Harry Potter and the President

I recently took my family to see the newest Harry Potter movie. As usual we all enjoyed it very much. In this installment of the series Harry and his friends go up against the latest Defense against the Dark Arts instructor, Deloris Umbridge. At first glance she appears as a smiling, unassuming woman who just wants to be everyone’s friend. Her true, more devious nature soon reveals itself and I found her to be extremely creepy and un-nerving. While her whole attitude and behavior was unsettling, some examples of her dark behavior are noteworthy: (no real spoilers here)

-Umbridge threatens to label a fellow professor as being an “uncooperative” in regards to the will of the Ministry when she openly questions Umbridge’s methods.

-She is in complete denial of the very real dangers that loom in the world, all the while wasting her time trying to force everyone else to conform to behavioral standards that she professes to uphold.

-She demands Order, at least her version of it, at the expense of free-will and individuality.

-If she wishes to do something and finds herself prohibited from doing so by law, she is quite willing, even eager, to either have that law changed to allow her to do what she wants or to simply disregard that particular law all together.

After watching the movie, I couldn’t help but see more than few similarities between the behavior of the Umbridge character and our current president. I guess art does imitate life.