Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Sex comes to Hogwarts
Let's start with the hair. Did someone at Hogwarts (my vote is for Minerva McGonagall, because I don't want to think that Dumbledore is into 14-year-olds, and anyway, he's not gay yet) send an owl around over the summer with a memo reading "Fourth year boys will please grow their hair out in the manner of the great Muggle British Invasion bands"?
I know I said yesterday that sex had no relevance to my present life situation. While this remains true, I'm obviously not completely sexually dead yet, because all this long hair did a NUMBER on me. Yowza!
Wouldja look what happened over the summer? Allman Weasley brothers: Take me now!
Yeah, I'm into Fred and George. I've even forgiven J.K. Rowling for creating a family where three of the sons are named Ron, Charlie and Bill, that also includes twin brothers, and not naming the twins Mick and Keith.
Speaking of the Stones, isn't Ron kind of channeling their golden-era lead guitarist Mick Taylor in this movie?
Mick T. probably would've even worn something like Ron's Yule Ball getup, back in the day. Seriously, Ron, just open up your collar a button or two and snag yourself some bellbottoms, and you might gain a whole new appreciation for those hated dress robes.
Meanwhile, Harry 4.0 is looking a little bit Frodo, a little bit rock & roll:
Even Neville Longbottom has a Pete Townsend thing going on!
They don't call him the Seeker - he doesn't even play Quidditch - but that doesn't mean he isn't one. There's something big coming for Neville, I can feel it.
The new hair is so clearly awesome that of course Snape hates it:
Which, given the obvious Trent Reznor-ness of his own 'do, is a bit rich.
But the sexy hair is only the harbinger of larger sea changes, of course: voluntarily or under duress, Harry's Hogwarts cohort is starting to pair off for the first time. The Yule Ball forces the issue.
Haven't we all been here?
What, if anything, does it mean that both Harry's desired date and his fallback are girls of color? Or that, indeed, most of our favorite white wizards-in-training attend the Yule Ball with nonwhite girls? (Oi, Angelina!) Even as I'm digging this, I fear the shadow of tokenism falling across the proceedings. Anyway, whatever mixed feelings you may harbor about the future Edward Cullen, or about Harry's Anglo-Chinese crush being given a cheongsam to wear, you can't deny that Cedric and Cho are a shoe-in for "Cutest Couple" in the Hogwarts yearbook:
Awww.
In light of these signs of sexual awakening among the Hogwarts fourth-years, that scene where Harry opens the egg in the prefects' bathroom had a slightly guilty voyeurism for me. Not guilty enough that I didn't go look for an image from it to post here, mind you - but in spite of the fact that this scene must have launched more than a handful of pornographic fan fictions, I found practically no screen captures from it in Google Images. Is this due to a fan protectiveness that coexists with the sexual crushes and fantasies, or is there an actual legal prohibition against downloading pictures of Daniel Radcliffe's naked 14-year-old torso? I don't know, so the adolescent girl in me will merely note that between RPattz and DanRad, Moaning Myrtle (I am not going to make the obvious joke here) must have had quite the interesting evening.
*Even apart from its songs that mention seekers, wizards, spiders, magic buses, and Harry's mother's name (just ignore the context in which it occurs, OK?), the coming-of-age angst and incomparable fabulousness of the early Who made this album a totally apt and totally enjoyable accompaniment to the composition of this journal entry.
I know I said yesterday that sex had no relevance to my present life situation. While this remains true, I'm obviously not completely sexually dead yet, because all this long hair did a NUMBER on me. Yowza!
Wouldja look what happened over the summer? Allman Weasley brothers: Take me now!
Yeah, I'm into Fred and George. I've even forgiven J.K. Rowling for creating a family where three of the sons are named Ron, Charlie and Bill, that also includes twin brothers, and not naming the twins Mick and Keith.
Speaking of the Stones, isn't Ron kind of channeling their golden-era lead guitarist Mick Taylor in this movie?
Mick T. probably would've even worn something like Ron's Yule Ball getup, back in the day. Seriously, Ron, just open up your collar a button or two and snag yourself some bellbottoms, and you might gain a whole new appreciation for those hated dress robes.
Meanwhile, Harry 4.0 is looking a little bit Frodo, a little bit rock & roll:
Even Neville Longbottom has a Pete Townsend thing going on!
They don't call him the Seeker - he doesn't even play Quidditch - but that doesn't mean he isn't one. There's something big coming for Neville, I can feel it.
The new hair is so clearly awesome that of course Snape hates it:
Which, given the obvious Trent Reznor-ness of his own 'do, is a bit rich.
But the sexy hair is only the harbinger of larger sea changes, of course: voluntarily or under duress, Harry's Hogwarts cohort is starting to pair off for the first time. The Yule Ball forces the issue.
Haven't we all been here?
What, if anything, does it mean that both Harry's desired date and his fallback are girls of color? Or that, indeed, most of our favorite white wizards-in-training attend the Yule Ball with nonwhite girls? (Oi, Angelina!) Even as I'm digging this, I fear the shadow of tokenism falling across the proceedings. Anyway, whatever mixed feelings you may harbor about the future Edward Cullen, or about Harry's Anglo-Chinese crush being given a cheongsam to wear, you can't deny that Cedric and Cho are a shoe-in for "Cutest Couple" in the Hogwarts yearbook:
Awww.
In light of these signs of sexual awakening among the Hogwarts fourth-years, that scene where Harry opens the egg in the prefects' bathroom had a slightly guilty voyeurism for me. Not guilty enough that I didn't go look for an image from it to post here, mind you - but in spite of the fact that this scene must have launched more than a handful of pornographic fan fictions, I found practically no screen captures from it in Google Images. Is this due to a fan protectiveness that coexists with the sexual crushes and fantasies, or is there an actual legal prohibition against downloading pictures of Daniel Radcliffe's naked 14-year-old torso? I don't know, so the adolescent girl in me will merely note that between RPattz and DanRad, Moaning Myrtle (I am not going to make the obvious joke here) must have had quite the interesting evening.
*Even apart from its songs that mention seekers, wizards, spiders, magic buses, and Harry's mother's name (just ignore the context in which it occurs, OK?), the coming-of-age angst and incomparable fabulousness of the early Who made this album a totally apt and totally enjoyable accompaniment to the composition of this journal entry.