Session Information
HPEF - Azkatraz 2009
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Harry Potter and the Co-optation of Girl Power
Track : Monday, July 20, 2009
Program Code: 730
Date: Monday, July 20, 2009
Time: 9:00 AM to 9:30 AM  EST
Location: Mission II & III (40)
SPEAKER :
Robyn Joffe
Description
“Girl Power,” as it has come to be known today, has little to do with the actual empowering of girls and more to do with the image of the artistically athletic, ultra feminine, girly-girl. The film-version of Hermione Granger is a character who has been diminished in the pursuit of perfection. The strengths she already possessed, as well as the weaknesses that served to make her more real, have been cast aside in favor of the mainstream media's idea of a Girl Power girl. While this result certainly may not have been the filmmakers' intentions, the many examples of Hermione being given inexplicable knowledge, nonsensical superpowers, or the words or actions of another character - not to mention her obvious pink fetish - are decisions that have been made on purpose. While Emma Watson's Hermione may be full of "Girl Power,” JK Rowling's Hermione is a powerful girl.