Crooked Table Podcast: ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’ (featuring Amy Otero)

The real-life political climate bleeds into the Wizarding World this week. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is very much a political commentary. So guest Amy Otero and I did our very best to stay focused on the movie at hand. As it turned out, neither of us realized just how relevant director David Yates’ first Harry Potter movie would be.

If Year Four represents Harry’s loss of innocence, then this next film sees the boy wizard and his friend brave the dark and complex real world for the very first time. We’ll talk about how Dumbledore’s Army speaks to today’s world, why Imelda Staunton’s Dolores Umbridge is worse than Lord Voldemort, and what Luna Lovegood (Evanna Lynch) brings to the group.

So get ready to be inducted into a secret society of wizard revolutionaries because darkness is on the rise. It’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

SYNOPSIS

Now in his fifth year at Hogwarts, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) learns that many in the wizarding community do not know the truth of his encounter with Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes). Fearing Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) is after his job Cornelius Fudge (Robert Hardy), minister of magic, appoints Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton), as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts. But her teaching is deficient and her methods cruel. So Harry prepares a group of students to defend the school against a rising tide of evil.