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The Girl, The Myth, The Fanfiction

Musicking, Discourse, and Identity in Participatory Media Fandom

Hayashi, Aya Esther. Musicking, Discourse, and Identity in Participatory Media Fandom. The City University of New York, Feb. 2018.

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Performing Potter: Wizard Rock Before A Very Potter Musical made its YouTube debut, there were other songs about Harry Potter. Wrock, shorthand for Wizard Rock, can be traced back to 2000 when a band, Switchblade Kittens, released “Ode to Harry '' about the titular character of the series (Zumbrun and Geis). Music inspired by media fandoms, however, is much older, tracing from a practice called “filk,” a typo of “folk” that occurred at one Star Trek convention that stuck. “Filking is a practice adopted by media fandom from earlier science fiction fandoms,” explains Anne Collins Smith, a collector of early recordings of “filk” music (2009). While Switchblade Kittens may have released the first filk song about Harry Potter, the trend is not new. After the release of “Ode to Harry,” Switchblade Kittens released a full album, taking on the persona of “The Weird Sisters,” a band in Harry Potter. Shortly after, Harry and the Potters formed in 2002. Harry and the Potters, according to the band, started as a joke. Joe and Paul DeGeorge, brothers from Massachusetts, came up with the premise that the two of them would play Harry Potter in different years. “Paul would play Harry Potter in his seventh year who uses a Time Turner... to form a band with his fourth-year self, Joe,” (Hayashi, 62).

Harry and the Potters paved the way for many other Harry Potter inspired bands such as The Draco Malfoys, The Whomping Willows, The Remus Lupins, and The Parselmouths in the early 2000s. Excluding Alex Carpenter, the artist behind The Remus Lupins, these bands were non-commercial, playing at libraries and small venues. “Wizard rock is best contextualized as an offshoot of the straight edge punk scene,” explains Aya Hayashi “[Harry and the Potters] attributed the straight edge ethical practices of avoiding drugs, alcohol, and explicit sexual references to their identification with a fictional character,” (Hayashi, 63-65). The new groups followed a similar pattern to Harry and the Potters. Carpenter, however, marketed himself with a level of “indie commercialism” that was new to the community. This “laid the groundwork for the first major growth of the wizard rock scene,” (Hayashi, 63-70).

A key development in the Wrock scene was the formation of the Harry Potter Alliance. Founded by the Degeorges of Harry and the Potters and Andrew Slack, the Harry Potter Alliance sought to address social justice issues that were key themes in the Harry Potter series. The first Wrock fundraising event raised money for Amnesty International and, by the end of 2006, the Harry Potter Alliance was a certified non-profit (Hayashi, 71).

The Harry Potter Alliance, in collaboration with Wrock bands, pursued multiple different causes including “humanitarian and literacy campaigns” (Hayashi, 75). Wrock bands also embedded political messages into many of their songs. “We started working together in 2005 to use these stories as a framework for introducing people to social justice work: to create a real-world Dumbledore’s Army,“ explained Paul DeGeorge in a Rolling Stones interview (2018). Songs like "Cornelius Fudge is an Ass” by Harry and the Potters highlighted the hypocrisy of the Bush administration (Morales).

After the second part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released in 2011, a “lull” period began in the Wrock scene (Hayashi, 101). Some bands released their last albums or singles saying goodbye to the community and to the ongoing series, as did Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls with “End of an Era,” while other bands continued to play sporadically.

Hayashi writes about the possibility of a “second wave” of Wrock emerging in her dissertation on the topic. This prediction seems reasonable, with new bands forming and old bands coming out of retirement. Harry Potter is making a resurgence through new additions to the canon such as Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them movies. A key reason for this comeback comes from the 2016 election. Songs like “Cornelius Fudge is an Ass,” that hadn’t been played in concert since the Bush administration, came out of “retirement” and new political songs were released (Morales). Tonks and the Aurors released a full-length album in 2018, HuffleRIOT, that highlights the importance of activism. Songs like “Harry Potter’s Alive,” “Aurors Fight,” and “Yes All Witches,” serve as rallying cries for fans, while songs like “Death Eater Masks” paint a picture of Trump supporters as Death Eaters, singing, “I don’t know what’s worse, red hats or death eater masks.”

Harry and the Potters also released their new album in 2019. The album “chronicles the events of the 7th and final Harry Potter book where J.K. Rowling’s teen wizard and his friends are on the run from a xenophobic, authoritarian regime and must work diligently to take down a dark wizard who capitalizes on fear and emboldens supremacist wizards” (Harry and the Potters). The music is deeply emblematic of our political moment, featuring songs such as “On the Importance of Media Literacy Under Authoritarian Rule” or “The Trace,” which critiques the U.S. surveillance state and who it disproportionately affects.

The future of Wrock seems to be tied to our future. Whether the upcoming election affects Wrock’s resurgence is still to be seen, but for the moment, it’s making a comeback that’s, as Paul DeGeorge describes, “a little less goofy and a lot more ‘it’s time to fight,’” (Morales).
The interventions of Wrock are particularly interesting in today’s context as fans have become frustrated by J.K. Rowling. In response to various tweets J.K. Rowling has made over the years that suggest her lack of support for her transgender fans, Tonks and the Aurors wrote the song “Wizard Punks”

Tonks and the Aurors frontman, Steph Anderson, used performance as an outlet to critique J.K. Rowling and remind the fan community that their values do not have to align with those of the original author of Harry Potter. While fan theatrical productions like Potter Puppet Pals and A Very Potter Musical used their platform in a similar way to slash fanfiction, offering up interpretations not expanded upon in the texts. Wrock, as a genre, acknowledges the world outside of the canon text, commenting on social issues, politics, and even the role of the author in relation to the canon text. From the beginning, Wrock stands apart from other fan works because of its refusal of escapism. Though many wrock bands take on the point of view of a single character (i.e. Tonks and the Aurors, Draco and the Malfoys, The Remus Lupins, etc), there’s a self-awareness to the performances that go beyond those of A Very Potter Musical.

Instead of what A Very Potter Musical does, which is bring our world to Harry Potter. Wrock brings Harry Potter to our world. Musicians consciously make references to our current historical moment while taking on the persona of fictional characters. In a series like Harry Potter, which is all about standing up to fascism, discrimination, and injustice, making those connections visible helps fans understand their own power to change the world. Audience members sing along to the show and interact with the band members, asserting, as Lauren Fairweather, a wrock artist, sings in her song “It’s Real for Us,” “We can do magic... if we stand together.”
Performing Potter: Oh the Drama A project on Potter and performance would be incomplete without referencing the literal live performances that have come from Harry Potter. Harry Potter Puppet Pals is one of many examples of performances taking inspiration from the novels. Through comedy, some of the Harry Potter Puppet Pals make key characterizations of the main characters that are left out of the movies. Harry, for example, is played as “angsty” and egotistical, while Ron is played as well-meaning but naive. Obviously these characters are exaggerated for comedic purposes, but there is interpretation of the original text going on.

Though Potter Puppet Pals is an early example, there are plenty of others who have taken the opportunity to bring Harry Potter to the stage. In this chapter, I look at musical and theatrical performances (both authorized and unauthorized) of Harry Potter.
A Very Potter Musical
Potter Puppet Pals would not be where it is today without YouTube. The same can be said for many fan artworks. YouTube was created in 2005 and it looked very different than what it is today. Originally devised as a space to host video content to be embedded elsewhere, the idea to create content specifically for YouTube did not come until later (Burgess and Green). It didn’t take long for people to get creative, and by the time 2008 came around and a handful of theater majors at University of Michigan wanted to publish their Harry Potter musical parody, YouTube had already become a space where videos were shared for entertainment (Hayashi, 118).

Harry Potter: The Musical, premiered in 2008 and went viral as A Very Potter Musical in 2009 (Hayashi, 118). The musical is a jumbled up story with aspects from the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh books. Due to the success of the first musical, two sequels were created: A Very Potter Sequel and A Very Potter Senior Year.

The characters in the play are exaggerated to say the least. Harry is an egomaniac, Ron never stops eating, Hermione is the only student that does any work and is constantly taken advantage of by her friends, Draco is vulnerable and takes his insecurity out on others, and Dumbledore is wildly irresponsible. While these are exaggerations for comedic effect, they are also legitimate interpretations of the source text. Signs of all of these traits are visible throughout the series. Dumbledore in A Very Potter Musical, is particularly important, as the show portrays him much more critically than most portrayals of the old Wizard.
“He accused me of being Dumbledore's man through and through."
"How very rude of him."
"I told him I was.” (Rowling, 2005)

Throughout the Harry Potter series, Harry shows an intense loyalty to Dumbledore. Up until the publication of the seventh book, almost all characters revere Dumbledore as perfect and wise. It is not until the last book that we learn of the character’s dark past. Not always a wise old man weary of the seduction of power, Dumbledore experimented with the Dark Arts with his friend and lover Gellert Grindlewald in pursuit of immortality. Their relationship ended when a duel between the wizards, resulted in the accidental death of his younger sister (Rowling, 2007).

Despite the acknowledgement of his dark past in the seventh book. Dumbledore still remains a venerated figure in the novels and within the fan community. However, not everyone agrees that he’s a good character. Some fans point out that there are plenty of examples in the book that show that Dumbledore is actually very irresponsible and endangered the students of Hogwarts on many occasions. One of the starkest examples is that Dumbledore was willing to leave Harry with his Aunt and Uncle despite overwhelming evidence that they were abusive. This doesn’t just happen in the first book, when Dumbledore could have possibly been ignorant to the fact that Harry was forced to live in a cupboard. We see, however, that when Harry tells Dumbledore about the Dursleys, Dumbledore still tells Harry that he must stay with his guardians.

Fans also point out the favoritism that Dumbledore shows to Harry as a student and Gryffindor as a house, often unfairly giving Harry points in order for Gryffindor to win the House Cup at the very last minute. This is something that A Very Potter Musical pokes fun at.

Staci Miller of TheThings.com mentions in her Dumbledore call-out post, that Dumbledore “employed Snape and refused to hear anything bad about him,” an aspect also parodied in the show (Miller).

A Very Potter Musical’s creators describe it as an “unofficial, fan-made, parody show.” Boxman-Shabtai differentiates between fanfiction and parody, asserting that fanfiction aligns closer with the genre of pastiche, which “operates by similarity and reverence towards the work it renders,” (Boxman-Shabtai). I would argue that there are plenty of fanfiction stories out there that could be classified as parody and that A Very Potter Musical is just one example of fan-made parody content. Still, the dichotomy between reverence and critique is one that should be unpacked. A Very Potter Musical only occasionally addresses the author, and critiques seem to land more heavily on the characters themselves. In many ways, A Very Potter Musical upholds many of the themes of the original series while taking a few jabs at J.K. Rowling from a respectful, humorous distance. For example, when Ron and Harry destroy the last horocrux, Ron comments that “horocruxes are just kind of stupid” (Lang et al, 2009).

The aesthetic of A Very Potter Musical, works well with the content. Actors are costumed, but there is little hiding the fact that they are individuals in their 20s playing 12 year olds. Occasionally the actors break the fourth wall or say lines that seem out of place in the setting, such as Harry Potter calling Ginny a “freshman” or calling the dining hall the “cafeteria.” Dumbledore’s costume is perhaps the least convincing of all: he wears an outlandish robe, sandals, and a comically bad fake beard. The design of the shows seems to say, “this is not the real Harry Potter,” making deviations from the original story excusable and even funny. Still, though, there is enough similarity that fans can easily recognize the characters. While the language and appearance of the characters are exaggerated and unrealistic, the actual characterizations are pretty believable, explaining why YouTubers make comments like, “That moment when you realize that the friendship between Ron and Harry is more accurate in this than in the movie,” (Kael R.) or “love how starkid did a better job of showing Ginny's entire character arc with Harry than the 8 Hollywood movies did,” (draconitious). A Very Potter Musical was made by fans and for fans to appreciate the series, while poking fun at its issues, which describes why it remains a cult classic within the fandom.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
There are also, of course, other theatrical productions about Harry Potter worth exploring.

I am referring, of course, to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. The Broadway and West End productions are tremendously popular (Broadway World News Desk). Opinions on the script have “created a rift in the Harry Potter fandom,” some fans staunchly defend the show while others refuse to recognize it as canon. The split between the two groups seems to be based on whether fans have seen the show or if they’ve just read the play (Vaughan). This makes sense. For all its criticisms, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a professional production, filled with some of the most impressive technical theater out there. The sheer experience of seeing one’s favorite character live is enough to excuse even the most egregious plot holes, but the critics make some strong points.

Fans bring up that the characters don’t seem to line up with who they were in the books. Harry, for example, is easily angered and vain, while Ron is portrayed as a well-meaning idiot. In a scene in the show, Ron gives Harry’s son a love potion as a “gag.” One fan was quick to point out that Ron very nearly was killed by a poisoned love potion. “Ron would not forget about that and subsequently send a love potion to his young nephew,” (Sarner).

To the writers’ defense, the play is set 19 years after the books, which is a lot of time for personalities to change, especially after a traumatic war. It is also possible that actors portray the lines differently than how fans read them in the script. A more frequently discussed critique is the plot itself, which even the best acting can’t change. The script directly contradicts various plot points in the books.

In Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy, the sons of Draco and Harry are friends who use a time turner to save Cedric Diggory from being murdered by Voldemort, manipulated by Delphi Diggory (Voldemort’s secret daughter) in order for her to go back in time to kill Harry Potter before he killed Voldemort. There are more than a few issues with this. All time turners were destroyed in the fifth book and the ones that were destroyed could only go back a total of five hours. The way the play addresses this is through the “top-secret” invention of two new time turners that don't have the five hour restriction. These were allegedly commissioned by Lucius Malfoy shortly before Voldemort was destroyed.
Comedy vs. Canon

The reason why fans, by and large, seem to prefer A Very Potter Musical and A Very Potter Sequel to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child might have something to do with genre.

The plots of A Very Potter Sequel and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child are surprisingly similar. In A Very Potter Musical, Lucius Malfoy uses a time turner to go back to Harry’s first year at Hogwarts to kill Harry before he defeats Voldemort. Despite the fact that both of these stories use a time turner, causing inconsistencies with the original plot of the novels, A Very Potter Sequel gets less criticism for it because it’s a comedy and not meant to follow the canon text. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, according to J.K. Rowling, is “canon.”

The genre differences between the two plays doesn’t stop there. A Very Potter Musical and A Very Potter Sequel rely heavily on references to pop culture for comedic effect. The character of Harry is a great example of this. In the musicals, Harry is portrayed as self-obsessed, popular, and goofy. While there are aspects of this in the actual canon, the actor isn’t really portraying Harry Potter in the books. Instead, he is portraying what Harry would be like if he existed in the “real world,” a popular jock with a bit of a savior complex. To do this, he uses signs that are legible within pop culture. Harry doesn’t play guitar in the books. To say, however, that Harry is this type of person to play guitar is funny to fans and makes his character legible to people not as familiar with the series. These comparisons are explicitly named in the sequel when Harry explains to his friends that, in the muggle world, he would be considered "a douchebag.” Engagement with and knowledge of the text is rewarded in this parody. Fans like it because they’re given the opportunity to be “in on the joke.”

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, on the other hand, does not engage in making these connections instead, similar to the theme parks, it brings Harry Potter to a live audience, allowing for immersion in the story. It is expected to be treated as “canon” and audience members don’t get the satisfaction of getting a reference or a joke. In many ways, Cursed Child actually punishes a deep knowledge of the text because it disregards certain parts of the canon in order to move forward the plot. Fans who feel they knew and understood the characters felt upset when the characters went against fans’ views of who they were.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is not a fan-work. What remains interesting is the shaky classification of “canon.” In this case, a story that was not written by J.K. Rowling, but was authorized by her, holds more weight than the creations of fans. Fans, in turn, disregard this new addition to the canon despite J.K. Rowling’s stamp of approval, offering up alternatives, such as A Very Potter Sequel, as “more canon.”