy as wizards, I guess. So much for specialness.