Art Belongs to Life
- William Romanowski
- Jun 20, 2024
- 5 min read
(5-minute read)
Keywords: J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter, The Elephant House, movie theme parks, suspension of disbelief
The Elephant House is a charming coffee and tea shop on George IV Bridge in Edinburgh, Scotland. If you go there, be prepared to stand in line. It’s a regular tourist stop made famous as one of the places world-famous author J. K. Rowling frequented while writing the Harry Potter novels.
In the sunny back room, it’s easy enough to picture the literary legend sitting there at a table, writing away with Edinburgh Castle filling the horizon outside the window.
Rowling’s account diminishes The Elephant House’s grand claim, “The Birthplace of Harry Potter.” The initial idea for a story about a bespectacled boy wizard named Harry Potter came to her full blown on a train from Manchester to London’s King’s Cross Station. She first put “pen to paper” in a rented flat over a sports store in Clapham Junction, London, inventing and writing bits and pieces over time in various locations, including The Elephant House.
“I’d been writing Potter for several years before I ever set foot in this cafe, so it’s not the birthplace,” she said, adding jokingly, “but I did write in there so we’ll let them off!”
Down the street and around the bend from the Elephant House is Greyfriars Kirkyard.
That’s where Harry Potter enthusiasts can find the 19th century gravestone of Thomas Riddell of Befsborough in Berwick, said to be the inspiration for the Dark Lord Voldemort’s name: Tom Marvolo Riddle.
I was introduced to these Harry Potter sites by Calvin University students while I was directing the Semester in Britain program in 2015. Working their enthusiasm for all things Harry Potter into the semester focus on British film, media, and culture, I arranged for the class to spend a day at Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter. This is a walk-through exhibition of authentic costumes, props, and sets that takes visitors on a behind-the-scenes tour of the filmmaking process – from screenwriting to special effects.
A part of the exhibit that caught my eye was a sketch artist’s rendering of Hogwarts Castle – resembling the one in Edinburgh – that was then turned into a three-dimensional model used in the filming of the movies.
That artists are inspired by people, places, and events is hardly surprising. Nor is the fact that patrons (readers, moviegoers and so forth) find this fascinating and take pleasure in experiencing those connections between art and life for themselves. Have a cup of tea in the same room as J. K. Rowling once did. See the shelter in the middle of the roundabout in Penny Lane, or the ponds at Giverny outside Paris, the inspiration for Impressionist painter Claude Monet’s Water Lilies. Run up the “Rocky Steps” at the Philadelphia art museum or around the bases at the “Field of Dreams” in Dyersville, Iowa.
Perhaps something the same helps explain the enormous popularity of movie theme parks. Hang out at Universal’s “Wizarding World of Harry Potter,” or Walt Disney World’s “Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge,” where you can “live your Star Wars adventure in a Galaxy Far, Far Away [emphasis mine].” Millions of people visit these recreated fictional settings annually eager to experience the movie in some sense (and return home with your very own Elder Wand or Jedi lightsaber).
One way to think about these encounters involves a “willing suspension of disbelief,” a state of mind in which we allow ourselves to believe in what we know is not really “real,” but a kind of reality – imaginative reality. For the sake of our enjoyment, we overlook the margins of the medium – page, stage, or screen – allowing ourselves to believe enough to voluntarily enter a world of someone else’s imagination.
In effect, it’s like passing through a portal, a doorway, or passageway to another world. A fictional world. An imagined place and time that is different from and yet resembles our own. Works of fiction (and theme park attractions) transport us elsewhere – to other places, times, and even points of view – allowing us to inhabit worlds of make-believe.
As for Harry Potter’s adventures, they take place in a world enveloped in a struggle between good and evil. Perhaps more than anything else, these stories are about living with courage.
“I admire bravery above almost every other characteristic,” said J. K. Rowling. “Bravery is a very glamorous virtue, but I’m talking bravery in all sorts of places.”
And young readers apparently understand that. Rowling “mixes the real-life struggles in with the imaginary, magic struggles,” an adolescent girl said. “Harry and his friends have to think through the obstacles in life the same as they have to think through an obstacle that’s a three-headed dog. It’s, like, inspirational.”
Former New York Times film critic A. O. Scott wrote, “Art belongs to life, and anyone—critic, creator or fan—who has devoted his or her life to art knows as much.”
Indeed it does.
What Every Muggle Should Know
If Harry Potter belongs to millions of fans around the world, the franchise also belongs to book and music publishers, Warner Bros. studios, and licensed merchandisers.
Over 500 million Harry Potter Books have been sold worldwide, in 80 different languages, with gross revenues estimated at $7.7 billion.
Harry Potter is among the highest-grossing movie franchises of all time; Warner Bros. has made over $7 billion from the eight movie adaptations.
The Harry Potter novels have been on the American Library Association’s “Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books” since 1990 and continue to be challenged in the 21st century.
J. K. Rowling won a lawsuit in September 2008 against a Michigan-based company that wanted to publish the Harry Potter Lexicon website and sell the encyclopedia for $24.95. Ironically, Rowling occasionally used the website herself to do some fact checking and gave it a “fan-site award.” In his ruling, the judge said, “The commercial nature of the use weighs against a finding of fair use.”
In June 2020, J. K. Rowling was embroiled in a firestorm over controversial remarks she made about transgender women.
All this is to show the complexity of the media universe, where creations of the human imagination are at once protected speech, influential communication, and the products of profit-making corporations – topics for future blog posts in this category.
References
Gardner, Abby. “A Complete Breakdown of the J. K. Rowling Transgender-Comments Controversy, Glamour, April 11, 2024, https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk-rowling-transgender-comments-controversy.
“Harry Potter 20 Years On: Mountains of Merchandise Sold,” Movavi, https://www.movavi.io/harry-potter-2/.
Hartocollis Anemona. “Rowling Testified Against Lexicon Author,” New York Times, April 15, 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/nyregion/15rowling.html.
“Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009,” http://www.ala.org/bbooks/top-100-bannedchallenged-books-2000-2009; “Harry Potter Tops List of Most Challenged Books of 21st Century,” American Library Association, September 21, 2006, http://www.ala.org/news/news/pressreleases2006/september2006/harrypottermostchallenge.
“Why JK Rowling won the Harry Potter Lexicon Lawsuit,” Pinsent Masons, September 9, 2008, https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/why-jk-rowling-won-the-harry-potter-lexicon-lawsuit.
 | William D. Romanowski is an award-winning commentator on the intersection of religion and popular culture and author of a number of books, including Reforming Hollywood: How Protestants Fought for Freedom at the Movies and Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in Popular Culture. With his continuing commentary, he is trading footnotes for fiction, writing novels under the pen name (or nom de plume, as the French put it), Patmos Rhodes. |
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