FACE TO FACE: What would Dumbledore think of the Harry Potter Alliance?

Last year, my colleague and I happily shared our summer movie blockbuster reviews with you and we still might but in this column, we've decided to share our respective views on the how seriously some take the messages films have to offer.

Take, for example, the Harry Potter Alliance (HPA). It has a website complete with 100 lessons on living from the “world's greatest wizard,” Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, and comes complete with a campaign entitled What Would Dumbledore Do? (WWDD?).

Those who started the WWJD (What would Jesus do?) campaign must be scratching their heads at how many clones of that slogan have been spawned. One of the more offensive being the white supremacist WWHD (What would Hitler do?). I wonder if they ever regret starting the whole thing, but I digress.

My first response to WWDD was surely that it all must be tongue in cheek. It's as if these people have forgotten that Dumbledore is a fictional character. And while I have yet to see the latest Potter movie instalment, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I've seen every other Potter movie and they're just pure entertainment to me and others. I must therefore applaud the folks responsible for the HPA for their imagination and inventiveness to have come up with 100 lessons to learn from Dumbledore.

My colleague opines that from what he has seen, author J.K. Rowling's Dumbledore is “a new age-ish relativist who spouts dime-store feel-goodisms.” From what I can tell, Rowling has nothing to do with the Harry Potter Alliance. She wrote a great children's book series that has made her a lot of money.

The more serious issue here is how Hollywood or the entertainment industry has affected our lives. Societal violence is often related to violent movies and video games. Pornography contributes to the degradation of women. Technology that was first envisaged in science fiction is now a reality. Google “Hollywood's influence on society” and you'll find 14 million references.

If we accept that Hollywood and the entertainment industry wields such power over us, then what's wrong with the Harry Potter Alliance using examples from Potter and Dumbledore to “spread love and fight the Dark Arts in the real world”?

But seriously folks, just sit back enjoy the movie and the popcorn.