Picking up where we left off last time, the second article that I assigned for the last week of my Popular Culture class this year looked at the place of celebrity culture inside and outside of Harry Potter.

Parry-Giles (2011) argues that the Harry Potter franchise (and character) represents a critique of celebrity culture while relying on the consumption celebrity culture to gain popularity. He identifies three dichotomies present within and around the series - celebrity and hero, image and reality, and fake and authentic - and notes that the series author J.K. Rowling has frequently expressed her discomfort with being a celebrity and the struggle of maintaining a private life. These themes and tensions are explored in this post!

Read More