Why does the religious right in the US condemn fantasy, according to Cockrell (2004)? On what grounds does Cockrell defend fantasy literature, using Harry Potter as an example?
On the first question Cockrell states that first, Harry Potter is insanely popular and in the media and in people’s view more than any other books. For the US religious right it’s something for them to focus on when they attack “Satanism” and “witchcraft.” It’s something to blame that everyone knows. Cockrell goes on to state that during the 1980’s most censorship was about sex and the body, now it is focused on fantasy. To the religious right fantasy is lying and those who read it will be persuaded to lie and be deceitful. But the reason, religious right target Harry Potter is because the books are “too close to home.” They’re set in our world, not somewhere made up so to them it’s an attack on their culture and society. Parents also feel that Harry Potter encourages their children to rebel against them. Harry himself explodes the wineglass that his aunt is holding and inflates her until she blows away.
In Harry Potter’s world magic is more like philosophy and natural science. They are, as Scholes is quoted saying, “two true and different visions of the world,” one being science, the other being Rowling’s magic. This magic also has no God, another reason for the religious right to condemn it.
According to Cockrell (page 25), the two reasons why fantasy was condemned by the religious orders who distinguished it from other fictional 'magicians': "Harry is too close to home,...Harry's detractors are skillfully parodied..." Their yardstick for morality was blindly based on the virtues exemplified by Jesus's teachings in the Bible. But Cockrell (page 26) uses the reason that "Harry Potter lives where we live, ... in a world in which it is ... impossible to insulate children from unwanted influences..." Parents always encourage their children to accept a certain set of teachings...by which "people should live their lives." "If art may make the unreal real, it may also disguise the real as fiction ... in the guise of fantasy."(page 28)
ReplyDeleteAlthough Harry Potter is “not reality, doesn’t diminish its power to change beliefs and values” (Kjospa.5-6), the setting in Harry Potter’s world is too close to our life. Besides the target audiences of most fantasy literatures are kids or teenagers, they haven’t got their own norm, value and beliefs. Not only the religious right in the US but also the parents think these are some pitfalls there may lead some serious problems.
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