Joel Stein is a moron

Today's previously scheduled post about a particularly annoying alternative medicine huckster whose infomercials finally got on my nerves too much has been preempted by a brief rant about one man's stupidity (and the fact that I didn't finish the original post in time to post it today). We will return to our regularly scheduled posts on medicine, science, and skepticism tomorrow.

In the meantime, via Stupid Evil Bastard, I was directed to this op-ed by Joel Stein. Apparently Mr. Stein thinks that adults who enjoy the Harry Potter novels are, as he so quaintly puts it in the title of his op-ed, "stupid, stupid, stupid":

I read 50 pages of the first "Harry Potter" book, and it seemed witty, imaginative and fast-paced. It also seemed like it was for children. It's about wizards and magic cats and evil stepparents, and has a reading-level that is only slightly above this column.

So what if Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was aimed primarily at children? You know what one of the hardest things to write in literature is? A good children's story that entertains adults as much as it does children. (It's the same with movies, too; films that appeal to children and can entertain the parents as well are rare commodities because they're so hard to do well.) No less a literary figure than J.R.R. Tolkien did it with The Hobbit, which served as the prequel to The Lord of the Rings. I'm not sure if Mr. Stein was dissing just The Hobbit or all of Tolkien's work when he asked of Tolkien, E. B. White, and C. S. Lewis: "Isn't it a clue that you should be ashamed of reading these books past puberty when the adults who write them are hiding their first names?" However, I do wonder if he would say the same thing about E. L. Doctorow? In any case, the very statement shows the utter depths of his idiocy and vacuousness, particulary since he dismisses the Harry Potter in essence only because it was intended as a children's book and in spite of his recognition that it is "witty, imaginative, and fast-paced"! Gee, wouldn't a book that is "witty, imaginative, and fast-paced" be entertaining to read? And why does the fact that it's "about wizards and magic cats and evil stepparents" automatically make it only for children? Did it ever occur to Mr. Stein that perhaps the imagination and wit of J. K. Rowling's writing might--just might--possibly be one reason why her books turned out to be so popular among adults as well as children?

Not satisified with displaying his arrogance and stupidity for all to see, Mr. Stein had to go on to bury himself deeper by trying to use the popularity of the Harry Potter books as an indictment of the entire Baby Boomer generation:

After a generation of boomers choosing to remain in a state of stunted adolescence — wearing jeans, smoking pot and cranking their BMW stereos to blast Eminem songs they clearly don't like — the next generation has opted for a stunted toddlerhood. Adults see "Finding Nemo" without bothering with the socially accepted ruse of dragging an unwilling 11-year-old nephew along. Grown men play video games and couples go to Disneyworld on their honeymoon, often for reasons other than having sex in Cinderella's castle with the dwarfs watching. You need a wad of Disney Dollars for that one, by the way, 50th anniversary or no 50th anniversary.

There may be many reasons to disparage the Baby Boom generation (and they've probably all been used at one time or another), but the popularity of the Harry Potter books is not among them. I wonder if Mr. Stein would also direct his bile at all those adults who've watched, for example, The Wizard of Oz almost every year when it's on TV for the last 40 or 50 years. I would also point out to him that it wasn't just children who enjoyed those serials from the 1930's-1950's, such as Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon movies, and that my grandmother used to love the old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies until she was well into her 80's.

Stein has also clearly not even checked out the later books. J. K. Rowling grew as a writer as the Harry Potter series progressed. The third book contained a clever plot device involving time travel. In addition, the fourth and fifth novels no longer read like children's books and contained multilayered plots more emotional resonance in which Harry has to learn how to deal with death, particularly the end of the fifth book.

If Mr. Stein were to make fun of me for enjoying the latest Harry Potter novel, I'd look him right in the eye, smile, and tell him I have an M.D., a Ph.D.; treat patients with cancer; and run a laboratory that studies tumor angiogenesis. Then I'd mention that reading this book is one of the things I enjoy in my limited spare time before inquiring of him what his level of education is and what great works of literature he's read lately for pleasure while preparing to appear on such erudite works as VH1's I Love the '80's (or I Love the '90's or I love whatever decade). What, Mr. Stein? You mean to tell me that you don't frequently read Herman Melville, Shakespeare, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Leo Tolstoy, or the like for pleasure in your spare time? I'm disappointed.

Finally, I'd turn my back on him and resume enjoying the novel.