manufactured nostalgia

on harry potter 20th anniversary: return to hogwarts

[mild content spoilers for the anniversary special, now on HBO Max]

I keep wanting to compare art to food lately, and in watching Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts, I couldn’t help but think of Cool Ranch Doritos. Not because I have some sentimental story about how they were my treat of choice while voraciously poring through the books as soon I could get my hands on them, or sneaking them into the theaters to see the films - but thinking of the ‘extraordinary’ addictiveness of this thing made for me in a lab somewhere, specifically to cater to my tastebuds and very much designed to leave me wanting more.

You could argue the rash of reboots and reunions that have come with each various streaming service trying to siphon away even a second of attention from our overstimulated population are like all this manufactured junk - a facsimile of something more original, more pure, simply “better,” while playing on our basest notions of taste in order to elicit a reaction, or better yet, a subscription. This reunion special is in concept vaguely to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the release of the first movie in the franchise, Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone - the second-least rewatchable of the movies on any given day, in my view, but nonetheless of which I fondly remember seeing in theaters on a class trip with my schoolmates, who included a kid named Jeremy who had glasses and jet-black hair, just like Harry. We joked it was a movie about him - he must have loved that.

But back to the watery origins and junk food. Hearing of the special, I cynically assumed that the only reason this special was happening at all was likely to up HBO Max’s subscriber count ahead of this next earnings. It was made, like Doritos, in a lab by marketing analysts and MBAs, to appeal to our basest instincts: our underlying and constant want for nostalgia that’s been even more amplified by two years of trauma, anxiety, grief, desolation - during which many people, including myself, turned to the Harry Potter movies for comfort. I thought cynically of the Friends special earlier this year that gave HBO Max a bigger boost in subscribers than any of its original films or series, and of the newsletters I subscribe to that shrewdly discuss the bloodbath Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, Hulu, Peacock, etc are battling to win with viewers, even if no one can really decide on the right metrics for success aside from subscriber count. And while the special is to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the first film, it’s not like they only talk about that one - they go through the entire series, the last of which was released in 2011. This means we’ve only just hit a decade on that. Rupert Grint, my childhood crush returning to reflect on his turn as Ron Weasley, even remarks in the special itself that it doesn’t feel like they’ve yet earned a reunion special! On camera! The whole conception seemed hollow, reeking of artificiality.

And yet.

I freakin’ loved it. I laughed, I cried, I had a smile on my face the entire time. The special opens with a stylized and produced segment where various members of the cast receive envelopes, looking exactly like letters from Hogwarts, addressed to their exact location “Cab, Stuck in Traffic” - I was taken from then on. The cast members take the train and reunite with even more cast members onboard, and land at a fancy, glittery, bathed-in-warm-light celebration in the Great Hall adorned with even more cast members, as well as gold balloons, dancers, black ties, and champagne (they’re old enough to drink now!). The core trio of Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), and Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) sit down in the Gryffindor common room and laugh about how it doesn’t seem like any time has passed since they were together, working on the films - and then Grint laughs “Well I’ve had kidney stones and a baby, so time has definitely passed.”

The whole thing washed over me like a warm cup of tea, or a well-drawn bath. I didn’t even mind the manufactured ‘narrative’ they constructed overtop of a series that already has its own narratives, or that not an insignificant chunk of the runtime was clips from the films themselves. Nor did I mind the staged sit-downs of random pairs and groups of actors from the franchise - like some members of the Weasley family ruminating on their characters, or the their-characters-would-have-never-hung-out-in-the-books trio of Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy), Matthew Lewis (Neville), and Alfred Enoch (Dean Thomas) reminiscing about being rambunctious on set (while now drinking champagne! We’re all old enough to drink!). Daniel Radcliffe, charming and affable and carrying the weight of the franchise as always, does a lot of the heavy lifting here; sitting down with director Chris Columbus, Gary Oldman, and Helena Bonham Carter to talk through their experiences. Radcliffe, who I find extremely likable and whose acting career as an adult I find fascinating, is refreshingly unashamed of how he got his start in a fantasy film franchise, or what being its center has since brought him. And he has an easy chemistry with Grint and Watson, who also behave much like their characters would - along with Radcliffe bringing everyone together, Watson is talkative and bubbly, tumbling out with memories left and right; Grint smiling along, occasionally interrupting with a well-timed quip.

The special covers behind-the-scenes intel such as how they went about casting the young stars (I was, and maybe am still??? so jealous that Emma was cast, even though they would’ve never let a brown girl be Hermione then), and each director on why they joined the franchise or what they liked about their own film. The trio (and their peers) talk through not being able to behave early on and breaking during take after take; of teen hormones and on-set crushes and giving each other romantic advice as they learned about that part of life all together.

The cast even touches on more serious themes - Watson opens up about considering quitting the franchise with the pressure of fame, and the other two speak thoughtfully about how she had it differently than they did, being the lead girl of the franchise in an industry or media culture that isn’t kind to girls. All 3 members of the trio commiserate on struggling to divorce their identities from their characters, since they had grown up in parallel. And being roughly in the same age bracket as them, it was refreshing, even comforting to hear them express this so openly. Even though the content was different - I have not starred in any major film franchises as a character that’s scarily like me, to my knowledge - identity crises and figuring out who we really are versus who people want us to be is something my generation and everyone’s who has been this age can deeply relate to. Like reconnecting with an old friend, Grint, Radcliffe, and Watson were there having these same struggles, mirroring me as they had often had throughout my whole life.

Along with the characters who I aged with, I aged with these actors. I found myself in these characters, and in these actors’ portrayals of them on the silver screen. They were already of comfort to me then, braving school dances and challenging authority and trying to ace their exams the same time we all were. And here they were, comforting me once again. Not only because they thought of this thing as fondly as I did, but also because they’re still here, learning from it like I am. As the cast and producers cornily and cheesily but truthfully express in the special, Harry Potter made an entire generation of misfits feel like they belonged, that their differences were their strengths, that what made them odd also made them wonderful. That as long as we were kind as often as possible and loyal to the people who needed us and that we tried to do the right thing, we would be okay. Even if we had a fight with a friend, or made a mistake, or even lost someone we loved, we would ultimately be okay. Everything would be okay, in the end, if we believed in love and believed in ourselves.

Grint and Watson pair off on their own near the end (don’t worry, they talk about their dreaded kiss scene as a trio, with Radcliffe admitting to heckling them along the way) - and the two sit across from each other, a bit awkwardly but with clear fondness and a familiarity between them. And as they close out their time together, having articulated some things out loud for maybe the first time, like the aforementioned hesitance to keep on with the franchise, or figuring out what was beyond this only thing they’d ever really known - they both quietly but clearly become emotional, teary-eyed. They say, because of what they’ve been through together, they’ll always be a family. Even if they don’t see each other often, they’ll always be a part of each other, a building block that helped them become who they are. They timidly grasp hands, and it turns into a hug amidst their tears. I got emotional as well - I thought my longtime friends who I’m still very close to, but also the old friends who made me who I am - the childhood friends, the camp friends who attended my wedding, the governor’s school suitemate turned randomly assigned college roommate who now, randomly, lives ten minutes from me. And with the ones I talk with often but even the ones I don’t, we have a shared history, and a shared future. I can reconnect with these people in an instant, and remembering how we used to be; and seeing their shared milestones with mine as we all grow up is a comfort.

Was that moment between Grint and Watson scripted? I don’t think so, but I can’t say for sure. Regardless, it made me cry. My comfort books. My comfort movies, my comfort Ron! They were all together again! It was a similar cry watching the Friends special, a reunion of the cast of my go-to comfort television show since I was a child - I have VHS tapes of Friends, for cheese sakes!

This is the problem with junk food, isn’t it? That it’s tasty? That it works? Or more charitably, this is the problem with things made specifically to appeal to us - they work, even though I know I’m being targeted - tricked, manipulated, seduced even. The potable combination of the popularity of nostalgia (which now centers quite a bit on the late 90s/2000s, when things seemed hopeful and uncharacteristically peaceful); a generation that aged with Harry, the blessed generation of mine that lived in the magical era when we all found out how the story ended together, waiting patiently for the end (sorry Game of Thrones fans, I don’t think you’ll ever get this type of closure), a generation who is theoretically now old enough to make their own purchase decisions and pay for their own streaming services (not always, I have my cousins’ generosity to thank on this one); and likable actors that remain likable into adulthood and don’t mind coming back to wax lyrical on a formative time in their, and our lives: it was all so perfectly manufactured (even the release date! New Year’s Day, a day when everyone’s a little tired and looking for something easy!) but it was also, frankly, magical. Alchemy, if you will. I was bewitched. And if I had to choose between being manipulated by marketing folks or this special never having existed at all, I think I’d ultimately be fine keeping the stuff made in the lab - the Doritos. The delicious stuff. It still tastes good.

Until next time, with what people say about me when I tell them I’m rewatching these movies instead of watching something new, or learning how to do my taxes -