On this site I have seen so much about the Avengers/Super Hero movies and that type of movie, but nothing about Harry Potter..Is it that guys think Harry Potter is more girly and Iron man/etc., is not, just curious.
shareIn my opinion Harry Potter is more for girls than boys. Written by a woman and for children, you can see why grown men would feel Harry Potter would be lacking in some elements. I think it's a great fantasy for children and girls but not for male audience.
shareAs a male I very much disagree.
shareCompare Harry Potter to Lord of the rings which is also fantasy genre but written by man. Then you can go one step further and compare it to Conan barbarian. You can see pretty big difference in style and what the focus of the story is. In short because JK Rowling is a woman the focus of Harry Potter is on relationships between characters, and the most interesting character Snape is motivated by romantic feelings. While the focus in those other works I mentioned is more geared towards fighting and companionship of non romantic nature.
shareAre you writing from the 19th century? That's just weird backwards gender generalization that boys only like fighting and girls only like romance. In the first place, romance only plays a small part in Harry Potter, and hardly appears at all until the later books (come to think of it, it's a bit odd actually how little romance there is in Harry Potter, considering it's about a bunch of hormonal teenagers packed together in a castle). Secondly, books written by men can and do contain romance as well. Books written by women can be enjoyed by men and books written by men can be enjoyed by women. That weird gender segregation by genre belongs in the distant past. And even back then it wasn't universal. Frankenstein, a pioneering book of the sci-fi and horror genres, was written by a woman and has been read by men for generations. You say "because JK Rowling is a woman the focus of Harry Potter is on relationships between characters", but George R. R. Martin is a man and the focus of A Song of Ice and Fire is on relationships between characters. You talk like men don't write romance, but have you ever heard of a fellow by the name of Shakespeare? These stereotypes you're using are backwards and were never valid to begin with. Trying to segregate genres into "traditional gender roles" is futile and silly. My ex-girlfriend devoured books and she never read romance, mostly horror and her favorite writer was Stephen King.
shareThanks for your input but there are differences between the mindsets of boys and girls sometimes more obvious and sometimes less obvious and more subtle. Men tend to value different things in the story and characterization compared to women and this may be a generalization but it is based on true facts. If you asked 100 guys what is one thing they would change in Harry Potter 90 will say add more fights and more clear rules aka logic onto the magic system. 90 out of 100 girls would say add more romance and relationship development between characters. I am not making this up, besides you say romance is not the main theme of Harry Potter. The author said that love is the main theme. Harry Potter is the main character but the story begins how his mother's love is what saves him and it ends how Snape's romantic love towards his mother saves him again. So the central piece in the story is Lily Potter, behind the scenes which is something only a woman author would emphasize. A male author would put more spotlight on Harry Potters own strenght, fighting and personal growth as well as have Snape actually fight Voldemort because that is what guys want to see in general. There are other more subtle differences as well.
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You seem to be equating women with girls and also excluding boys from the children category. I think I understand what you are getting at, but it is making your posts confusing. I agree that Harry Potter is lacking in some areas that make it less exciting for adult audiences (both men and women) but I'm not sure I really follow your arguments. JK Rowling purposefully made Harry a male character so that the story would appeal to boys, but you seem to think that because female characters are significant in the story that this makes it uninteresting to both boys and men? I find that a bit discouraging, personally, because it implies that boys are totally uninterested in watching female characters play a significant part in a story. Note that although Lily's "motherly love" sacrifice for Harry plays a pivotal role in the story, the relationships between Harry and his friends focus on the platonic aspects, with their romantic relationships playing a (thankfully) smaller part in the narrative.
I will admit I think there is some truth to your statements about what boys like. Since I have sons, I spend a lot of time listening to them talk about what they like and it does seem to be true that one of their major interests is exciting fight scenes and that, while they have some interest in the relationships, those (even platonic ones) are of less interest than the fight scenes. Now, I don't mind a good fight scene myself, and I give double points if there are explosions, but it's not the core of the entertainment to me.
You can just compare Lord of the rings story tone to Harry Potter story tone. On the surface two stories are similar. Lord of the rings focuses more on epic legends, world building and the fight between good and evil while Harry Potter focuses on adventures between friends and the relationship between characters. It doesn't have to be romantic relationship although there is that. Women are focused more on emotional relationships in general and HP is written that way. There is one more subtle difference, there is a lot of companionship in LOTR but it is just different than what you see in HP. It is male companionship bred out of duty, need and friendship that is expressed through action and not explored much besides that because men have an understanding of that kind of kinship while HP relationships are constantly explored through flashbacks, dialogue, and less through action. Lotr focuses more on world building even though there are relationships between characters because men want to explore, hp focuses more on relationships between characters but that is the primary female interest.
sharekids. i watched the first one back in 2001 with my son. he lost interest in the others.
shareAlso gay men
shareNo, in fact they appear to be made for everyone, including guys. I've heard of many guys who love the books and the films, and when visiting the HP area of Universal Studios, I saw tons of both boys and girls visiting.
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