JK Rowling, in addition to being a terrible person, is such a fascinating case study in how quickly someone can tank an extremely successful career. I have neverseen anyone fuck themselves over so deliberately and so effectively as she has. The last Fantastic Beasts movie made a franchise-low $655 million across the globe. With a $200 million budget, the movie was basically a box-office flop. This is in hugecontrast to the first FB movie, which was extremely successful (and released before her transphobia came fully into light).
Also, the way that JKR is treated on social media is unique. While pretty much every author and high-profile figure has antis, JKR has pretty much exclusivelyantis. With the exception of some TERF groups, no one supports her. Her fanshate her. The actors from the original HP movies have denounced her. Other authors that got opportunities because of the Harry Potter franchise have denounced her. It’s insane.
And what’s more insane is that she LITERALLY could have avoided this by just shutting up. Most famous figures have controversies- they eventually blow over with most of the world because they a) know when to stop talking, or b) change and grow.
Not JKR! If anything, she gets LOUDER every time people tell her she’s wrong. Get criticised for liking a TERFy comment? Make a transphobic post. Criticised for that post? Write an anti-trans manifesto. Begin to die down in the public eye? Time for another Tweet about the horrors of Penised Individuals™. Shit is crazy and I struggle to see any way that she isn’t purposefully sabotaging herself at this point as a martyr for TERFdom.
Sheclearlythinks of herself as a martyr who is going down for some revolution that does not exist. This is the story of someone martyring themselves. And I feel simultaneously horrified (for obvious reasons) and clinically fascinated to watch it happen.
How do the producers of Fantastic Beasts (including Joanne herself) not realize that writing scripts in which magical beasts are important enough to validate human decisions is totally at odds with the world she already created in which magical humans literally have more right to personhood and legal representation than even any other humanoid within their society? Meanwhile actual non-humanoid creatures are literally enslaved, imprisoned, and put to death at the whim of humans…
There is nothing that annoyed me about JKR than people calling her a feminist. Because even if you decide to ignore her transphobia (which is not feminist), I implore you to read the way women and girls are written in HP, especially Cho Chang and Fleur Delacour. The racism, the xenophobia, the internalized misogyny, the pick-me-girl energy, unmatchable. Those two characters are literally describes as “they’re conventionally attractive, so every guy loves them, but not for their personality because they’re annoying, and every girl hates them”, it’s quite pathetic. When she wants the reader to not like a girl/classmate who isn’t r*cist, she uses a stereotype used against women. Lavender is a too clingy girlfriend, Fleur is centered on her appearance, Cho likes cringy pink hearts decorations… She can say she’s a feminist, but she’s not.
There really are very few on-page positive female-female interactions. Ginny and Luna and Ginny and Hermione’s friendships are very tell not show. Fleur, Lavender and Parvati are figures of fun. Pansy hates Millicent. McGonagall hates Trelawney. Everyone hates Rita Skeeter. Tonks only has male friends and coworkers, as does Harry’s mother and Ron’s mother. Hermione’s mother is a non-entity. We see no female goblins, centaurs or werewolves. There’s only two female Death Eaters and I’m not sure they ever share page space.
Isn’t it interesting that Rowling chooses to let Harry, her star protagonist, commit two out of the three Unforgivable Curses during the course of the story, while still a teenager, and face no punishment?
Wasn’t one of the huge red flags about Voldemort that he tortured others with no remorse, just to satisfy his own curiosity or emotional desires?
Harry Potter, our hero, clearly has a whole lesson about Crucio, Imperio and Avada Kedavra in Goblet of Fire, in which he learns, aged 14, that each curse carries a life sentence. In the same class, he witnesses the cruel impact of each curse used on an animal.
Nonetheless, the very next year is the first time Harry tries to cast Crucio, the torture curse, on another human. At the age of 15.
We know from the great detail that the lesson goes into that the sole purpose of Crucio is to cause pain. Harry does not use Crucio to try and obtain information. He uses it to hurt a woman who he dislikes (albeit for valid reasons).
The very next year, Harry again uses Crucio against an adult he dislikes, deliberately in order to inflict pain. Yes, it’s during combat. But he is knowingly breaking the law of his land. Is he banking on his celebrity status to be above the law?
Finally, in his seventh year, Harry uses Crucio against an adult for the third time. This time, he hurts the adult so much that they become unconscious from the pain. Amycus Carrow had insulted a woman Harry liked in front of him.
In case anyone has forgotten, immediately after finishing school, Harry Potter takes a career in law enforcement. There’s no suggestion he faces any punishment whatsoever for what are essentially war crimes. Is this what JK Rowling intended?
I wonder what Neville thinks about his friend’s actions, given his personal history with Crucio? Isn’t a central theme of Harry Potter “do the ends justify the means?” What does the rule of law mean if members of law enforcement are given carte blanche to commit war crimes with no punishment?
Doesn’t that retroactively excuse Dolores Umbridge’s actions when she herself, representing the law, attempts to bait Harry into committing a crime and threatens him with torture?
Shall we even get into the issues of Hermione committing kidnap and blackmail, Ron stealing, the Weasley twins underage gambling? Maybe Harry Potter isn’t the Good series it makes itself out to be when such morally grey characters are the central protagonists and the legal system rewards them.
I didn’t care about Harry Potter enough to know this before watching Shaun’s video on it but apparently the protagonist not only becomes a cop but also gets a slave at some point?
What are people on when they see this as an anti-authoritarian story?
The more it seems like she actually did get wrongfooted by fans’ positive response to her queercoded characters Remus Lupin and Tonks and decided as punishment for queer fans to squash any prospect of those characters being queer by hurrying them into a heterosexual marriage, having them have a child and then quickly die offscreen - giving both a book full of angst beforehand.
The fact that they had to get married first before having a kid also speaks volumes…
After watchingShaun’s fascinating video about Harry Potter it really struck me regarding Joanne Rowling being a neoliberal against cultural change…
After Harry frees Dobby from enslavement, making him nominally ‘a free elf’ who can be paid for his labour, supposedly because the concept of someone being enslaved is wrong and horrible… he himself never pays Dobby for any of the tasks he then asks of him!
This pretty much softens the message off the bat from Slavery is Wrong, to Being a Slave to an Abusive Master is wrong, Slaves should be treated politely while they labour for you for free! Jesus Christ Joanne…
if you’re still a harry potter fan in 2021 but “anti jkr” idgaf. we’ve told y’all for YEARS that the series is racist, antisemitic, heteronormative despite claiming to be progressive, ableist, misogynistic, etc.
I’m tired of being expected to coddle y’all for having bruised egos when your crusty little fandom is half the reason anti-trans laws are being made. go sit with the terfs, that’s clearly where you belong
