We each have an untold number of influences in our lives. They come in many forms—people, experiences, books, movies—and alter our perception, be it for better or worse.
A new book and study called, “”Harry Potter and the Millennials: Research Methods and the Politics of the Muggle Generation,” makes the claim that the tale of ”the boy who lived” has altered how our generation views on politics.
First of all, calling us the “Muggle Generation” would be awesome if it didn’t reopen that wound from realizing our eleventh birthdays (respectively and collectively I suppose) had come and gone without an owl-delivered invitation arriving from Hogwarts. Thank you very much for resurrecting that disappointment.
There’s one stat in particular that seems to be getting a lot of attention: 83 percent of respondents who read all of the Harry Potter books said they viewed the Bush administration unfavorably.
So just because a lot of kids who read the Harry Potter books have an unfavorable opinion of the 43rd president doesn’t mean that it’s because they read the books.
Do many of us have strong opinions about where the Sorting Hat would have placed him? Maybe, but that’s not the fault of the books. The books simply provided us with the Sorting Hat metaphor, they didn’t sort him into Slytherin…although personally I see him as more of a Hufflepuff.
I can think of a few other possible explanations for our generational distrust of authority.
Regardless, I for one would like to know where he found the control group. I was unaware I had peers that had managed to not read these books. Seriously, my 8th grade class was banned from doing book reports on the Harry Potter books, which had nothing to do with the Catholic-ness of my education and everything to do with the fact that my teachers were tired of reading about the boy wizard, as interpreted by a 14-year-old.
Mine would have been brilliant.
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…bi-daily smile…
Yahoo News: Harry Potter readers hated George W. Bush, new research suggests
I have no idea what this show is, but this scene is perfect:
