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Darn kids and their Muggle clothes
Jun. 9th, 2006 08:09 pmI read some comment somewhere that quoted the bit from GoF that said Molly and Arthur didn't wear Muggle clothes, but their kids did on holidays. This person positied a cultural shift, where the younger generation is more comfortable with Muggle stuff than the older ones, which sounds reasonable. With a quarter of the school being Muggle-born and half being half-blood, it would be pretty weird if none of the kids ever wore jeans on the holidays. (I'm guessing the statistics were more in the purebloods' favor decades ago. Or if not, that there was an even bigger effort to reeducate the kids once they got to Hogwarts. Or something.)
This reminded me of another comment somewhere (yeah, I'm good at remembering where I heard things today!) that wondered whether Muggle culture is to wizards as hip-hop culture is to rich white kids. Hey, look at Bill and his "Muggle rock concert" getup. Can't you just imagine a twelve-year-old Bill thinking he's so rebellious and hip for wearing a t-shirt? And Molly yelling at him to stop dressing like a criminal lowlife and put on some proper robes? And what about Tonks shopping in a little rebellious, counterculture shop for that Weird Sisters t-shirt? (See, the Weird Sisters know the youth market! They're cool!)
Of course, you really can't make wizarding clothing make sense. Robes, but Muggle-style sweaters? Pants or no pants? Pureblood Neville wears them under his robes, Snape only wears (wore? might have changed his habits after that) underpants, and that guy at the Quidditch World Cup wears nothing. If even adult wizards understand sweaters (and maybe pants), why do they have such trouble dressing like Muggles? Couldn't Arthur have just worn one of Molly's sweaters and a pair of Bill's or somebody's jeans to the QWC and not had to ask Harry if he looked all right? And he's supposed to be the Muggle expert...
And what do they all wear to the train station? I really doubt the Ministry would insist people try to dress like Muggles to get to a bunch of fields in the middle of nowhere for the QWC, but let swarms of wizards into one very public and crowded train station in their robes. So really, shouldn't Arthur and Molly have the hang of Muggle clothing by now? Shouldn't the past several generations have figured it out just from the yearly trips?
Bah.
This reminded me of another comment somewhere (yeah, I'm good at remembering where I heard things today!) that wondered whether Muggle culture is to wizards as hip-hop culture is to rich white kids. Hey, look at Bill and his "Muggle rock concert" getup. Can't you just imagine a twelve-year-old Bill thinking he's so rebellious and hip for wearing a t-shirt? And Molly yelling at him to stop dressing like a criminal lowlife and put on some proper robes? And what about Tonks shopping in a little rebellious, counterculture shop for that Weird Sisters t-shirt? (See, the Weird Sisters know the youth market! They're cool!)
Of course, you really can't make wizarding clothing make sense. Robes, but Muggle-style sweaters? Pants or no pants? Pureblood Neville wears them under his robes, Snape only wears (wore? might have changed his habits after that) underpants, and that guy at the Quidditch World Cup wears nothing. If even adult wizards understand sweaters (and maybe pants), why do they have such trouble dressing like Muggles? Couldn't Arthur have just worn one of Molly's sweaters and a pair of Bill's or somebody's jeans to the QWC and not had to ask Harry if he looked all right? And he's supposed to be the Muggle expert...
And what do they all wear to the train station? I really doubt the Ministry would insist people try to dress like Muggles to get to a bunch of fields in the middle of nowhere for the QWC, but let swarms of wizards into one very public and crowded train station in their robes. So really, shouldn't Arthur and Molly have the hang of Muggle clothing by now? Shouldn't the past several generations have figured it out just from the yearly trips?
Bah.
