Harry Potter and Other People That Have More Money Than Me

I am not really sure what my problem is with Harry Potter, but I hate that little bespectacled bitch. I have never read more than a couple lines of the books and I have only seen a one or two of the movies (under protest) because I wanted to spend time with my family and they wanted to see it.  I get defensive when people start using the jargon from the books and I automatically roll my eyes when grown men and women start chattering like a excited monkies when discussing the books.

Maybe it’s because I am a jaded and angry old man who has rendered himself unable to enjoy magic and fantasy.  It’s possible that I have some sort of deeper intellectual disagreement with people who allow themselves to be charmed by a series of books created for twelve year-old girls.  I mean, can you imagine a group of people standing around the water cooler giggling and agressively discussing the new Trixie Belden/Encyclopedia Brown crossover book with all the energy that it would take to tackle the real problems our society is facing? Or maybe it’s because the whole franchise is too much like Star Wars+The Hobbit+Wizards.  My kids asked me if the Malfoy family house-elf was named Dolby or Dobby.  “His name is Jar Jar Binks,” I replied angrily.  I admit that I am completely out of school here – I am wholly unqualified to speak on this subject…and I’ll never be able to explain why I hate him so much, but Harry and his entire formulaic crew can eat wang as far as I’m concerned.

I try my best to keep that shit to myself because everyone around me seems to love the goofy little bastard and I am already unpopular enough as it is.  Sometimes I just can’t hold it in any longer.  If I do lose it I try my best to loose my Harry Potter venom on some adult that’s at least a little douchey anyway.  Almost without exception, when I get around to calling J. K. Rowling a “format children’s book factory that got extremely lucky” someone reminds me, “Yeah, well she’s got more money than you ever will!”

It is a miracle that I have never responded to this idiotic argument with a tack hammer to the skull. Why do you people reach for this comeback every time?  Do you really believe that being rich is some sort of measure of talent? Is a person’s net worth really the barometer I should use to determine whether or not I should consume their products?  To paraphase my mother (who, coincidently and somewhat ironically, has used this argument on me many times in the past), just because it’s popular doesn’t make it not a huge pile of shit. I think that’s what she said anyway.

I imagine that if anyone read this they might come back at me with some sort of free market argument that says people will naturally consume the best product and the fact that it is popular does make it quality writing.  If this were a serious or scholarly effort, I would then start rambling on like an asshole about the flaws inherent to capitalism and the fact that without regulation, we would be living in the United States of Carnegie right now. Instead, I will point out that that combined,  Hitler’s Mein Kampf  and Marx and Engels’ The Communist Manifesto have sold over a billion copies. Wow…a billion.  Those guys must have been rich.  I bet they were top-notch writers. With the exception of Hitler, I am not suggesting that any of these authors are evil per se, but I am saying that they all, at one point or another, had more money than I will ever have. 

From a far more practical angle, haven’t you people ever read a comic book or seen a movie or watched Fox News?  All of the master villians are rich.  From Dr. Evil to Dick Cheney, they all seem to have millions of dollars invested in some evil lair or castle.  I can’t even imagine what kind of underground wunderhöhle Rowling does her evil business in.

Anyway, I really don’t care what you do in the privacy of your own home.  Read whatever you want, watch whatever you want and perform whatever excercises in quasi-reproduction you feel are necessary.  Just remember, coming to work and calling me a muggle may result in a tack hammer to the dome piece – and I am proud to be poorer than a lot of people.