One of the more ubiquitous subjects in the news recently has been the debut of Daniel Radcliffe, the young actor who plays Harry Potter in the movies, in London’s West End revival of the 1973 play Equus. The role requires the seventeen-year-old to strip completely naked onstage and simulate various modes of sexual activity with himself, an actress, and a man dressed as a horse—all very controversial but very integral to the dark and complex psychological themes of a play many consider a masterpiece.
The furor that has surrounded this casting decision since it was announced last July has been remarkable in itself, with one side screaming art and one side screaming perversion and a third side (generally female and teenaged) just screaming; but what is really interesting about it is the media coverage. There is nothing like a very focused but high-profile event to illuminate the inner workings of the fourth estate.
In Radcliffe’s case, the outpouring of coverage has been instructive on many levels. First, there is the fact that it is happening at all. What with the war in Iraq, global warming, and the continuing fallout from last November’s elections, you would think that there would be more important things to devote so much paper, airtime, and bandwidth to. However, the combination of celebrity, youth, and prurient interest in this story has been too much for even the most august news outlet to ignore.
Then there is the media’s approach to the subject. The typical headline heralds “Harry Potter [not Daniel Radcliffe] Naked!” (or some variation thereof) and employs a double entendre involving some implement of wizardry.
Also notable are the acquisition (or invention) and application of facts. Like a game of telephone, in which a message is passed along a line of people until it is distorted out of all recognition, information about Radcliffe, the play, and public response to either drifts further from accuracy as the reporting moves further from its original sources. The derivative quality of most of the stories can be seen in the endless repetition of the same two or three quotes from indignant parents, even as servers crash all over the internet from the onslaught of other reactions worldwide. Some writers recycle quotes from earlier reports as if they were just uttered, and a few even knit together pieces of old quotes to make new ones. Few reporters demonstrate even the passing familiarity with Equus that would have been conferred by a glance at Wikipedia; most absurdly portray the actor riding onstage, Godiva-like, on an actual horse.
After awhile, one begins to question if one can even tell what is really going on in this story. Is it about a mature artistic decision on the part of a genuinely talented young man to advance his career? Or is it about the cynical exploitation of a boy susceptible to flattery about what some describe as unexceptional acting abilities, for the purpose of selling tickets?
His publicist says that the play is not about nudity; yet the only promotional photos released so far have been of Radcliffe shirtless or (in carefully cropped images) totally nude, some with an equally nude actress. Producer David Pugh emphasizes how impressed he and director Thea Sharrock are with the youth’s body, and rhapsodizes about his six-pack. Perhaps one news story notes this apparent inconsistency.
Is displaying himself unclothed and acting out sexual activity before some nine hundred people eight times a week for four months a perfectly natural and artistically justifiable occupation for a boy barely out of puberty to engage in, or is the experience likely to be damaging to him in years to come? The producers have an obvious interest in having us believe the former, and the actor himself says he is “fine about it,” but Pugh, who sometimes seems to reveal more than he intends, has been sending mixed messages. On the day the photos are released, he is quoted as saying Radcliffe had “no hesitancy about taking his clothes off.” A day or two later, he describes the boy as a little “shy and nervous” at first. The following week, he comments, “Quite frankly, I'd have been scared witless, too.” The media dutifully report the remarks but do not note their evolution.
All of this adds up to an elegant little demonstration of the power of the press—its power to decide what is news, to choose the spirit in which to present it, to select sources, to report and apply facts more or less accurately. It is the power to produce hundreds, if not thousands, of reports on a subject as though it should be of great significance to us all and then to guide us to larger questions and challenge us to think about them—or fail to so guide and challenge us.
Inane though it may seem, I can’t help but think that, like other tempests in teapots, the Harry Potter Naked! phenomenon is a pretty good representation in miniature of an actual media storm. I think this when I see titillating or momentarily dramatic events breathlessly reported in dozens of media venues for days as if all of our destinies hinge on them before they vanish from the public eye, never to be heard about again. I think this when I read political analysis that consists of quotes from three guys in a convenience store and some random grandmother interviewed while walking her dog. I think this especially when I switch between networks during the evening news and find all of them reporting the same stories, in the same order, with the same sources and the same emphasis.
As the features in this month’s issue of Public Opinion Pros suggest, the news has everything to do with how we perceive our world and what happens in it, how we act on what we learn, and the effects of those perceptions and actions on the fates and fortunes of many. More important, perhaps, than the stories that are told are the ones that are not, the ones that are not told correctly, and the ones whose authors obliviously allow themselves to be steered by someone else's agenda. Harry Potter naked may be guaranteed to draw a crowd—but he’s not the actual story, and he’s way overexposed. In dangerous times like these, there shouldn't be so much horseplay.
—Lisa Ferraro Parmelee, Editor
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