Fuck Harry Potter.
There, I said it.
Fuck Harry Potter and all of his wand-waving friends.
Because of him America is under a dastardly spell, and it’s one that’s every bit as nasty as a cruciatus curse. It’s a horribly nasty bit of devilry that has somehow convinced us that it’s OK for young adults to read books written for pre-teens. And while you might say that there is some merit to the Harry Potter series, whatever good it contains cannot hide the hell that it has unleashed.
Divergent, Twilight, The Hunger Games, and countless other tales have hobbled otherwise promising young adults and transformed them into timid, weak-kneed pre-teens, each one desperately in need of constant guidance from their elders. Or at least that’s what I’ve gathered after watching South Carolina legislators attempt to protect students at the College of Charleston and the University of South Carolina Upstate from learning about adult matters, like sex, sexual orientation, and, more importantly, sweaty, hot lesbian sex — even if that sweaty, hot lesbian sex is crudely drawn in black and white and is noticeably less exciting than accidentally pulling your mother’s bra out of the dryer when you were just looking for a pair of gym shorts. The point is, because of Harry Potter what it means to be a “young adult” has been reclassified.
Thanks to J.K. Rowling, today’s young adult is no more mature than a 14-year-old girl who still goes to sleep each and every night with her teddy bear Beary Boo by her side while the chaste-class popstar of the day stares back at her from her bedroom wall.
Now, you might say that “young adult,” at least what it stands for in the publishing industry, doesn’t mean the same thing in public. You are wrong. It does.
The thing is, you can’t contain a euphemism. It spreads like mono, SnapChat, Young Life, or any other affliction affecting today’s youth. And the worst part is, there is no logic to it.
Take the term “inner city” for example. You know what it means: black. And yet, the vast majority of African Americans live in the rural South. But still that doesn’t change a damn thing. Inner city equals black and will from here on out.
And in the case of “young adult,” the effects aren’t just semantic. They’re actual. The average American young adult has been infantilized. Today, parents routinely call up college professors when their children get a less-than-satisfactory grade. Even worse, some have even joined their helpless brood on job interviews. So it’s no surprise to think that our state legislators think that today’s college students are incapable of dealing with books that might challenge their childish view of the world around them.
Sadly, it appears to have affected adults as well, at least in South Carolina. After all, Republican lawmakers like Lee Bright and Mike Fair and Garry Smith wouldn’t be able to get away with their overzealous desire to protect our state’s young adults if the state Democratic Party didn’t go to time-out every time their Republican counterparts demanded it. As such, you’ve heard nary a word from the S.C. Dems about the decision to yank funding from CofC and USC Upstate for handing out copies of LGBT-themed books to students. It’s also why the state’s progressive party has remained largely silent after state GOPers pressured USC Upstate administrators to cancel a performance of the satirical play, How to Be a Lesbian in 10 Days or Less.
Truth be told, S.C. Dems find all that gay stuff to be just too icky. They’d rather not deal with it. And when they do manage to say something about “teh geys,” the Dems mock them when all the cool kids are around — see, Dick Harpootlian — or ignore them like they’re members of the Brony Club-slash-Cosplay Squad — see, Vincent Sheheen. Either way, they’ve got cooties. Yuk.
I don’t know about you, but it’s time for the S.C. Democratic Party to grow the fuck up. Even Harry Potter had the balls to stand up to Dolores Umbridge.
Help keep the City Paper free.
No paywalls.
No newspaper subscription cost.
Free delivery at 800 locations from downtown to North Charleston to Johns Island to Summerville to Mount Pleasant.
Help support independent journalism by donating today.