Adam Starkey 2–3 minutes
Barbie has become the highest-grossing movie in Warner Bros. history.
Greta Gerwig’s fantasy comedy passed the $1.342billion mark at the global box office on Monday (August 28), beating Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows – Part 2 to become the company’s highest-grossing film ever, not adjusted for inflation.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Barbie is set to become only the 13th movie in history to cross the $600million mark at the US box office later this week. As of Sunday, the film has grossed over $592.8million in the US, and $745.5million in the rest of the world.
The film is also set to beat The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($1.36billion) as the highest-grossing film of 2023 globally in the coming days. When it crosses the milestone, Barbie will become the 15th highest-grossing film of all time.
In a statement to mark the record, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group co-CEOs, Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, said: “Reaching this outstanding achievement is a reminder of the power of moviegoers – from countries in every corner of the globe – coming together to further the celebration of an iconic character that has entertained us for so many decades.”
Barbie previously surpassed Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight to become the highest-earning film in Warner Bros. history in the US. Since it was released in July, the film has also become the highest-grossing live-action movie solely directed by a woman.
Starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, Barbie released on the same day as Nolan’s latest film Oppenheimer, creating the “Barbenheimer” phenomena which boosted the success of both films at the box office.
In a four-star review, NME wrote: “What follows is a nuanced, rose-tinted comedy adventure, set to a stonking pop soundtrack featuring Lizzo and Billie Eilish, that somehow lives up to the immense hype. To borrow a pun from Ken’s coolest jacket (out of a long lineup), Barbie is more than ‘kenough’.”
Barbie isn’t the greatest movie, but at least it has a better message than the fascist wizard series.
What’s wrong with Harry potters message?
In an online Q&A, author Ursula Le Guin was asked for her opinion on JK Rowling’s writing style. Quote: “I have no great opinion of it. When so many adult critics were carrying on about the “incredible originality” of the first Harry Potter book, I read it to find out what the fuss was about, and remained somewhat puzzled; it seemed a lively kid’s fantasy crossed with a “school novel”, good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited.” There is more to the Q&A, but frankly, this adult critic has no great opinion of it.
Well that’s one person’s opinion of it (I assume you share their opinion?). Not sure what makes it fascist or even “ethically mean spirited.”
I thought it was a great story of friendship and love overcoming difficulties in life.
I think fascists is too much. But it has a rather conservative view on the world. Harry Potter, the character, fights to maintain and later return the status quo of society and people who want to change it, like Hermione with the house elves are viciously mocked. Slavery is okay, they like to be enslaved, Dobby is just a weirdo.
In short I’d say the issue is that the Harry Potter stories propose that individuals are the problem, not the system, even if the system has very clear flaws shown to us.
And what is the system but many individuals?
It’s not “many” individuals, but a very few individuals. That’s the point.
If 99% of the people in a system went against the remaining 1%, I assure you the system would be different
…and a race of slaves who benefit from their station.
I have read many, many fiction stories. I agree with Ursula’s opinion. You could take the magic out of the series and put it on London streets and it would still be full of classism, racist tropes, narcissistic role models, and a weak story overall. If you enjoy it, fine. I could suggest a dozen stories and series that address the same issues with greater nuance and skill.
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Not if they have good taste.
By all means, suggest them. I love good stories.
And it’s art. I’m not going to discount a story that made me feel deeply just because the author isn’t as skillful as another.
And is writing (or any art) about topics that are very much present in the real world to be discouraged? Should every piece of art ignore reality and just portray utopia?
If you didn’t enjoy it, fine. That’s art. It’s subjective. But to call it fascist is just…weird.
It would be weird if JKR wasn’t actually a fascist and if she didn’t reinforce negative stereotypes in every one of her more recent additions to the stories. Did you see the goblin bankers in Wizarding World?
As for book series including magic, there’s always the classics, Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, and Madeleine l’Engle. I’m a huge fan of the intersection of magic and technology so I would also suggest the authors Neal Stephenson, Greg Egan, and Liu Cixin. If you’re looking for heady dialogue that includes mysticism and philosophy, try Hermann Hesse.
Here’s my not-quite-up-to-date reading list sorted by rating on Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/89724732?ref=nav_mybooks&sort=rating
I guess that gets into separating the art from the artist - which is its own conversation. I don’t care for JK Rowling as a person, but then again I don’t like what a lot of many great artists have done. I had to make that decision for myself whether or not I was ok with consuming art from troubled human beings and to what level (monetarily and influence-wise). Ultimately I just make that decision on a case-by-case basis.
Thanks for the recommendations. I’ll probably start by digging into Herman Hesse. I have some audible credits that need to be put to use.
You just got me extremely excited because I LOVE the Steppenwolf audiobook read by Peter Weller. His sardonic and disdainful tone pairs perfectly with the story like dark chocolate and wine. The entire audiobook is available on YouTube. Here’s a link to one of my favorite passages. No real spoilers here.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89bn67OmHHs&t=2769s
The main message is love conquers all. It just screams fascism.
To be fair, the context of blood purity isn’t really dealt with enough - evidenced by the dearth of fanfiction on the damn thing. ‘Limpieza de sangre’ isn’t just an interesting Harry Potter x Female Tom Riddle fanfiction - it’s also, according to wiki: literally “cleanliness of blood” and meaning “blood purity”, was a racially discriminatory term used in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires, with connections to the Inquisition that nobody expected.
Can you give any support for this claim using just sources from the series?
Aside from the classism and cruelty of the narcissistic mentors, I don’t have much to say about the original series. It does suggest that even if magic were real that the world would be run by a hierarchy of rulers that enforced a strict separation between the magical class and the muggles though. Also, Wizarding World uses Nazi caricatures of Jews as goblins and JKR is truly an ignorant and hateful person.
Whole lot of buzzwords here without much substance. Fascism is… mean teachers?? None of what you suggested is exclusive to fascism and you’re grasping at straws.
Also Fascism =/= antisemitism and you’re insulting millions of Jews who have experienced antisemitism outside of Fascism for implying as such. Plus the caricatures predate the Nazis by centuries. JKR is ignorant but your comment makes no sense to describe a series whose main villain is the most on-the-nose (no pun intended) Hitler stand-in in literature.
You talk like one of them. Splitting hairs and hiding them behind each other’s atrocities.
Words have meaning dumbass. Harry Potter sucks and JK Rowling is a pos, but HP is not pro-fascism in any way. You’d put up a good argument if there was any real support for that statement.
Words don’t have meaning. People assign meanings to words. That’s why every ignorant Republican sees Communist boogymen everywhere. I’m pushing you to understand that every hierarchy enforced by violence and the rule of law is inherently fascistic. That’s why it keeps coming up like a hydra everywhere that authority is threatened. You don’t want to admit that Communism, Naziism, fascism, Republicanism, Roman Catholicism, Islam, Israel, China, North Korea, etc, etc are all the same because the authorities demand that you believe they’re different. Every hierarchy is built on the labor and lives of a slave class. Every in-group protected by law defines out-groups to murder in order to preserve the status quo. JKR and her stories are all very pro-government and pro-authority. If not initially, then definitely retroactively as her sanity has dwindled.
The main message is, “Get back in your box, muggle.”
Why not ask the sorting hat? Probably because he’d make you a hufflepuff, then the teachers would steal your points and give them to the privileged kids.
Oh shit the dude just victimised themselves with the fucking Harry Potter houses 💀💀💀
Looking at u/@TrismegistusMx 's post history and viewing its sheer volume of smoothbrain thoughts (but also interspersed with rare moments of lucid deep intellect) it would seem that the real problem they have with the underlying message in the Harry Potter books is that education is an imaginative, magical experience.
You talk so much shit for someone talking out of their ass to be disrespectful. Sounds like you just got upset that someone is pointing out that your favorite series isn’t that impressive to them.
Nope, I agree with them that HP is not inspiring nor original. Doesn’t remove the fact that it’s still popular and inspiring for kids everywhere and still admirably fantastical and whimsical.
Hey coward, how about addressing any one of your concerns directly with me instead of insulting my character from the peanut gallery?
Hello. You are indeed intelligent and very possibly extremely attractive. I have no idea. Regardless, I apologize for the shit-tier non-sequitur. You deserve better.
Compliments are always nice, but I’m more interested having an actual conversation than flattery or shit talking.
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I have plenty of problems with JK Rowlings recent attitudes towards certain disenfranchised groups, but I have a hard time interpreting Harry Potter as “fascist”. The entire premise is diametrically opposed to fascism. The latter four books show how fascists use fearmongering and populist rhetoric in the press to take over democratic institutions.
What I find frustrating about the whole situation is how Rowling seems to have fallen victim to some of the very same patterns her own books warned against.
Is Harry Potter ever critical of the sorting hat, or the anti-muggle prejudice of the magical class? Oh look, there’s a whole discussion about the politics in Harry Potter on Wikipedia: https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Harry_Potter#:~:text=The “pure-blood”%2C,racism in J. K. Rowling’s texts.
My problem with these comparisons is that the text itself reads as critical of them. All this class segregation nonsense (purebloods, mudbloods, etc.) is very explicitly pushed by the antagonists and rejected by the protagonists. The reader is supposed to be disgusted when they learn what it meant when Malfoy called Hermione a “dirty little mudblood”. The whole series is essentially an allegory for how classist and racist sentiments lead to systemic opression, even if the work itself still endorses a now-antiquated status quo.
Really this whole argument is undercut by the fact that the main antagonist faction is a clear allegory for 20th century fascist movements. There is plenty to criticize about Harry Potter (and even more to criticize about its author), but to call the work pro-fascist makes it sound like you never actually read the books and got your information from a list of bullet points without context, and makes it way harder to talk about the problems it does have.
Precisely. Even the Sorting Hat itself is critical of the Sorting Hat, in-universe.
That can only be said of the original work. JKR keeps doubling down. When there are so many other amazing series being neglected, it’s just a shame to see people cling to such a mediocre world and story. It starts to make a person wonder if there’s something underneath the compulsion, like shared beliefs.
Maybe people are just extra nostalgic for books that were a major part of their childhoods? Nothing “new” can really replace that without access to a time machine.
That’s on them, but you have to put the blankie away eventually. Arrested development is never a good look. I admit that I enjoy many of Orson Scott Card’s books. As far as I can tell he never has let his personal beliefs influence his worlds in a negative way, but I would never defend the man or any twisted philosophies he may put in his works.
Orson Scott Card is a great example. I still love Ender’s Game, but I want little to do with his newer work because of his nasty anti-LGBT behavior.
I’m the same with JKR. I want nothing to do with the Fantastic Beasts movies or her newer books. My relationship with her ends with Deathly Hallows.
Robert Heinlein too. Great stories, but sometimes I want to put drunk grandpa in bed before he starts using racial slurs and slapping women on the ass. He toes that line like nobody else.
May I enquire… as to your gender?
I was born with a penis, but the two moments I related to the movie were when Barbie learned about life in the park and Allen (a one of a kind doll) going crazy with the need to escape Ken/Barbie-land.
“the fascist wizard series” 💀💀💀
Well, nobody likes Saruman.