Another Day, Another Jackass

Joining the likes of A.S. Byatt, Jack Markowitz, and Robert McCrum is The Scotsman's Brian Hennigan. Hennigan, an anthropologist whose field of expertise is pop-culture, sums up his exhaustive study, in which he interviewed hundreds of adult Harry Potter fans, and concludes...

No, wait, I'm sorry. Hennigan gets pissed off at being asked stupid questions when he reveals that he's from Scotland (specifically, does he know J.K. Rowling)*, and launches into a diatribe against adult HP fans, who are, he concludes, losers. He goes on to say

"There was not anything of entertainment value [in the HP book Hennigan read] for a fully-developed adult mind. I am sure that one or two adults read Harry Potter books in the same distracted way that soap operas are observed or crisps are munched - in a manner entirely consistent with the obliteration of whatever dreary day they have just got through and in search of some temporary relief from the trauma of an unjust world.

MAYBE they have more important aims, such as working out what is the most frightening thing they can use to make their own children be quiet before the first pint of Lambrusco kicks in.

My concern is those adults who style themselves Harry Potter fans - supposed grown-ups who waited for the latest release with all the decorum of a drunk cheerleader trying to earn a place on Big Brother. These people are not seeking relief from life - they are denying life itself, excusing themselves from the ordinary business of being an adult and the complexities thereof. A simple retort might be that life would be so much simpler if we all remained more childish and less-grown-up; that wars are caused by adults not children, etc. Such claptrap remains a sad part of modern life, flailing a ragged paw at reasoned thinking like a fat, rancid cat that just won't die.

Adult fiction recognises that the contemporary world is a complex, difficult place with demands on our reasoning that require careful consideration. I have nothing against Harry Potter or any of his genuinely juvenile followers - children should be bursting with juvenility - but his adult disciples are little more than cowardly escapists."

I know I've gone on at length about this already, but how is this sort of writing acceptable? Hennigan doesn't like the HP books and doesn't think there's anything in them that should attract an adult. That's fine. But how does he justify drawing these kinds of overblown and patently untrue conclusions about a group that numbers in the millions, simply because its members disagree with him?

(Link via Bookslut's Michael Schaub, and don't think I'm not mad at him too. He and Jessa aren't fans of the HP books, I knew that already, but that doesn't excuse endorsing bad writing. If Hennigan had written something like this about comics readers, Schaub would be baying for his blood.)

* I'm sorry, the only people who don't have to put up with stupid questions about their nationalities are the ones who come from countries nobody's heard of. Hennigan should try being an Israeli--I know at least one girl who was once asked if she rode a camel to school.