When the first members of “Generation Hex,” those born between 1980 and 2003, picked up copies of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” 14 years ago, a generation was hooked.
But now, on the eve of the final Harry Potter movie, some perceptions of racism within the books have surfaced within the University’s academic ranks.
“‘Readers do not notice the racism that lurks beneath the surface of these stories,”’ read history professor Jacqueline Olich, who was quoting an article she is using in her own research of Harry Potter books.
Olich, who is also associate director of the Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies, said the Harry Potter series is rife with Stalinist imagery, negative stereotypes of eastern Europeans and depictions of Romania and Albania as dark, mysterious and evil.
Although author J.K. Rowling has called her books a “prolonged argument for tolerance,” Olich said the author portrays several young eastern European students in her fourth novel as “hyper-masculine” intimidating boys with poor dental hygiene and a tendency to use “dark” magic.
“Rowling internalizes stereotypes of eastern Europe as backward, dangerous and materially deficient, and she transmits these stereotypes to a new generation of readers,” Olich said.
Olich said Rowling also characterizes eastern Europeans as less stylish and less consumer-oriented.
“They’re there for comic fodder,” Olich said. “They’re there to be laughed at.”
Even the eastern European headmaster, Igor Karkaroff, seems to represent adaptations of Russian dictator Ivan the Terrible, Olich said.
