Ginny Weasley and the Half-Written Heroine

I watched Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and wrote this after much thought and consideration to one of my favorite characters in Book 6. Don't worry there are no spoilers, so read and comment. I'd love to hear what people think about this.

Word. What happened to Ginny Weasley? After watching the sixth installment of the Harry Potter series, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”, I have to question some of the choices made by screenplay writer Steve Kloves and director David
Yates. The feat of trying to turn a book that gives readers the chance to imagine the impossible into a movie seems daunting. I recognize that things must change to allow the writers to cram an intense story into two-ish hours for a typical audience with a short attention span.

Also, I have never been one to advocate the comparison of movie adaptations to their original texts. Undoubtedly the book is always better, but both can be entertaining when appreciated separately.

The Half-Blood Prince was entertaining and by many accounts a great film. I laughed. I cried. I got frustrated. But mostly I wondered why Ginny Weasley was portrayed in the film as a domesticated, subservient female. Granted my English graduate courses could be tainting my thought process, but I think something is going on here.

Throughout the series, J.K. Rowling hardly ever writes a weak female character. All of them seem to be wand-waiving, danger-facing, opinion-stating women. Hermione Granger is characterized as the top of her class and is just as brave as Harry Potter. Bellatrix Lestrange is second only to Voldemort in her evil nature and heartlessness. Mrs. Weasley is daring, strong, and powerful as the mother figure of the story.

In the books, Ginny Weasley is written as an equal to Harry Potter. She is a devil-may-care kind of girl with ambition, determination, strength and talent. Ginny knows what she wants and she usually takes it. In fact, she is the one that initiates an actual relationship with Harry.

In the movie, however, Ginny loses her backbone. We see one moment of strength when she calls the Quidditch team to attention, but after this, she becomes a servant to Harry. While the following scenes are meant to be romantic, they come off only as awkward and forced. When Harry goes to the Weasley’s house for Christmas, Ginny hand feeds Harry a piece of tart. It does set up a rather funny scenario with Ron Weasley and is sort of romantic, but could it instead imply that Ginny is a tart herself? She later bends to Harry’s feet and ties his shoe for him. Weird? Yes! In one of the longest scenes they have together, Ginny helps Harry hide his potions book. Acting as a soft-spoken temptress, she sneaks a kiss and disappears.

Maybe these sorts of things are secret desires of a young man’s heart, but shoelace tying doesn’t seem very appealing when a real interaction between Ginny and Harry could have been written to show the real connection between them. The pizzazz Ginny has written into her character virtually disappears in the film (pun intended). The once strong, independent young woman turns into the handmaiden of the Chosen One. I, for one, don’t buy it. While other critics call attention to a passionless performance from Daniel Radcliffe, or praise the movie for its artful directing, I want to call attention the absence of our daring female love interest.