Abstract
The relationship between film and national identity is an enduring topic of scholarly interest. Focusing on British national identity in particular, Sarah Street discusses the important role of film: ‘we have inherited a dominant conception of what it is to be British…which has, in part, been constructed by cultural referents including cinema’ (2009: 1). With this in mind, what role might the British characters and settings in the hugely successful Harry Potter film franchise have played in forming ideas about British national identity?This thesis uses textual analysis of the Harry Potter film paratexts (promotional materials surrounding the films) in an attempt to answer this question. Phil Wickham explains the usefulness of this approach arguing that analysing these types of materials ‘can make meaning and provide historical evidence of the place of a film in its world and in the lives of those who saw it’ (2010: 316). These texts can tell us how the film’s visual representations of traditional Britishness were framed for audiences at the time, even for those who never even ended up seeing the films.
This thesis presents an analysis of paratexts surrounding the first and final two films of the series. This provides a sense of how the series’ representations of traditional Britishness were first introduced to audiences and how their legacy was later established through long-standing experiential paratexts.
| Date of Award | 28 Sept 2021 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Jacqueline Maingard (Supervisor) & Sarah C J Street (Supervisor) |
Keywords
- paratexts
- representation
- Britishness
- Harry Potter