Sexual Undertones in Harry Potter [review by starlight]

I found the new Harry Potter film to be really unremarkable. It was what can be expected from a movie that stops in the middle of a plot arc. This allowed them to keep most of the material, which always makes me happy, but as a stand-alone film I don't think it works.

One of few things that interested me about the film was the sexual undertones. I've stated my opinion on the romance in Harry Potter before. It's the biggest flaw in Rowling's writing, the one area where she digresses from the necessary action to indulge the fantasies of preteens. Not interesting to me at all. But I found the movie incredibly sexual in a way I never picked up on in the books. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

First and foremost, the homoerotic aspect of Bellatrix's torturing Hermione was hard to miss. Did anyone else feel a little hot in the theatre? I'm sure the air conditioning was working. To me the scene didn't try to avoid bringing images of girl on girl to the mind, even evoking bondage and S&M. Cool.

Another one was the scene with the destruction of the first horcrux, where Ron sees Harry and Hermione declaring their love for one another and making out. They looked pretty naked to me. Well, I guess being trapped in a tent in the winter with one another they're bound to end up naked together at some point.

Even Harry and Ginny got to repeat their motionless and emotionless kiss from the last movie. Wasn't he supposed to break up with her? I should also bring up Fenrir Greyback's predatory demeanor. He didn't look like he wanted to eat Hermione. That chase scene was very 'Little Red Riding Hood' (written by a French author in a time when the prostitutes of France were wearing red cloaks.) Today we laugh at the double entendre of eating her, but the connection between sex and consumption has existed in literature for a long time. What do you think makes Vampires so sexy?

Let me know if you watched this movie and didn't notice what I'm talking about. I'd be interested to hear if my mind is just perpetually in the gutter. Maybe this was a perfectly innocent children's movie. Maybe.