Deletedjournalgate, and a rant about a theme park
I haven't been blogging (or responding much to other people's posts) on the whole Strikethrough 2007 thing - mainly because I wouldn't have much to add; I'm getting all my information about it from my flist so it seems a bit daft to repeat what y'all (did I just write "y'all"?) are saying more eloquently than I could. I've done the sort of thing I normally do in these situations - joined the appropriate "stand up and be counted" community (if you haven't joined fandom_counts yet, go and do it now), felt pissed off about the whole thing and the pretty half-arsed response we've been given, and contemplated getting myself a greatestjournal/journalfen/etc account. (I haven't yet, but if I do decide to I'll let people know. This will still be my main journal, such as it is. Very little will change unless I get booted - hell, I felt guilty enough about getting a Myspace.)
Anyway, as I have nothing of interest to add to that story, I've put together a special, unscheduled rant concerning the newly announced Harry Potter theme park, which I hope will suffice. (I hope that link works, by the way, if not then it should be relatively easy to find via the main page. Man, I hate The Leaky Cauldron.)
The information so far offered promises a variety of rides, a "real" Hogwarts castle, appropriate food, shopping and all the rest. (I hope there's a "Harry's Death" ride - you could sit in a rollercoaster, have green light flashed at you, and then - what, be tasered or something. Sounds fun to me.) And this is my favourite bit:
A "British" environment is to be maintained, including the food served, and mannerisms of the staff.
So - who saw that recent episode of Ugly Betty where they ended up in a theme restaurant called The Middle Ages? Anyone? I did. It was good, and while we're on the subject, may I point out that if Ugly Betty was set in Brighton, instead of a mechanical horse she'd have been riding a Rodeo Penis (also known as a Bucking Willy, for those for whom "Rodeo Penis" is too complicated to understand). Anyway, so the staff of The Middle Ages speak in amusing (really. Not sarcasm) faux-British accents, which I would attempt to transcribe except that being British, I can't. The place serves mutton and jalapeno poppers and settles fights by dressing people up in tinfoil knight outfits and making them hit each other with padded sticks. You get the idea.
I know precisely nothing about "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter" (tautology?) beyond what's in the press release, but I would bet not only money but also valued personal possessions on it being exactly the same as The Middle Ages.
It's in Florida, for crying out loud. In Britain it rains!
On the whole, though, it's not so much the overall naffness (or the unrealistic view of "British") that bothers me. Fuck it, I went to DisneyLand Paris back in February and had the best time ever. No, what bothers me is this. When Goblet of Fire was released, our bookshop party involved supermarket-brand fizzy drink, kids in homemade costumes, sweets, paper decorations we made ourselves, a mate of the owners turning up in his own clapped-out Ford Anglia. A few months after that, I happened to go through Kings Cross station one day and went to see where Platform 9 3/4 would be. It's a perspex barrier due to a trademark JKR balls-up, but it was covered in bits of paper and grafitti along the lines of "I'm in Slytherin!" and "Moaning Myrtle woz ere!" and email addresses people had scrawled there as a way of potentially meeting other fans. At that stage, the books were gaining in popularity, but - at least in the circles I was moving in at that time - by word-of-mouth. It was grassroots, natural, and exciting.
By the release of Half-Blood Prince, the release party was all about queueing in Borders, listening to the movie soundtrack, looking at crap bunting distributed by Bloomsbury and Warner Bros, surrounded by other people wearing official t-shirts. Kings Cross now has a designated Platform 9 3/4 complete with luggage trolley half-embedded in a wall. And finally, we have an official theme park with officially endorsed merchandise, official Hogwarts food, official rides, official soft drinks, and - let's be realistic - a fat entrance fee.
When I was sixteen I was a tester for the Children's Book Award, and I was one of the people who voted for Philosopher's Stone over two other good children's books, resulting in it winning that year. There were whispers that this J. K. Rowling woman was planning a sequel - maybe even a whole series! It felt exciting, and the way that the fandom grew was even more exciting.
If I had had reason to forsee a theme park being the ultimate result of that, I might have been a bit more cynical about the whole thing.
Anyway, as I have nothing of interest to add to that story, I've put together a special, unscheduled rant concerning the newly announced Harry Potter theme park, which I hope will suffice. (I hope that link works, by the way, if not then it should be relatively easy to find via the main page. Man, I hate The Leaky Cauldron.)
The information so far offered promises a variety of rides, a "real" Hogwarts castle, appropriate food, shopping and all the rest. (I hope there's a "Harry's Death" ride - you could sit in a rollercoaster, have green light flashed at you, and then - what, be tasered or something. Sounds fun to me.) And this is my favourite bit:
A "British" environment is to be maintained, including the food served, and mannerisms of the staff.
So - who saw that recent episode of Ugly Betty where they ended up in a theme restaurant called The Middle Ages? Anyone? I did. It was good, and while we're on the subject, may I point out that if Ugly Betty was set in Brighton, instead of a mechanical horse she'd have been riding a Rodeo Penis (also known as a Bucking Willy, for those for whom "Rodeo Penis" is too complicated to understand). Anyway, so the staff of The Middle Ages speak in amusing (really. Not sarcasm) faux-British accents, which I would attempt to transcribe except that being British, I can't. The place serves mutton and jalapeno poppers and settles fights by dressing people up in tinfoil knight outfits and making them hit each other with padded sticks. You get the idea.
I know precisely nothing about "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter" (tautology?) beyond what's in the press release, but I would bet not only money but also valued personal possessions on it being exactly the same as The Middle Ages.
It's in Florida, for crying out loud. In Britain it rains!
On the whole, though, it's not so much the overall naffness (or the unrealistic view of "British") that bothers me. Fuck it, I went to DisneyLand Paris back in February and had the best time ever. No, what bothers me is this. When Goblet of Fire was released, our bookshop party involved supermarket-brand fizzy drink, kids in homemade costumes, sweets, paper decorations we made ourselves, a mate of the owners turning up in his own clapped-out Ford Anglia. A few months after that, I happened to go through Kings Cross station one day and went to see where Platform 9 3/4 would be. It's a perspex barrier due to a trademark JKR balls-up, but it was covered in bits of paper and grafitti along the lines of "I'm in Slytherin!" and "Moaning Myrtle woz ere!" and email addresses people had scrawled there as a way of potentially meeting other fans. At that stage, the books were gaining in popularity, but - at least in the circles I was moving in at that time - by word-of-mouth. It was grassroots, natural, and exciting.
By the release of Half-Blood Prince, the release party was all about queueing in Borders, listening to the movie soundtrack, looking at crap bunting distributed by Bloomsbury and Warner Bros, surrounded by other people wearing official t-shirts. Kings Cross now has a designated Platform 9 3/4 complete with luggage trolley half-embedded in a wall. And finally, we have an official theme park with officially endorsed merchandise, official Hogwarts food, official rides, official soft drinks, and - let's be realistic - a fat entrance fee.
When I was sixteen I was a tester for the Children's Book Award, and I was one of the people who voted for Philosopher's Stone over two other good children's books, resulting in it winning that year. There were whispers that this J. K. Rowling woman was planning a sequel - maybe even a whole series! It felt exciting, and the way that the fandom grew was even more exciting.
If I had had reason to forsee a theme park being the ultimate result of that, I might have been a bit more cynical about the whole thing.