Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies
Vol. 4, No. 1, March 2007, pp. 3 ! 26
Harry Potter and the Commodity
Fetish: Activating Corporate Readings
in the Journey from Text to
Commercial Intertext
Jarrod Waetjen & Timothy A. Gibson
Recent years have seen a productive dialogue develop between political-economic and
cultural approaches to media studies. In this spirit, this article draws on the analytic tools
of political economy to produce a textual analysis of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.
In particular, we argue that Rowling has woven throughout the Potter series a set of
contradictory discourses related to class and consumerism. Yet out of this heteroglossia,
AOL Time Warner*the holder of the series’ film and merchandising rights*has
activated a narrow reading of Harry Potter that subordinates Rowling’s critique of social
inequality and materialism while amplifying those moments in the texts that celebrate
the ‘‘magic’’ of commodity consumption. Our conclusion discusses the role such corporate
activations might play in the struggle over how commodity production and consumption
will be understood in the wider social field.
Keywords: Political Economy; Cultural Studies; Class; Consumption; Harry Potter
The stereotypes that animate the debate between political economy and cultural
studies are by now second nature. Cultural studies scholars are often accused of losing
themselves in jargon-filled analyses of text and discourse, thereby cutting their work
off from the material forces that structure both media production and the contexts of
reception.1 Political economists, for their part, are said to focus with single-minded
ferocity on the consequences of for-profit ownership and commodification, thus
neglecting studies of text and audience that might reveal spaces of contradiction
Jarrod Waetjen is a PhD candidate in the Cultural Studies doctoral program at George Mason University.
Timothy Gibson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at George Mason University.
The authors wish to thank the editors of CCCS and the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of our
paper and their helpful suggestions for revision. Correspondence to: Timothy A. Gibson, Department of
Communication, George Mason University, Mailstop 3D6, University Drive 4400, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA.
Email: [email protected]
ISSN 1479-1420 (print)/ISSN 1479-4233 (online) # 2007 National Communication Association
DOI: 10.1080/14791420601151289
4
J. Waetjen & T. A. Gibson
within the circulation of cultural goods.2 That both of these stereotypes fail to capture
the nuances of the best work in either tradition has unfortunately not lessened their
purchase in the pages of our leading journals.3
Happily, however, movement toward a more productive dialogue between cultural
studies and political economy is already under way.4 Within cultural studies, for
example, a long preoccupation with the text!audience relation has begun to
accommodate a renewed engagement with economic practices and the moment of
cultural production.5 In addition, political economists have recently begun an
analogous process of moving beyond their traditional borders into territory once
reserved for cultural analysts.
The early returns from this movement are highly encouraging. Eileen Meehan, for
example, has demonstrated the utility of bringing the analytic tools of political
economy to bear on that long-treasured domain of populist cultural scholars*
audience reception. Taking issue with celebratory accounts of pop culture ‘‘fandom,’’
Meehan’s analysis situates fan activities*producing fan fiction, collecting merchandise, and so on*within both the longstanding drive to valorize ‘‘leisure time’’ and
the synergistic strategies of contemporary media conglomerates. In doing so, she
argues for an approach to critical media studies that supplements the emic focus of
audience ethnography*one that foregrounds the perspectives of the fans
themselves*with a commitment to situating these accounts within an etic, or
structural-historical, perspective.6
Carol Stabile, for her part, has argued for a similar extension of political-economic
concepts to the terrain of textual analysis. Stabile’s study on resistance and
recuperation in Roseanne, for example, explores how the program’s particular
representations of gender and class can be traced back to the economic strategies of
television executives and advertisers who were desperate to reach an increasingly
mobile audience of working women.7 Her analysis, as Meehan notes, demonstrates
the value of supplementing the synchronic analysis of texts*one that rips texts out of
their circulation and opens them up to explore the discourses and contradictions
encoded therein*with a diachronic analysis that situates textual meanings within the
material contexts of their production and reception.8
We stand firmly with Stabile, Meehan, and a growing list of political economy
scholars9 who are bringing the concepts of political economy to bear on the practice
of textual analysis. And, in our view, few media texts have cried out for this synthesis
of synchronic and diachronic analysis more than J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter book
series. The incorporation of Rowling’s Harry Potter within the machinery of global
media firms could not be more obvious. The current explosion of Potter-inspired
merchandise is, to be sure, a textbook case in the commodification of children’s
culture and the proliferating sins of hypercommercialism.10 At the same time, the
texts themselves, we will argue, carry a set of contradictory images regarding the
relationship between class and material life. In some places, Rowling’s books offer
compelling critiques of class inequality and soulless materialism; while in others, her
works celebrate the transformative power of commodities. Exploring the cultural and
political significance of such representations of class and consumption*particularly
Harry Potter and the Commodity Fetish
5
in an era when the commodification of cultural expression is virtually complete*
should begin by putting aside intramural allegiances to economic or cultural analysis.
Instead, what is required is a commitment to taking textual meanings seriously, while
at the same time situating such textual openings and closures within a diachronic,
material analysis of contemporary media production and distribution.
To this end, we begin this article by situating Rowling’s texts within the contractual
relationships that tie Ms. Rowling to her publishers and AOL Time Warner,11 the
global media conglomerate that has transformed the original Harry Potter books into
a commodity-sign reproduced endlessly across the commercial landscape.12 The
argument then turns to an analysis of the first six Harry Potter books, with a
particular focus on how issues of class and consumption are represented within
Rowling’s texts. What we will discover is that the two worlds within which Harry
Potter moves*the non-magical (‘‘muggle’’) world and the magical wizarding
world*are both structured profoundly by class privilege. Yet, at least within the
first six texts (there is one more to come), Rowling’s vivid depictions of class
inequality exist alongside a contradictory discourse of wealth and accumulation, one
in which Harry’s own (accidental) wealth leads to exciting forms of consumption that
earn Harry the admiration of his peers.
Drawing on this textual analysis, we then argue that these same contradictions were
strategically exploited by AOL Time Warner in their drive to transform the universe of
Potter characters and settings into a long-term source of licensing revenue. In the
end, we argue that although her novels can be read as a politically engaged critique of
class inequality, crass materialism, and racial discrimination (indeed, this is how we
prefer to read her texts), the contradictory discourses of class and consumption in
Rowling’s series have left room for an alternative reading of the narrative. In short,
Rowling’s portrayal of Harry as a gadget-loving hero, when combined with her vision
of an economic system seemingly devoid of labor exploitation and commodity
fetishism, could be read as a full-throated celebration of guilt-free consumption. And,
indeed, we argue that it is precisely this reading that AOL Time Warner has
‘‘activated’’ in its commercial appropriation and amplification of the Harry Potter
universe.
In the end, we conclude by examining the utility of political economy in the
analysis of popular media texts. In particular, we were struck by what the diachronic
movement of Rowling’s work from text to commercial intertext (i.e., the films, video
games, and ancillary commodities spun off the books) suggested about a potential
point of overlap between post-structuralist theories of polyphonic texts and politicaleconomic analyses of cultural commodification. In other words, if popular media
texts like the Harry Potter novels are indeed shot through with ideological fissures out
of which a wide variety of social meanings can be ‘‘activated,’’ then what happens
when the reader decoding the text is not an individual audience member but rather a
multinational media conglomerate? Addressing this question*and what it suggests
about struggles over how matters of class and consumption will be understood in the
wider cultural field*will be the focus of our concluding section.
6
J. Waetjen & T. A. Gibson
The Political Economy of Harry Potter
To date, the Harry Potter book series has sold over 300 million copies and netted its
author book royalties and merchandising revenues in excess of $500 million.13 For
this reason, it is difficult to believe that when J. K. Rowling completed her first full
manuscript as a fiction writer, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (retitled Harry
Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the United States), the world was not exactly beating
down her door to publish it. Her initial attempt to secure a literary agent produced
only a short rejection letter.14 The second agent she courted, Christopher Little, was
also reportedly hesitant to represent Rowling, but he soon relented and agreed to
pitch the book to major publishing firms in London. At least four major
publishers*including Simon & Schuster*rejected the book before Little sent the
manuscript to Bloomsbury, a small independent publisher which controlled about
two percent of the British book market.15 After reading the first chapter, an
enthusiastic editor began passing the manuscript around. The next day, Bloomsbury
made its offer. For an initial investment of $3,300, Bloomsbury had secured the
publishing rights to Rowling’s first Harry Potter book.16
It turns out that Rowling was fortunate in her choice of agent. In some cases, firsttime authors are so thrilled to see a contract that they sign all the foreign publishing,
film, and merchandising rights over to their initial publisher.17 Not so with Rowling.
The initial contract with Bloomsbury gave the British publisher exclusive rights only
in the UK, leaving her agent free to negotiate separate deals with publishers in other
markets.18 Moreover, Rowling also retained both the film and merchandising rights
to her novel. For this reason, when the book began selling well in England during
1996!1997, Rowling was in an excellent position to negotiate with foreign publishers
and film studios, many of which were now eager for a piece of the Potter franchise.
An early indication of global media’s enthusiasm for all things Potter was the deal
inked between Rowling and her American publisher, Scholastic. When Little put the
American rights up for sale in 1997, some of the biggest firms in children’s
publishing*including Random House (the leading firm), Hyperion, and Putnam*
submitted bids, pushing the asking price up above $100,000*a remarkable figure for
a first-time children’s author.19 The bidding for the film rights, completed at nearly
the same time, was equally fierce. Finally, after seven months of secret negotiations,
Rowling’s agent announced in late 1998 that Warner Brothers*a subsidiary of
TimeWarner (soon to be bought by AOL)*had secured the film and merchandising
rights to the first two books in the series for an undisclosed amount, though rumors
put the number in the six- to seven-figure range.20
Despite her status as the publishing industry’s most bankable author, Rowling
herself has been quoted many times as being uncomfortable with the idea of Harry
Potter’s wholesale commercialization. In one prominent television interview, for
example, she openly winced at the prospect of confronting Potter-themed action
figures on toy-store shelves.21 At the same time, her contract with Time Warner
ensured that she would receive a large cut of the merchandising pie. Although Little
has never revealed the exact terms of Rowling’s contract with Time Warner, David
Harry Potter and the Commodity Fetish
7
Lieberman of USA Today reports that Rowling is entitled to 5 percent of the adjusted
gross box office receipts from the films and a full 50 percent cut of Time Warner’s
Potter-related licensing revenue after expenses.22 Her ambivalence about the
impending onslaught of Harry-themed merchandise may have been sincere. Nonetheless, she was well positioned to profit handsomely from it.
And profits aplenty were indeed ahead. In the years between inking the initial film
deal with Time Warner and the 2001 release of the first Harry Potter film (Harry
Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone), Time Warner was purchased in early 2000 by the
Internet firm AOL for $165 billion.23 At the time, the purchase was hailed as a
breakthrough moment in the media industry. At last, an ‘‘old media’’ firm’s vast
storehouse of market-proven brands*like CNN, Sports Illustrated, Warner Brothers
films, and Warner Brothers music*would be piped through the then-unmatched
digital platform of AOL’s on-line service to its industry-leading twenty-two million
subscribers.24 The possibilities for corporate synergies seemed endless: new media
brands could be developed into a myriad of products and hyped through the
countless windows of the AOL Time Warner empire, including AOL’s online assets,
Turner Broadcasting’s cable outlets, the WB television network, and Time Inc.’s
industry-leading magazines.
After the initial burst of accolades from the business press, however, AOL Time
Warner’s most pressing task was to prove the wisdom of this corporate buyout to
investors increasingly jittery about the new firm’s debt-to-earnings ratio.25 Could the
newly combined firm truly exploit the synergistic possibilities so vigorously hyped in
the days after the buyout? Or would, as seemed increasingly likely during the
‘‘dot.com’’ implosion of the early 2000s, such talk of bold new media frontiers prove
to be just so much smoke and mirrors? Vexed by such questions, AOL Time Warner
executives seized upon their acquisition of Harry Potter. If any property could
demonstrate to Wall Street the wisdom of AOL’s decision to purchase Time Warner, it
was the Harry Potter series.26 And, as we will see, the embattled firm would indeed
leave no avenue of commercialization unexplored in its exploitation of the characters,
imagery, and narratives of Rowling’s world.
At the same time, we would argue that, in addition to providing AOL Time Warner
executives with a tremendous financial opportunity, Rowling’s universe also posed
the company’s executives with a daunting challenge. For in many ways, the characters
and narratives of the Harry Potter series would not seem to lend themselves easily to
wholesale commodification. Harry Potter, in short, is no Toy Story. The road from
Toy Story-the-animated-film-about-toys-that-come-to-life to Toy-Story-the-endlessparade-of-merchandise is obviously a short one. Not so with Harry Potter. Rowling,
to her credit, has constructed a denser, darker world, where issues of class inequality,
materialism, and racial discrimination are explored in ways that are surprising for
books aimed primarily at young readers. At the same time, we argue that, far from
simply ‘‘commercializing’’ Rowling’s texts, AOL Time Warner in fact activated a
reading of the Harry Potter universe that was already present in the texts themselves,
particularly within Rowling’s complex and often contradictory discussions of class
and material life. In this way, to fully understand the particular reading of Harry
8
J. Waetjen & T. A. Gibson
Potter activated by AOL Time Warner, it becomes necessary to examine the texts
themselves.
Class and Consumption in Rowling’s Magical World
Brycchan Carey has recently called Rowling’s Harry Potter series ‘‘among the most
politically engaged novels to be written for children in recent years.’’27 It is difficult to
disagree with this assessment. The central premise of Rowling’s books is that, in
modern England (and, as we learn later, around the world) a parallel society of
wizards, witches, and magical creatures lives among the non-magic (or ‘‘muggle’’)
world, though they usually escape our attention through a variety of clever means. As
it turns out, this wizarding world is menaced by a quasi-fascist band of violent
witches and wizards known as the Death Eaters, led by the murderous and
authoritarian Voldemort. At the heart of Death Eater ideology is the assertion that
‘‘muggles’’ (we non-magic folk) are sub-human, and that only the oldest, most
aristocratic, ‘‘pure-blood’’ wizarding families should hold positions of power and
authority.
Rowling’s narrative thus follows young Harry Potter*a wizard raised by muggles
after his parents were killed by Voldemort *as he learns to be a part of this wizarding
world and comes to play a leading role in the fight against the Death Eaters. And
indeed, by the time we arrive at the sixth book, it is the question of race*in this case,
the question of ‘‘pure blood’’ versus ‘‘mudblood’’ (i.e., muggle-born) and ‘‘blood
traitor’’ wizards*that comes to occupy most of Rowling’s attention.
However, interestingly, at the beginning of the series, it is the question of class, not
race, which first propels young Harry toward his fight against Death Eater elitism and
discrimination. What we will discover is that Rowling’s discussions of class and
consumption are gripping, complex, and contradictory. Throughout the first six
texts, Rowling indeed provides readers with a powerful condemnation of class
inequality and stratification. At the same time, she also celebrates the power of
consumption as an agent of personal and social transformation. In other moments,
she condemns systems of racial and class-based exploitation, while in still others she
treats these same systems as opportunities for humor and fun. In the sections that
follow, we will attempt to tease out some of these contradictory discourses of class
and consumption before turning toward a discussion of how these discourses were
selectively appropriated and amplified by AOL Time Warner in their creation of the
Harry Potter commercial intertext.
Harry Potter and the Critique of Class Inequality
The second chapter of the first novel, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, introduces
the reader to the eleven-year-old Harry Potter, and immediately, the opening
paragraphs read like a Dickensian missive on class injustice. We meet Harry as he
awakens to the screeching demands of his aunt, Petunia Dursley. ‘‘Are you up? Well,
get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don’t you dare let it burn,
Harry Potter and the Commodity Fetish
28
9
I want everything to be perfect on Duddy’s birthday.’’ In this scene, Harry plays the
role of the poor relation, cooking breakfast for a caricature of the hyperconsuming
suburbanite*Harry’s spoiled, overweight, dim-witted cousin, Dudley (aka
‘‘Duddy’’), who loudly complains that he only received thirty-seven presents, yet
when told that he would receive two more, takes an inordinate amount of time to
realize that he will get thirty-nine. Harry, readers quickly learn, is underfed, wears illfitting second-hand clothing, and sleeps in a cupboard under the stairs. Dudley, on
the other hand, has two bedrooms*one for him and his new toys; the other for his
broken toys and his books, which go unread. As the novel continues, this class divide
extends beyond the Dursley home as both children prepare to attend secondary
school: ‘‘Dudley had been accepted at Uncle Vernon’s old private school,
Smeltings. . . . Harry, on the other hand was going to Stonewall High, the local
public school. Dudley thought this was very funny.’’29 Harry Potter, in other words, is
a classic literary underdog. He is Rowling’s Cinderella, oppressed by his socialclimbing stepfamily, and he must similarly await the intervention of magic to
transcend his lowly class position.30
Moreover, in her description of Harry’s life with the Dursleys, Rowling
supplements this critique of inequality with an acid broadside against crass
materialism. In short, besides being cruel to Harry, the Dursleys are also obsessed
with appearances and always keen to show off their possessions. In book three, for
example, Harry is able to surreptitiously retrieve his magical belongings from a
locked cupboard while the Dursleys, standing in the driveway, loudly admire their
new car within earshot of their neighbors.31 The Dursleys also express their love for
Dudley by showering him with expensive gifts: for his eleventh birthday, Dudley
receives, among other items, a computer, a video camera, a bike, and a second
television.32 Later in the series, a favorite Aunt even pays him a crisp twenty-pound
note in exchange for a halfhearted hug and kiss-on-the-cheek.33 Such material
extravagance, however, fails to achieve its aim. Dudley is gluttonous, fat (a condition
Rowling dwells upon at length), cowardly, and desperately unhappy. His only
pleasure comes from bullying Harry*a pleasure that is soon denied as he begins to
fear Harry’s burgeoning magical skills. In no sense, in the muggle world at least, does
money seem to buy happiness.
Luckily for Harry, his time with the Dursleys is mercifully cut short on his eleventh
birthday. The moment that Harry is invited to attend the Hogwarts School of
Witchcraft and Wizardry, everything about his position in life is inverted. A nobody
in the muggle world, Harry discovers he is already a famous wizard for mysteriously
thwarting the evil Voldemort as a mere babe in arms. Accustomed to receiving
nothing but socks and coat hangers for his birthday, upon entering the wizarding
world, he immediately receives a birthday cake and a present from Hagrid, the first
wizard he meets. And if Harry has not a penny to his name as a muggle, in the
wizarding world, it turns out, his dead parents have left him a fortune. Harry, in
short, is rich, and we soon learn that his wealth places him comfortably ahead of most
other characters in the wizarding class hierarchy.
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J. Waetjen & T. A. Gibson
This is where things get a little strange in Rowling’s texts. First, it seems odd that a
society based on magic should produce anything resembling a hierarchical class
system. After all, these are witches and wizards. Without breaking a sweat, they
routinely conjure up the essentials of life. When the students sit down to eat, food
magically appears on their plates. When adults need to travel, they simply teleport
themselves about. When furniture is required, a wave of the wand will suffice. Yet, as
Harry takes us through the wizarding world, we learn that witches and wizards must
nonetheless sell their labor to earn wages that are then spent on life’s necessities.
Graduates of Hogwarts must pursue a career in the public sector or ply their trade in
one of the many shops and banks on Diagon Alley, the commercial hub of the
wizarding world. All in all, earning, saving, and spending Galleons*wizarding
currency*seems to be a central preoccupation for many of Rowling’s characters.
In addition, we soon discover that the distribution of wealth is no more equal in
the wizarding world than it is among the muggles. There are, in fact, distinct
economic classes of wizards, divided roughly by their occupation and their access to
economic resources. There are entrepreneurs who start retail businesses. There are
working-class bus drivers and bar maids (whose vernacular speech mirrors that of
their British non-magical counterparts). There are middling wizard classes as well,
including public employees (of the Ministry of Magic), and there is an aristocracy
based on ancient bloodlines and inherited wealth. From time to time, we meet
wizards who plod along in underclass status as well.34 Furthermore, in Rowling’s
stories, this unequal distribution of wealth has real consequences. Those with few
resources struggle from paycheck to paycheck and feel the social sting of pity and
condescension. Those with great wealth use it to buy access to the powerful and to
secure favors for themselves and their friends.
In this way, Rowling sustains her early critique of class inequality, established in the
Dursley home, even as she takes readers into the magical world. Only this time, it is
Harry’s best friend Ron Weasley who is cast as the class underdog, while Harry’s
primary nemesis at Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy, takes Dudley’s place as the story’s
abusive upper-class snob. Rowling establishes these parallels early in the first book.
Harry and Ron Weasley, for example, forge an immediate bond on the first train to
Hogwarts when Ron confides that his family cannot afford to buy him a pet owl. Far
from embarrassing him, this admission endears Ron to Harry, and Harry quickly
reciprocates by sharing with Ron his own stories of hand-me-downs and lackluster
birthday gifts.35
As the story progresses, we learn Ron’s dilemma runs deeper than a lack of pet
owls. While magic may be a talent that emanates from within, it costs a good deal of
money to perform. Potions require costly ingredients, and even the simplest spells
require the use of a wand. Indeed, Ron’s performance in his second year at Hogwarts
is abysmal because his family could not afford to replace his broken wand. For the
most part, Ron has to make do with ill-fitting, hand-me-down robes and secondhand equipment. By the time we reach the fourth book, he finally gets an owl, but
alas, it has an avian version of attention deficit disorder. The last straw comes when,
in anticipation of Ron’s first school dance, his mother purchases for him a thrift store
Harry Potter and the Commodity Fetish
11
set of musty, lace-frilled dress robes. The chapter ends with Ron surveying his
possessions with disgust*including the tiny owl bouncing off the walls. ‘‘Why is
everything I own rubbish?’’ he asks plaintively. Harry, holding his own (very
fashionable) dress robes, can only offer his mute sympathy.36 Although Harry left
such concerns behind when he inherited his parents’ wealth, he nonetheless allies
himself firmly with Ron and the other disadvantaged characters in the book. His
years at the Dursleys have left their mark. He is one of them.
In contrast, Harry is immediately repelled when he meets Draco Malfoy for the
first time. One of the wealthiest students at Hogwarts, and one who boasts of his
‘‘pure’’ bloodlines and aristocratic ancestry, he is the extension of the Dursleys’
snobbery in the wizarding world, a point Rowling makes clear at the earliest
opportunity. Upon bumping into Malfoy at a wizard robes shop, Harry, Rowling
writes, is ‘‘strongly reminded of Dudley’’ as Malfoy casually ridicules Harry’s friend
Hagrid (the rustic Hogwarts gamekeeper) and brags about his many possessions.37 A
pivotal moment comes later, when, just after the characters first arrive at Hogwarts,
Malfoy taunts Ron about his family’s poverty and then extends his hand to Harry,
saying ‘‘you’ll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others,
Potter. You don’t want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you
there.’’38 Having just bonded with Ron on the train ride, Harry coolly rejects Malfoy’s
overtures and casts his lot irrevocably with the wizarding world’s underdogs.
Throughout the books, Harry remains critical of Draco’s elitist attitude and spoiled
nature, but most of all Harry despises Malfoy for the way he ridicules the Weasleys for
their lack of wealth.
In short, in her Potter series, Rowling offers a subtle critique of class inequality
pleasingly wrapped in a fantasy fairy tale. Not only is wealth unevenly distributed in
the wizarding world, but its distribution has real consequences in people’s lives.
Because the books are written from the perspective of pre-teens and adolescents,
often these consequences are expressed as embarrassment and humiliation, of not
having one’s clothes or commodities measure up to the standards set by the affluent.
But, as Harry, Ron, and Hermione grow up, the consequences of wealth disparities
become more serious. Low in the hierarchy, wizards and witches*including Ron’s
father Arthur Weasley, a low-status bureaucrat in the Ministry of Magic*get stuck in
dead-end jobs, with the constant demands of work yielding little more than the bare
necessities. At the top, concentrated wealth opens doors to power and influence, as is
demonstrated when Draco Malfoy’s father, Lucius, is shown using his personal wealth
to secure private meetings with top Ministry officials.39 All in all, it is difficult to leave
these books feeling sanguine about the maintenance of such a class system, whether in
the wizarding or muggle world.
Playing Subordination for Laughs: Harry Potter and the House Elves
At the same time, Rowling’s critique of class inequality and hyperconsumption is by
no means univocal. In particular, there are two distinct moments when Rowling
overlays her missives against elitism and materialism with discourses that complicate
12
J. Waetjen & T. A. Gibson
and even undermine her critiques. The first such moment comes with the arrival of
Dobby the House Elf at the beginning of book two. Like all house elves, Dobby is a
diminutive, vaguely human creature with ‘‘bat-like’’ ears who wears a pillowcase for
clothes. We first meet Dobby when he suddenly appears at the Dursleys to warn that
Harry’s life is in danger: Dobby’s masters, the Malfoys, have hatched a plot against
Harry that will come to fruition during his second year at Hogwarts. Most strikingly,
readers learn that, by warning Harry, Dobby is breaking the most fundamental code
of his species*a code which requires elves to obey their masters (human witches and
wizards) enthusiastically and without question. For violating this code, Dobby
punishes himself repeatedly by whacking his head against objects in Harry’s room.40
Over the remainder of the series, we learn that most manual labor in the magical
world is performed by house elves like Dobby. Hogwarts, for instance, has a
workforce of over one hundred elves who are responsible for a majority of the
cooking and cleaning in the castle.41 These creatures find their greatest happiness in
using their considerable magical powers to serve their masters and consider payment
for their work or release from their voluntary slavery as insults.
In fact, only two characters, Dobby and Harry’s friend Hermione Granger, are
uncomfortable with the class position held by the house elves; yet, their protests only
serve to reinforce how happy these elves are in their servitude. At the end of the
second book, for example, Dobby is freed from his service to the Malfoys. For the
remainder of the series, Dobby seems pleased with his freedom as he gladly dons
human apparel and even accepts wages to work at Hogwarts.42 Although Dobby
seems happier as a salaried worker, he is an anomaly; in fact, the other house elves are
embarrassed by his behavior and prefer to ignore him. Moreover, as Suman Gupta
points out, Dobby’s happiness stems from leaving the abuse he endured under the
Malfoys rather than his liberation from house elf slavery more generally. In fact, as
Gupta has argued, one gets the sense in the books that if the Malfoys had only treated
Dobby better, he would have been happy to serve them forever.43
For her part, Hermione*perhaps because, as a ‘‘muggle born,’’ she has felt the
sting of what you might call ‘‘wizard-born supremacy’’*finds the treatment of house
elves troublesome, and, as a result, she forms an advocacy group named S.P.E.W.
(Society for the Promotion of Elvin Welfare) in order to protest their working
conditions.44 Yet, throughout the first six books, no one, not even the elves, takes her
efforts seriously. In fact, in book five, Hermione’s efforts to ‘‘free’’ the elves are a
source of much humor. For example, upon realizing that the only way to liberate
house elves is to give them ‘‘real’’ clothing (versus the usual pillowcases), Hermione
knits countless hats and hides them around her dormitory, hoping that every hat
picked up represents a newly freed elf. The elves, insulted by these efforts, soon refuse
to clean up Hermione’s dorm room, leaving the job to the already-freed Dobby, who
is depicted for the remainder of the series wearing multiple knit hats and sweaters.45
The plight of the house elves, in short, is played for laughs. To be sure, there are
moments in the later texts when Rowling hints that the condition of the house elves
may be more than an occasion for jokes and good fun. For instance, Dumbledore, the
headmaster of Hogwarts, muses at the end of book five that the wizarding world will
Harry Potter and the Commodity Fetish
13
likely come to regret their mistreatment of other, ‘‘lower’’ magical species.46
Moreover, Rowling has yet to write the final book in the series. Given Dumbledore’s
cryptic remarks, we cannot rule out the possibility that depicting house elf slavery as
a joke is merely a prelude to a house elf revolution, perhaps even led by a vanguard of
S.P.E.W. activists. At the same time, regardless of the eventual role house elves may
play in the series’ conclusion, the running joke about S.P.E.W.’s ineffectiveness has
certainly opened space for a reading that dismisses concerns over labor exploitation as
just so much leftist buffoonery.
In the end, although she maintains a consistent critique of inequality and elitism
throughout the series, Rowling’s treatment of the wizarding class system*as
illustrated by her depiction of the house elves*suffers from a significant limitation.
Perhaps because of the ambiguity of labor power in a world that runs by magic, the
picture of class relations in the wizarding world is more categorical than relational. 47
Rowling, in short, never suggests that the poverty of one family can be tied to the
wealth of another. The wealth of the Malfoys seems utterly disconnected from the
relative poverty of the Weasleys. Hagrid, for example, is clearly marked as working
class by his vernacular and his clothing, but there are no references to relatives who
toil in the mills and mines of the wizarding world. To put the issue in Marxian terms,
there seems to be no systematic exploitation of labor and no extraction of surplus
value in Rowling’s world. Commodities simply appear on store shelves, presumably
by magic, and for some unexplained reason, certain families appear to command
wealth, while others do not. This unequal distribution of wealth has consequences, to
be sure, but the relations between class strata are not, so far as we can tell, inherently
antagonistic and contradictory.
In the end, it is our view that by offering readers an analysis of class relations that is
categorical rather than relational, and by positioning the only obviously ‘‘exploited’’
class of laborers (the elves) as a source of comedy and fun, Rowling blunts the edge of
her otherwise compelling class critique. Rather than emerging from a fundamental
conflict of interests in the sphere of production, class inequality, in Rowling’s books,
seems to exist wholly at the level of distribution and consumption.48 Some wizards,
for whatever reason, are poor. Others are rich and always have been. Those who do
the dirty work (the house elves) seem to enjoy it. That is just the way things are.
Unfortunately, that is not how the muggle world works. In our world, the class system
is utterly relational*the wealth of some depends upon the exploitation of many.
And so, despite Rowling’s sometimes vivid and powerful descriptions of class
inequality, she stops well short of offering an insightful, radical critique of systems of
class-based exploitation.
Harry Potter and the Magic of Consumption
A second contradiction in Rowling’s books emerges within her descriptions of
commodity consumption in the wizarding world. We found it curious, in other
words, that although Rowling sustains her critique of class inequality as Harry moves
from his life with the Dursleys to his life in the wizarding world, she largely abandons
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her critique of materialism and hyperconsumption. In the muggle world, as we have
seen, Dudley’s possessions*his two rooms of toys*renege on their promises to
bring him happiness and win him friends. He remains, despite his abundance, a surly
and unpleasant boy. But, as Suman Gupta has persuasively argued, once readers enter
the wizarding world with Harry, the rules change dramatically. For wizards, it seems,
consumption works. Consumption delivers.49
Such promises are familiar to us muggles. The myth that commodities can change
your life, win you friends, and achieve your dreams is, of course, the most powerful
message of advertising. And in many ways, wizard-world marketing is much the same
as its muggle-world counterpart. Magical products are advertised with vacuous and
hyperbolic slogans. These products are arranged in lovingly crafted store displays and
sold in retail districts (such as Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley) that Rowling describes
in ways that evoke muggle-world heritage shopping streets. Yet if Rowling suggests
that Dudley’s muggle commodities bring him nothing but disappointment, the same
cannot be said of Harry’s magical commodities. Harry’s magical possessions fulfill
their promises, exactly as advertised. In this context, Raymond Williams’s analysis of
contemporary marketing as, of all things, a ‘‘magic system’’ becomes a useful way to
discuss the depiction of advertising in Rowling’s texts.50
Williams, for his part, argues that modern consumer societies are not simply
‘‘materialistic,’’ in so much as products themselves are not the focus of consumption
practices: ‘‘Beer would be enough for us,’’ he writes, ‘‘without the additional promise
that in drinking it we show ourselves to be manly, young at heart, or neighborly.’’51
Instead, Williams argues that there exists a cultural pattern where each product must
be invested with social and personal meaning. ‘‘The short description of the pattern
we have,’’ he writes, ‘‘is magic: a highly organized and professional system of magical
inducements and satisfactions.’’52 Williams goes on to suggest that, at a superficial
level, the magic works; to the extent that one’s peers share in the meanings circulated
by advertising, purchasing an expensive automobile, for example, might indeed raise
your status briefly. More fundamentally, however, mere consumption is unable to
fulfill its promises of status and mobility in a larger social context.53 Thus, in the
muggle world, advertising is a magical but ultimately deceptive system.54
Not so in Rowling’s wizarding world. When Harry reads an advertisement for
‘‘Skower’s All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover’’ that promises ‘‘No Pain, No Stain,’’55
he can assume that the cleaning solution will magically remove stains with absolutely
no effort. Moreover, when Harry first sees the Firebolt, the fastest flying broom in the
world, he reads an advertisement reminiscent of many muggle car commercials.
This state of the art racing broom sports a streamlined, superfine handle of ash,
treated with a diamond hard polish and hand-numbered with its own registration
number. [It is] honed to aerodynamic perfection, giving the Firebolt unsurpassable
balance and pinpoint precision.56
Later, when Harry receives the broom as an anonymous gift, not only does it perform
exactly as advertised, but it improves Harry’s skill at Quidditch, the wizarding world’s
most prominent sport. It is instructive in this regard that the only magical
Harry Potter and the Commodity Fetish
15
commodity the characters describe as rubbish sold to unsuspecting wizard tourists*
the Sneakoscope (a device that sets off an alarm if one’s enemies are concealed
about)*actually works. Throughout the third book, Harry complains about his
‘‘unreliable’’ sneakoscope as it flares up at inopportune moments. In reality, the
device was gamely trying to warn him that Ron’s pet rat ‘‘Scabbers’’ was in fact
Wormtail, one of Voldemort’s chief lieutenants.57
Beyond the depiction of wizarding-world advertising, Rowling’s celebration of
magical consumption can also be seen in Harry’s own fascination with magical
commodities. Throughout the series, there are long expositions on Harry’s
encounters with new and ever-more interesting magical objects. Indeed, his first
moments in the wizarding world are devoted to (what else?) a shopping spree. With
the awe of a country kid on his first trip to Fifth Avenue, Harry soaks in the stunning
array of magical goods for sale on Diagon Alley.
Harry wished he had about eight more eyes. He turned his head in every direction
as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the
things outside them, the people doing their shopping. . . . There were shops selling
robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen
before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels’ eyes, tottering piles of
spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon . . .58
Unlike Ron, his perpetually cash-starved friend, Harry’s wealth affords him access to
everything he needs (and much that he wants) on this first shopping trip*with the
exception of a solid gold cauldron that even the indulgent Hagrid would not let him
buy. Throughout the series, Harry never wants for cauldrons, books, or clothes, and
just as Ron’s magical abilities suffer because of his lack of money, Harry excels in both
magic and magical sports because of his inherited abundance.
More importantly still, Rowling often places these magical commodities at the very
center of her narratives. When Harry finds that his dead parents have left him an
invisibility cloak, this commodity allows Harry, Ron, and Hermione to sneak out of
their dorm rooms at night, leading to all of the key adventures in the first book.59
When Harry receives from Ron Weasley’s older twin brothers the ‘‘marauder’s map’’
(a magical map that shows every secret passage in Hogwarts castle as well as the
current location of every teacher), he again uses it to sneak around the castle and
eventually solve the mystery regarding his godfather Sirius’ true identity. And, of
course, what would Harry Potter novels be without his broomsticks? Not only do
Harry’s superior brooms yield a series of stunning victories on the Quidditch Pitch*
most notably at the expense of Malfoy, his schoolhouse nemesis*but they also
contribute to his stellar performance in the ‘‘triwizard tournament’’ in book four
(again earning him celebrity among his peers).
We are thus left with a discourse on class and material life riddled with tension
and contradiction. Through Harry, in effect, readers are able to have it both ways. We
can shake our heads at the injustice of class inequality. We can rail against the
snobbery of the decadent and wealthy Malfoys. We can hope for a world where the
rewards of work were more fair and equal. But at the same time, we can experience
the joys of wealth, the thrill of a new purchase, and the excitement of having one’s life
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and status change with the accumulation of commodities. In fact, Rowling’s discourse
on class is even more contradicted than this, for, as readers quickly learn, it is Harry’s
ability to consume that makes him such an able foe of the aristocratic Malfoys*as
demonstrated by his repeated drubbings of Draco in Quidditch. Without his
wealth*and the magical objects it buys*Harry would just be another sulky poor
kid withering under the condescending stare of the upper class. But with his magical
abundance, he poses a challenge to the magical class system of which he is now a vital
part.
Furthermore, Rowling’s failure to confront squarely the origins of class inequality
in relational systems of exploitation carries important implications as well. In fact,
although we are not arguing that Rowling did this intentionally, the lack of a coherent
notion of exploitation in her narrative may have paid off in economic, if not literary,
terms. For it is not difficult to imagine that a story that questions the fundamental
relations of exploitation at the heart of a market-based class system would be less
attractive to global media firms looking to pick up film and merchandising rights. In
short, by not raising the sticky issue of exploitation, uncomfortable questions about
the origins of these relations of wealth and poverty*questions as relevant in our
world as in Rowling’s*could thus be easily set aside by global media firms as they
incorporate Rowling’s characters and narratives within their accumulation strategies.
Finally, as we have seen, the lack of a discourse on exploitation enabled Rowling to
overlay her broadside against the ills of class inequality with a more celebratory
discourse on the pleasures and power of commodity consumption*a discourse that
frames Harry’s wealth not as a result of a mysterious history of class exploitation but
as a force of liberation and triumph. As we will see, this is a discourse on class and
consumption that even AOL Time Warner can get behind.
From Text to Commercial Intertext: AOL Time Warner and the Harry Potter
Cipher
One of the most important claims of post-structuralist literary theory is that texts like
the Harry Potter novels are invariably riddled with contradictory discourses, which
can then be ‘‘activated’’ in diverse ways by readers, drawing on the symbolic resources
available to them from their position within the wider social field.60 We argue that an
analogous relationship exists between literary works and the media corporations who
acquire the film and merchandising rights to these works. As we have seen, Rowling’s
discussions of class inequality and consumer society are indeed polyphonic and
contradictory. What we argue here is that these contradictions have opened space for
AOL Time Warner to activate, in their elaboration of the Potter universe into a
commercial intertext, a particular reading or interpretation of Potter, one that
subordinates Rowling’s powerful missive against class inequality and elitism in favor
of her contradictory but equally prominent celebration of the transformative magic of
commodities.
Executives at AOL Time Warner delegated the task of activating the corporate
reading of Harry Potter to two of the firm’s divisions. Warner Brothers Pictures
Harry Potter and the Commodity Fetish
17
would be responsible for producing and marketing the filmed versions of Rowling’s
novels, and Warner Brothers Consumer Products would take on the licensing and
merchandising responsibilities. As Eileen Meehan writes, film production, promotion, and licensing are closely related practices. Promotional efforts, while increasing
costs, not only help sell movie tickets but also increase sales of licensed products, thus
returning revenues to the firm. Moreover, the sale of licensed toys, video games, and
novelties also helps to promote the overall brand, thereby increasing box office
receipts and video/DVD sales.61 The task facing AOL Time Warner executives was to
make sure these separate corporate practices*producing and marketing the films,
establishing relationships with licensees, and coordinating with worldwide promotional partners (like Coca-Cola)*were coordinated into a seamless whole.
According to Ono and Buescher, this process of imposing unity onto production,
licensing, and marketing activities begins with the articulation of a central signifier or
cipher that provides semiotic coherence to the ‘‘brand’’ in its many manifestations.62
For example, the authors write that when planning the production and licensing of
the film Pocahontas, Disney executives first detached the ‘‘Pocahontas’’ symbol from
its historical connection to the events of early seventeenth-century Virginia, and then
re-filled this hollowed-out cipher with the firm’s feel-good message of romance and
gentle environmentalism*a set of meanings wholly more suitable to aggressive
commodification. It was this cipher of Pocahontas, complete with the newly added
‘‘Disney values,’’ that was then replicated into media texts, promotional vehicles, and
ancillary commodities, with each element referring back to and reinforcing the core
meanings of the re-articulated cipher.
In the same way that Pocahontas was altered to suit the marketing needs of Disney,
the journey from text to commercial intertext ironed out Rowling’s contradictory
discourses of class and consumption. What is emphasized in AOL Time Warner’s
cipher is instead a singular focus on the object-collecting Harry, the Harry who
possesses an impressive array of magical gadgets and treats*none of which fail to
deliver on their promises, as advertised. AOL Time Warner’s Harry, in other words, is
the ideal consumer. Unlike his muggle cousin Dudley, who used his wealth to exclude
and demean, Harry uses his abundance to help his friends and fight the forces of
snobbery and evil. And because his wealth*or anyone’s wealth, for that matter*is
not located in relational systems of exploitation, it carries no taint, no foul scent. The
cipher-Harry is thus freed of any lingering guilt. He is free to accumulate at will.
The fruits of AOL Time Warner’s particular activation of Rowling’s texts can first of
all be seen in the firm’s film adaptation of Rowling’s first book, Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer’s Stone. If Rowling’s inaugural text spends considerable time dramatizing the
hollowness of the Dursleys’ materialism and their concomitant obsession with
appearances, the filmed version, as Jyostna Kapur points out, quickly dispatches with
the Dursleys and rushes Harry into the wizarding world. Once Harry arrives at
Diagon Alley with Hagrid, the cinematic celebrations of magical consumption begin
in earnest. Right away, the camera follows Harry down the shopping street as he
stares wide-eyed at the spectacle of magical commodity displays. As he joins a crowd
of children clustered around a broomstick display, the camera ‘‘pans . . . in the style of
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commercials to reveal the brand name’’: the Nimbus 2000.63 This long scene only sets
up a moment of triumph later in the film, when, to the excitement of his friends,
Harry receives the broom as a gift.64 In the end, as Kapur argues, the film sidesteps
Rowling’s caricature of the Dursleys and her warnings about ‘‘the impossibility of
finding happiness in market-produced commodities’’ in favor of making Harry’s
exploration of magical commodities a central feature of the narrative.65
This particular construction of Potter-as-Consumer can also be seen in the
licensing and merchandising strategies hatched by Warner Brothers Consumer
Products (WBCP). Perhaps because Rowling abandoned her critique of consumerism
once Harry left the Dursleys, WBCP’s licensing strategies have focused on Harry’s
exploits in Hogwarts and the wider magical world. In fact, WBCP has developed a
strict style guide*entitled the ‘‘Consumer Products’ Program of Witchcraft and
Wizardry’’*to which all licensees must adhere in their use of Harry Potter characters
and images. Chief among these rules is a requirement that all products and
promotions should ‘‘take people into Harry’s world. Don’t put Harry into our
world.’’66 From a marketing perspective, this makes good sense. After all, as we have
discovered, it is in the wizarding world*not the muggle world*that commodities
always deliver on their promises.
For this reason, the array of consumables licensed by WBCP is remarkable not for
its scope but for its attempt at verisimilitude. In total, then, the licensing strategies
adopted by WBCP and its licensees have been designed to present young consumers
with tangible elements from the wizarding world, thus providing them the
opportunity to consume exactly as Harry does. AOL Time Warner has thus moved
the practice of media-inspired consumption far beyond McDonald’s tie-ins and crass
product placement. Instead, the firm’s licensing strategy issues a series of invitations
to young (and adult) consumers to journey into the wizarding world in order to
assume the role of Harry and adopt his love of magical commodities as their own.
The quest for verisimilitude is evident in a number of products. Slipped into the
DVD jacket for the third film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, is a small
pamphlet advertising Harry Potter products produced by The Noble Collection, a
company that specializes in high-end replicas of movie memorabilia. The pamphlet
invites fans to purchase replicas of movie props such as Hermione’s ‘‘time-turner’’
necklace, the Mirror of Erised, and, of course, Harry’s wand. For $29.50, aspiring
wizards can have ‘‘an authentic recreation of the famous wizard’s wand . . . complete
with a replica of the original Ollivanders wand box, as featured in the film Harry
Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.’’
The desire to draw fans into the consumer’s paradise that is Rowling’s wizarding
world can also be seen in Warner Brothers’ www.harrypotter.com, the official website
for the Harry Potter films.67 First time visitors to the website are encouraged to
register by completing tasks that replicate the events of Harry’s own introduction to
the magical world. Like Harry, visitors must first patronize Ollivanders to ‘‘purchase’’
a wand before being sorted into a house. Once registered, visitors are free to
participate in wizarding duels, try out for the Quidditch team, and of course peruse
the wizard shop. In a similar way, other sites such as ‘‘The Magic Wand Shop’’ and
Harry Potter and the Commodity Fetish
19
‘‘Alivan’s’’*both websites that sell magic wands and broomsticks styled after the
ones featured in the films*allow visitors to ‘‘try out’’ the wands and take ‘‘virtual
test drives’’ of their brooms in much the same way as young wizards would.
Consumers young and old are also invited to enjoy the food of the magical world,
as WBCP has licensed multiple lines of candies with ‘‘magical’’ properties featured in
both the novels and the movies.68 Of all the candies in Rowling’s texts, the most
famous is ‘‘Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans.’’ Upon opening his first pack, Harry is
warned by Ron. ‘‘You want to be careful with those. When they say every flavor, they
mean every flavor*you know, you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and
peppermint and marmalade, but then you can get spinach and liver and tripe.’’69 Now
Potter fans need wait no longer for their own collection of Bertie Bott’s beans. Thanks
to Jelly Belly, adventurous fans can now try their luck with famous Bott’s flavors like
booger, dirt, earwax, grass, spinach, sardine, and, of all things, vomit. Such are the
lengths to which WBCP and its licensees are willing to go to bring consumers into
Harry’s world.
In the end, the ‘‘Harry Potter’’ cipher that is endlessly replicated along AOL Time
Warner’s production, promotional, and licensing efforts is a particular distillation of
Rowling’s complex characterization. Drained out are references to Harry’s life among
the Dursleys and their soulless hyperconsumption. Harry’s decency and heroism
remain, of course, but the emphasis within AOL Time Warner’s marketing efforts is
squarely on the commodity-wielding Harry, the Harry at the command center of a
vast array of magical objects: the Harry on the broom; the Harry dueling with his
wand; the Harry gamely eating Bott’s beans. The ‘‘Harry Potter’’ cipher is thus the
image of a model consumer who pursues justice by mobilizing commodities, and
AOL Time Warner and its many licensees have gone to extraordinary lengths to allow
young consumers to stand in Harry’s shoes and explore the commodities of his
magical world with a similar degree of awe.
Harry Potter and the Struggle over Commodity Fetishism
To draw on Bourdieu, the contemporary social field is distinguished by a struggle
over how individuals should understand class relations and commodity consumption
in contemporary life.70 At the center of this struggle lies the concept of commodity
fetishism. On the one hand, those with a stake in preserving the doxa 71 of
contemporary consumer society exploit the social complexities associated with an
advanced division of labor to accomplish the ‘‘magic’’ of fetishism, as Marx
describes.72 This magic is twofold. On the one hand, the social and spatial gulf
between producer and consumer neatly conceals the social history of labor that
produces and distributes commodities. When buying a T-shirt at Wal-Mart, for
example, consumers simply confront the commodity itself, utterly detached from the
conditions of labor that fashioned it and brought it to the shelves. The meaning of
commodities, as Sut Jhally notes, is thus purged in the process of their circulation.
This empty meaning-space, however, is quickly filled by the work of advertisers and
marketers, who first invest their goods with a whole range of meanings (status, love,
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etc.) and then move to encourage consumers to find themselves and their desires in
an always-changing, never-ending constellation of fetishized commodity-signs.73
Contesting this doxa are alternative ways of looking at the process of commodity
production and consumption, and again the concept of fetishism is central to their
efforts as well. Labor organizations, for example, develop whole campaigns around
the imperative of lifting the veil of commodity fetishism and revealing the hidden
social history of labor within commodities. Recent examples of this strategy include
the National Labor Committee’s anti-sweatshop campaigns and Barbara Ehrenreich’s
Nickel and Dimed, a bestselling expose of labor conditions in the American service
industry. For their part, anti-advertising groups like the Adbusters media foundation
attempt to contest the process of fetishism as well, this time by lampooning the
vapidity of constructing one’s identity and sense of purpose with a carefully selected
assembly of brands and logos.74 While diverse in their tactics, these heterodox
positions on commodity production and consumption nonetheless share the goal of
disrupting the normally seamless process through which goods become detached
from their conditions of production, invested with meanings by advertisers, and
mobilized as identity signs by properly socialized consumers.
That Rowling’s books weave together discourses from multiple positions in this
struggle over commodity fetishism should not surprise us. As Barthes has famously
argued, all texts*not merely the ‘‘writerly’’ texts of modernist literature*are
inherently contradicted and polyphonic. ‘‘A text,’’ he writes, ‘‘is not a line of words
releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning (the ‘message’ of the Author-God) but a
multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend
and clash.’’75 And so it is with Rowling’s series. In some moments, the narrative assails
the hierarchy of classes and the sting of class injustice. In other moments, it holds up
the exploitation of whole species as an opportunity for fun and laughs. At times,
particularly in the discussions of the Dursleys, the texts lampoon the hollowness of
hyperconsumption. But when Harry enters the wizarding world, the texts celebrate
the transformative power of consumption and construct a world utterly free of
commodity fetishism, a world where products simply appear magically on store
shelves and never fail to deliver on their advertised promises. Rowling’s texts, like the
wider social field of which they are a part, would seem to be of many minds when it
comes to understanding the role of material goods in contemporary life.
Yet viewing texts as unities in dispersion, as a contradicted weaving together of
competing discourses, is only part of the story. For Barthes, something eventually
imposes a sense of order and coherence onto this cacophony, and that ‘‘something’’ is
the reader.76 It is the reader who, drawing on the social discourses available to them
in their trajectory through the social field, imposes a unity onto the text in the act of
interpretation. For this reason, as Barthes concludes, ‘‘a text’s unity lies not in its
origin but in its destination.’’77
And here is where things get interesting. In post-structuralist accounts of media
consumption, the inevitable heteroglossia of the text, when combined with Barthes’
notion that textual meanings are inert until activated by readers, has been theorized
as a moment of possibility, as a moment when attempts to prefer or legitimize
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21
particular social perspectives can be ‘‘opened up’’ and contested by readers in the act
of interpretation. Undoubtedly, this theorization is correct. In fact, as we mentioned
above, we can see this process in our own individual readings of Rowling’s texts,
informed as they are by our shared concerns about hyperconsumption and our
common desire to see a more equal distribution of wealth in American society. And
so, in the end, by weaving, among the multiplicity of discourses in her texts, voices
that critique class inequality and soulless materialism into her books, Rowling has
indeed opened space for interpretations that challenge the doxa of class and
consumption in contemporary life.
At the same time, it seems clear that the reading of the Harry Potter series activated
by AOL Time Warner *a reading that subordinates such critical discourses in favor
of Rowling’s contradictory but equally powerful depiction of a wizarding world that is
a guilt-free consumer’s paradise*has enormous reach and power. Crafted in
corporate boardrooms, produced into a series of films, cross-promoted through
the firm’s media windows, and then replicated in the universe of licensed
merchandise, AOL Time Warner’s particular reading of Potter-as-heroic-and-guiltless-consumer (absent the series’ contradictory critiques of hyperconsumption) now
saturates the commercial media environment. Alternative readings of Harry Potter’s
world, including those that emphasize the books’ critiques of class inequality and
materialism, indeed jostle alongside and compete with AOL Time Warner’s, but none
can match its reach or scope.
The implications of AOL Time Warner’s particular activation of Rowling’s texts for
the prospect of nurturing heterodox understandings of class and material life are
sobering. As William Gamson has argued, individuals form their perspectives on
social and political issues by weaving together symbolic threads drawn from personal
experience, popular wisdom, and media discourse.78 Thus, the diversity of discourses
in the media environment plays an important role in creating the conditions for
alternative and potentially critical understandings of social issues. Entertaining
alternatives to orthodox understandings of commodity production and consumption
thus depends, at least in part, on having access to heterodox discourses circulating in
the media environment. More specifically, we would argue that developing critical
consciousness of class inequality as well as the social and ecological ills of
hyperconsumption would depend profoundly upon having access to discourses
that pierce the veil of commodity fetishism, for it is an awareness of commodity
fetishism that forces one to confront both the relations of exploitation that produce
commodities and the consequences of tying one’s sense of identity and purpose to the
whims of the advertising industry.
Yet this is precisely the consciousness that is subordinated by AOL Time Warner’s
particular activation of the Harry Potter series. By strategically selecting and
amplifying Rowling’s celebratory descriptions of magical commodities, AOL Time
Warner’s commercial intertext elides Harry’s time with the Dursleys and labors to
bring consumers into the wizarding world, where commodities are produced ‘‘by
magic’’ and never fail to deliver on their advertised promises. The result is a reading
of the Potter series that irons out the contradictory moments in Rowling’s texts and
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re-asserts more orthodox understandings of commodity production and consumption. Moreover, this reading is made all the more powerful because it is hooked up to
and amplified by one of the largest media firms in the global marketplace. In the end,
if spending time with Rowling’s polyphonic texts held out at least the possibility of
encountering discourses critical of hyperconsumption and class inequality, these
possibilities are severely curtailed in AOL Time Warner’s commercial intertext. And,
at the end of the day, it is AOL Time Warner’s intertext that now saturates the cultural
field*a condition which, as Gamson argues, makes the reproduction of fetishistic
understandings of commodity production and consumption more, rather than less,
likely.
In the end, we hope this analysis of Harry Potter’s journey from polyphonic text to
commercial intertext demonstrates that, by situating textual meanings within a
diachronic analysis of their production and circulation, cultural analysts can generate
insights not accessible through synchronic analysis alone. Let us be clear on this
point. Careful, creative analyses of textual structures and meanings will always play a
key role in critical media studies. And, indeed, by teasing out the contradictory
discourses of class and consumption in Rowling’s books, we were able explore the
range of possible readings that might be generated from an encounter with the Harry
Potter series. At the same time, the turn toward a diachronic analysis of the journey
from text to commercial intertext encouraged us to ask questions about the social
import of these possible readings. In particular, we were struck by the wide gap
between relatively privatized readings like our own (which emphasized the heterodox
moments in Rowling’s texts) and the infinitely more powerful readings generated and
amplified by cultural institutions like AOL Time Warner*readings that, in the end,
reasserted orthodox understandings of the role of material goods in contemporary
life.
Understanding how these powerful appropriations and activations of popular texts
shape the wider cultural discussion about social contradictions will clearly require
more theoretical and empirical work. How this work should proceed is, as always,
subject to much debate. For our part, however, it seems clear that developing a more
complex understanding of the relationships between the heteroglossia of popular
texts, commercial strategies of appropriation and activation, and wider struggles over
signification in the cultural field depends upon our ability to abandon intramural
allegiances to cultural-semiotic or political-economic analysis. In a real way, we have
no choice but to do so. If Harry Potter’s journey from text to commercial intertext
demonstrates anything, it is that the field of cultural production has thoroughly
obliterated the distinctions between ‘‘economy’’ and ‘‘culture.’’ As critical media
scholars, our theories and analyses must, if nothing else, keep pace with the object of
our inquiry.
Notes
[1]
Graham Murdock, ‘‘Base Notes: The Conditions of Cultural Practice,’’ in Cultural Studies in
Question , ed. M. Ferguson and P. Golding (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1998); Todd Gitlin,
Harry Potter and the Commodity Fetish
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
23
‘‘The Anti-Political Populism of Cultural Studies,’’ in Cultural Studies in Question , ed.
M. Ferguson and P. Golding (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1998); Leslie Steeves and Janet
Wasko, ‘‘Feminist Theory and Political Economy: Toward a Friendly Alliance,’’ in Sex &
Money: Feminism and Political Economy in the Media , ed. E. Meehan and E. Riordan
(Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2002).
Chris Barker, Making Sense of Cultural Studies: Central Problems and Critical Debates
(Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2002); John Fiske, Television Culture (London: Routledge, 1987);
Larry Grossberg, ‘‘Cultural Studies vs. Political Economy: Is Anybody Else Bored with This
Debate?’’ Critical Studies in Mass Communication 12, issue 1 (1995): 72 !81.
See especially the ‘‘dialogue’’ between Larry Grossberg, ‘‘Cultural Studies vs. Political
Economy,’’ and Nicholas Garnham, ‘‘Political Economy and Cultural Studies: Reconciliation
or Divorce?’’ Critical Studies in Mass Communication 12, issue 1 (1995): 62 !71.
Douglas Kellner, ‘‘Overcoming the Divide: Cultural Studies and Political Economy,’’ in
Cultural Studies in Question , ed. M. Ferguson and P. Golding (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage,
1998); Eileen Meehan, ‘‘Commodity, Culture, Common Sense: Media Research and
Paradigm Dialogue,’’ Journal of Media Economics 12, issue 2 (1999): 149 !63.
Paul duGay and Michael Pryke, Cultural Economy: Cultural Analysis and Commercial Life
(London: Open University Press, 2002); Ash Amin and Nigel Thrift, The Blackwell Cultural
Economy Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004).
Eileen Meehan, ‘‘Leisure or Labor? Fan Ethnography and Political Economy,’’ in Consuming
Audiences? Production and Reception in Audience Research , ed. I. Hagen and J. Wasko
(Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2000).
Carol Stabile, ‘‘Resistance, Recuperation, and Reflexivity: The Limits of a Paradigm,’’ Critical
Studies in Mass Communication 12, issue 4 (1995): 403 !22.
Eileen Meehan, ‘‘Commodity, Culture, Common Sense.’’
There are, of course, other political economists who have begun to take issues of culture and
meaning seriously in their work. For examples, see Vincent Mosco, The Digital Sublime:
Myth, Power, and Cyberspace (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004); Janet Wasko, Understanding Disney (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2000); Oscar Gandy, Communication and
Race: A Structural Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
The critical literature on the commodification of children’s culture is rich and voluminous.
See especially Stephen Kline, Out of the Garden: Toys, TV, and Children’s Culture in the Age of
Marketing (New York: Verso, 1992); Ellen Seiter, Sold Separately: Children and Parents in
Consumer Culture (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993); Norma Pecora, The
Business of Children’s Entertainment (New York: Guildford Press, 1998); Henry Giroux,
Stealing Innocence: Youth, Corporate Power, and the Politics of Culture (New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1999); Marsha Kinder, ed., Kids’ Media Culture (Durham, NC: Duke University Press,
1999); Juliet Schor, Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture
(New York: Scribner, 2004); B. Langer, ‘‘The Business of Branded Enchantment: Ambivalence
and Disjuncture in the Global Children’s Culture Industry,’’ Journal of Consumer Culture , 4
(2004): 251 !77; Jyostna Kapur, Coining for Capital: Movies, Marketing, and the Transformation of Childhood (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005).
The firm formerly known as AOL Time Warner has since re-named itself, returning to the
moniker of TimeWarner (presumably to exorcise the demons of the dot.com bust of 2001).
We have chosen to stick with the previous name to emphasize that most of the relevant
decisions regarding the commodification of Harry Potter were made while the ‘‘AOL’’ was
still part of the firm’s name.
Kent Ono and D. Buescher, ‘‘Deciphering Pocahontas ,’’ Critical Studies in Media Communication 18, issue 1 (2001): 23 !41.
‘‘Global Potter Sales Top 300m Mark,’’ BBC News website, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
entertainment/4308548.stm (accessed on January 5, 2007); ‘‘Harry Potter and the All-TooRare Windfall,’’ The Economist , 18 July 2005.
24
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]
[18]
[19]
[20]
[21]
[22]
[23]
[24]
[25]
[26]
[27]
[28]
[29]
[30]
[31]
[32]
[33]
[34]
[35]
[36]
[37]
[38]
J. Waetjen & T. A. Gibson
Nigel Reynolds, ‘‘$100,000 Success Story for Penniless Mother,’’ The Telegraph , Spring
1997, http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/1997/spring97-telegraph-reynolds.htm (accessed April 7, 2006).
‘‘Top Book Publishers in the U.K., 2004,’’ Printing World , 3 September 2004, 20; Alan Cowell,
‘‘Harry Potter and the Magic Stock: A Children’s Book Series Helps Rejuvenate a British
Publisher,’’ New York Times , 18 October 1999, C1.
Cowell, ‘‘Harry Potter and the Magic Stock,’’ C1.
Janet Wasko, How Hollywood Works (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004), 54n2.
Nigel Reynolds, ‘‘Harry Potter, Inc: The Boy Wizard Makes a Spectacular Return,’’ Maclean’s ,
17 July 2000, http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2000/0700-macleans-reynolds.html
(accessed April 7, 2006).
Reynolds, ‘‘$100,000 Success Story for Penniless Mother.’’
Andrew Walker, ‘‘Harry Potter is Off to Hollywood *Writer a Millionairess,’’ The Scotsman ,
October 9, 1998, http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/1998/1098-scotsman-walker.htm
(accessed April 7, 2006).; David Lieberman, ‘‘Marketers Count on Potter Film for Golden
Touch,’’ USA Today, 18 July 2000, B1.
Lieberman, ‘‘Marketers Count on Potter Film.’’
Lieberman, ‘‘Marketers Count on Potter Film.’’
Saul Hansell, ‘‘Media Megadeal *The Overview: American Online Agrees to Buy Time
Warner for $165 billion; Media Deal is Richest Merger,’’ New York Times , 11 January 2000,
A1.
Alex Kuczynski and Bill Carter, ‘‘Media Megadeal *The Empire: Potentially Big Effect Seen
on Varied Units of AOL Time Warner, New York Times , 11 January 2000, C11.
David Kirkpatrick and David Carr, ‘‘A Media Giant Needs a Script,’’ New York Times , 7 July
2002, C1. Later, AOL Time Warner shareholders would file a lawsuit against the company’s
executives, alleging that during the early 2000s, AOL improperly overstated its revenues by
more than $1 billion. The lawsuit also contended that AOL executives sought to conceal this
discrepancy from investors in the months prior to AOL’s purchase of Time Warner.
Shareholders had cause for concern: in the months after the takeover, AOL Time Warner’s
share price dropped by 70 percent. David Kirkpatrick, ‘‘Lawsuit Says AOL Investors Were
Misled,’’ New York Times , 15 April 2003, C1; David Kirkpatrick, ‘‘Added Value: Dissecting a
Deal That Soured,’’ New York Times , 22 June 2003, C5.
Christopher Grimes, ‘‘Harry Potter and the Sales Team,’’ Financial Times , 16 November
2001, 17.
Brycchan Carey, ‘‘Hermione and the House Elves: The Literary and Historical Contexts of
J.K. Rowling’s Antislavery Campaign,’’ in Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays , ed. Giselle
Liza Anatol, (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), 103.
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (New York: Scholastic, 1998), 19.
Rowling, Sorcerer’s Stone , 32.
Ximena Gallardo-C and C. Jason Smith, ‘‘Cinderfella: J.K. Rowling’s Wily Web of Gender,’’ in
Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays , ed. Giselle Liza Anatol (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003).
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (New York: Scholastic, 1999), 8.
Rowling, Sorcerer’s Stone , 20.
Rowling, Prisoner of Azkaban , 22.
Remus Lupin, a teacher at Hogwarts in the third book, is often described as careworn and
impoverished, due primarily to his status as a werewolf, which makes it difficult to secure
steady employment in a wizarding world suspicious of his ‘‘kind.’’
Rowling, Sorcerer’s Stone , 100 !101.
Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (New York: Scholastic, 2000), 157.
Rowling, Sorcerer’s Stone , 77.
Rowling, Sorcerer’s Stone , 108 !9.
Harry Potter and the Commodity Fetish
[39]
[40]
[41]
[42]
[43]
[44]
[45]
[46]
[47]
[48]
[49]
[50]
[51]
[52]
[53]
[54]
[55]
[56]
[57]
[58]
[59]
[60]
[61]
[62]
[63]
[64]
[65]
25
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (New York: Scholastic, 2003),
154 !55.
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (New York: Scholastic, 1999), 16 !17.
Rowling, Goblet of Fire , 182.
Rowling, Goblet of Fire , 378 !79.
Suman Gupta, Re-Reading Harry Potter (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).
Rowling, Goblet of Fire , 224.
Rowling, Order of the Phoenix , 385.
Rowling, Order of the Phoenix , 832.
Vincent Mosco, The Political Economy of Communication (London: Sage, 1996). By
constructing a class system that is more categorical than relational, Rowling has shown
herself to be more Weberian than Marxian. As Erik Olin Wright points out, both Weber and
Marx agree that class position determines access to resources, and this differential access
shapes both an individual’s life chances and their material interests. But while Weberian class
analysis focuses largely on the distributional conflicts generated by class inequality *that is,
how the rich can ‘‘outbid’’ the poor for key resources like commodities, education, housing,
and health care *Marxian class analysis centers on the origins of class power and inequality
in the productive system. Thus the key concept in Marxian class analysis is not distribution
but exploitation . What divides the classes, in Marxian terms, is not merely an unequal
distribution of resources, but the question of how those resources are produced, by whom,
and in whose interests. The wealth generated by a capitalist firm, in short, is produced by
extracting more value from labor than labor is paid. This wealth, extracted from labor, then
becomes the private property of the firm, to be distributed or reinvested as it sees fit. Thus,
not only is wealth unevenly distributed *a process that enhances the life chances of some
and reduces them for others *but the origins of this unequal distribution in a relationship
of exploitation point to the inherently antagonistic material and political interests of
competing social classes. For more on the distinction between Weberian and Marxian
conceptions of class, see Erik Olin Wright, Class Counts: Student Edition (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 2000), 27 !34.
Wright, Class Counts , 27 !34.
Gupta, Re-Reading Harry Potter, 139.
Raymond Williams, ‘‘Advertising: The Magic System,’’ in The Cultural Studies Reader, ed.
Simon During (New York: Routledge, 1999), 410 !23.
Williams, ‘‘Advertising,’’ 422.
Williams, ‘‘Advertising,’’ 422.
Gupta, Re-Reading Harry Potter, 133.
Gupta, Re-Reading Harry Potter, 133.
Rowling, Goblet of Fire , 97.
Rowling, Prisoner of Azkaban , 151.
Rowling, Prisoner of Azkaban , 13, 167.
Rowling, Sorcerer’s Stone , 71 !2.
The cloak’s status as a commodity is revealed when Ron, upon seeing Harry receive the cloak,
exclaims ‘‘I’ve heard of those. . . . If that’s what I think it is *they’re really rare, and really
valuable.’’ Rowling, Sorcerer’s Stone , 201.
John Fiske, Television Culture (London: Routledge, 1987).
Eileen Meehan, ‘‘‘Holy Commodity Fetish, Batman!’ The Political Economy of a Commercial
Intertext,’’ in The Many Lives of Batman: Critical Approaches to a Superhero and His Media ,
ed. R. Pearson and W. Uricchio (New York: Routledge, 1991).
Ono and Buescher, ‘‘Deciphering Pocahontas .’’
Kapur, Coining for Capital , 153.
Kapur, Coining for Capital , 153.
Kapur, Coining for Capital , 156.
26
[66]
[67]
[68]
[69]
[70]
[71]
[72]
[73]
[74]
[75]
[76]
[77]
[78]
J. Waetjen & T. A. Gibson
Rick Lyman, ‘‘Harry Potter and Hollywood’s Cash Cow,’’ New York Times , 4 November 2001,
A1.
B. Falitz, ‘‘Warner Bros. Pictures Unveils Exclusive Web Experience Dedicated To Harry
Potter and The Chamber Of Secrets,’’ http//: www.media.aoltimewarner.com (accessed
November 19, 2004).
For example, on his first train ride to Hogwarts, Harry opens a ‘‘chocolate frog’’ that includes
a witch and wizarding trading card with an animated picture that gestures, waves, and is able
to leave the frame altogether. ‘‘Muggle’’ consumers are now able to purchase from Hasbro
their own chocolate frogs that include trading cards complete with lenticular imaging so as
to provide a ‘‘magic image’’ with moving characters. To complete the simulation of Harry’s
experience, the cards do not feature witches and wizards from the books or movies. Since
Harry’s cards feature figures from the past *people with whom he would be unfamiliar *
the Hasbro cards introduce characters not mentioned in the novels.
Rowling, Sorcerer’s Stone , 104.
Pierre Bourdieu, Practical Reason (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998).
For Bourdieu, doxa is a ‘‘particular point of view *the point of view of the dominant, which
presents and imposes itself as a universal point of view.’’ This said, he writes, we should never
forget that what ‘‘appears to us today as self-evident, as beneath consciousness and choice,
has quite often been the stake of struggles and instituted only as the result of dogged
confrontations between dominant and dominated groups.’’ Practical Reason , 56 !57.
Karl Marx, Capital: Volume 1 (New York: International Publishers, 1967), 76 !80.
Sut Jhally, The Codes of Advertising: Fetishism and the Political Economy of Meaning in the
Consumer Society (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987).
For an insightful review of the political possibilities and limits of Adbusters’ anti-corporate
campaigns and parodies, see Christine Harold, ‘‘Pranking Rhetoric: ‘Culture Jamming’ as
Media Activism,’’ Critical Studies in Media Communication 21, issue 3 (2004): 189 !211.
Roland Barthes, Image, Music, Text (New York: Hill & Wang, 1978), 146.
Barthes, Image, Music, Text , 148.
Barthes, Image, Music, Text , 148.
William Gamson, Talking Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).