Harry Potter film guilty of gender stereotyping

Judy Jarvis Staff Writer

Hermione Granger collapses dramatically on the marble steps outside of the Yule Ball in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Wearing a satin dress of lavender, her hair perfectly coiffed, she sobs bitterly after screaming to Ron Weasley, “You’ve ruined everything!”

Like a paranoid babysitter, Hermione is in constant fear for Harry’s life in a pathetic, stereotypically maternal way, unlike any of Harry’s other close friends. Where is the Hermione from the books who shoots up her hand in class, answering every question with intelligence and precision? Where is the Hermione who never allows anyone to cross her? Where is the Hermione who is such an overachiever that she recently taught herself how to manipulate time in order to attend two classes simultaneously? It seems that the film’s writer and director assume, “Well, that’s just how teenage girls are—emotional!”

The Harry Potter characters are older. In the fourth installment of the J.K. Rowling’s series, voices are deeper, curves are more pronounced, and lust is omnipresent. But for screenplay writer Steve Kloves, adolescence also equals the disbanding of Rowling’s carefully crafted personalities to fit narrow gender roles.

Hermione is not the only illustration of these inexplicably weak females. The film centers on the dangerous, but glorious, Tri-Wizard Tournament. The three finalists are chosen by the unquestionable power of the Goblet of Fire: Fleur Delacour, Viktor Krum, and Cedric Diggory…and Harry Potter.

The viewer is already familiar with three of the contestants: Harry Potter is the film’s protagonist; Cedric is another Hogwarts student and a family friend of the Weasleys; Viktor is a Quidditch idol, a star of the hugely popular Quidditch World Cup who we see earlier in the film. Fleur is…a girl. We have no back-story on her except that she is French, blonde, and makes Ron awkwardly breathless.

In the Tri-Wizard challenges that follow, we never see Fleur complete in a single one. We hear from the judges that she outwitted her dragon just as the other three contestants did, but that is the extent of her success in the film. Her screen time is dominated by her perplexing failures. Fleur is unable to rescue her frozen younger sister underwater, and the only explanation we get is from the loudspeaker: “Fleur is unable to go on.”

Fleur is the first participant down in the labyrinth challenge, for no particular reason other than there is little regard for her. Why exactly was she chosen by the Goblet of Fire if she is so inept? Why wasn’t Krum first enveloped by the labyrinth’s tentacles? It seems no accident that of the four competitors, Fleur is the most underdeveloped character.

As one of the largest international franchises to date, the Harry Potter series has a duty to its viewers to present characters, not gender stereotypes. It should at least make the sexual objectification of the characters equal—have the camera pan the backsides of Krum’s gang as they enter the Hogwarts Grand Hall, just as it pans the backsides of Fleur and her classmates. Let’s see Ron squirt a few tears—we know he’s had the hots for Hermione since the first book. Or, have Cedric see what it feels like to come in last place for an event or two.

The film’s plot is not inextricably linked to the weaknesses of Fleur and Hermione, so why not let them accomplish just as much as the lads? Leave these hysterical, delicate, and untalented women back in the 1950s films from which they were drawn.