entanglingbriars:

choppywaterswiftboats:

cryptid-sighting:

cryptid-sighting:

cryptid-sighting:

I was just a little bit too old to really get into it by the US release of the first Harry Potter book, so I never read those books until quite recently (2016) and I was really surprised when I finally read them. I thought Harry Potter was supposed to be like, this model for nerds and outcasts, but instead he’s a dumb jock who’s famous for being famous. And he wants to be a cop (which is at least consistent).

There’s something really off-putting and mean about it. It’s “ethically mean spirited” as Ursula Le Guin remarked when asked her impressions of the series, and a better writer might have been able to take that and Say Something about the hierarchy of life as teenage, but JKR is just not able to think through the implications of anything she writes whether that’s the antisemitic implications of goblin bankers, why Dumbledore sent Harry back to his horrible family instead of placing an anonymous tip to muggle child protective services, or why Harry Potter’s shit for brains attitude is always, always rewarded and what that tells her more impressionable audience.

Five years ago, I couldn’t figure it, but with what we’ve learned about JKR’s politics in the mean time, it makes perfect sense.

It’s not just that Harry isn’t particularly bright that’s troubling, but the fact that he treats his friend who isn’t a dullard as a pain in the ass, except for when he needs to exploit her book smarts for something because he didn’t fucking study.

He’s the kid who doesn’t do the reading, acts disengaged through most of the class, but then when the big test comes around he’s cribbing off whatever sap is willing to put up with his shit, whether due to insecurity or pity or some combination of the two.

For all the faults in her writing on a structural level, JKR has a very specific world view that comes across very clearly without making it superliminal a la Ayn Rand. 

Fundamentally, her world view is shaped by being a lower middle class Briton who resented the class system while also idolizing it. It’s the Chris Hitchens disease (not the one that killed him, the other one). She hates power and is fascinated by power. A very fraught relationship.

So instead of making Harry this special boy who upsets the order of the Wizarding World with his otherness, his arrival is actually celebrated and makes him an instant sensation because it represents a return of normality and order. She wants to make him a rebel, but she can’t actually have him challenge power in any way because power is constantly valorized in these books. His biggest ally is the headmaster of his exclusive private school (or would it be a public school in British vernacular?). So instead she makes him a cut-up and a delinquent who’s misbehavior is constantly hand-waved by everyone, except the one hard-ass professor who absolutely has Harry pegged except that professor happens to be a former Nazi so we can’t really sympathize with him, no can we?

The whole thing is a fantasy for suffering lower middle class British kids who dream of secretly having a peerage even as they resent the class system for all the opportunities it’s denied them and doors its slammed in their face. It’s an extremely British point of view and it’s not really surprising most American readers are oblivious to it, but at the same time it’s weird that more critics haven’t pointed it out. 

This point of view perfectly unites the three main political causes Rowling has taken up: empire fetishism, austerity politics, and TERFism, all hallmarks of middle class British social climbers. Rowling has of course made it long ago, made it far further up the ladder than Hitchens ever did, and is fantastically wealthy beyond the dreams of many of the peers she once might have envied (and maybe still does). Still, the basic grubby insecurity of the class position she lived in for years before her big break remains, which explains a lot about how she sees higher taxes as some kind of personal affront, above and beyond what even many rich people born into money would see them as. 

quick question, have I gone insane? are people actually taking this seriously? the effort it took to twist the message of the books into one of pro-status quo conservatism when all the text is about fighting classism and racism and intolerance…

but to be fair this post does have genuinely funny moments, like how op seems to base some of their argument for JK Rowling being pro-status quo on how she writes Harry getting help from his smart friend for homework, disengaged in class sometimes, interested in sports…. basically just for being an average student LMFAO WHAT

(I apologize for the length of this post. I tried to put it under the cut but wasn’t given the option).

Harry Potter as a text is more complex than OP gives it credit for (to be fair, they stopped halfway through Goblet of Fire so they didn’t get exposed to some of the really weird stuff). Specifically, there are serious tensions among different themes in the series. So yes, Harry Potter has a strong theme that racism and intolerance are bad. That is absolutely an element in the text. But the text also has a strong theme that the society it depicts is basically good .

Something that happens frequently in literature is that the author will incorporate a strong theme or element into their work without realizing it. That’s one of the reasons Tolkien rejected allegory in favor of applicability. And an extremely strong theme in Harry Potter is that the system is broken, but given how the series ends (more on that below), I don’t think JKR realized she created a broken society.

(I need to stress that the following analysis relies on the assumption that one of the purposes of Harry Potter is to depict a society–the British wizarding world–in order to critique an actual one–modern Britain. There are legitimate reasons to reject such a reading, and while I think my assumption is correct, I’m not interested in defending it here.)

As I noted in my earlier addition to this post “Again and again throughout the middle books of the series, the society of British wizards is shown to have clear, gaping, structural flaws.” But while the text repeatedly points to those flaws, it consistently addresses them superficially. As a fundamentally liberal text, Harry Potter tends to depict racism in the wizarding world as a matter of individual people subscribing to incorrect beliefs, rather than the “reality” of a society in which bigotry actively serves the interests of the ruling class.

For example, there is never any sense that pure-bloods significantly benefit from the marginalization of muggle-borns; this is in part because there is never any sense that muggle-borns are significantly marginalized. Pure-blood supremacy is limited to Slytherins and everyone else thinks it’s stupid. That’s not how racism works on a societal level.

Think also about the closing words of the series, “All was well.” But what did we see in the epilogue? Harry, Ron, and Hermione as fully-integrated members of a system that the text clearly says needs huge structural reforms. A bunch of people crowded on Platform 9 ¾ sending their kids to an elite private school that has literal slaves to take care of them. A society that continues to treat muggles as toys to play with (I’m thinking here of Ron charming his way through his driver’s test). The basic system has not been changed. And yet, “All was well.”

Because for Harry, Ron, and Hermione, it is. They’ve created a place for themselves within the wizarding world where they can benefit from the “clear, gaping, structural flaws” that the series so carefully points to but never significantly challenges.

The best definition I’ve come across for liberalism is “the belief that problem with the ruling class is that it is insufficiently diverse.” Liberalism is pro-status quo while also being against racism, homophobia, sexism, etc because it sees those as incidental to the status quo rather than essential building blocks of it.

cryptid-sighting:

entanglingbriars:

cryptid-sighting:

cryptid-sighting:

cryptid-sighting:

I was just a little bit too old to really get into it by the US release of the first Harry Potter book, so I never read those books until quite recently (2016) and I was really surprised when I finally read them. I thought Harry Potter was supposed to be like, this model for nerds and outcasts, but instead he’s a dumb jock who’s famous for being famous. And he wants to be a cop (which is at least consistent).

There’s something really off-putting and mean about it. It’s “ethically mean spirited” as Ursula Le Guin remarked when asked her impressions of the series, and a better writer might have been able to take that and Say Something about the hierarchy of life as teenage, but JKR is just not able to think through the implications of anything she writes whether that’s the antisemitic implications of goblin bankers, why Dumbledore sent Harry back to his horrible family instead of placing an anonymous tip to muggle child protective services, or why Harry Potter’s shit for brains attitude is always, always rewarded and what that tells her more impressionable audience.

Five years ago, I couldn’t figure it, but with what we’ve learned about JKR’s politics in the mean time, it makes perfect sense.

It’s not just that Harry isn’t particularly bright that’s troubling, but the fact that he treats his friend who isn’t a dullard as a pain in the ass, except for when he needs to exploit her book smarts for something because he didn’t fucking study.

He’s the kid who doesn’t do the reading, acts disengaged through most of the class, but then when the big test comes around he’s cribbing off whatever sap is willing to put up with his shit, whether due to insecurity or pity or some combination of the two.

For all the faults in her writing on a structural level, JKR has a very specific world view that comes across very clearly without making it superliminal a la Ayn Rand. 

Fundamentally, her world view is shaped by being a lower middle class Briton who resented the class system while also idolizing it. It’s the Chris Hitchens disease (not the one that killed him, the other one). She hates power and is fascinated by power. A very fraught relationship.

So instead of making Harry this special boy who upsets the order of the Wizarding World with his otherness, his arrival is actually celebrated and makes him an instant sensation because it represents a return of normality and order. She wants to make him a rebel, but she can’t actually have him challenge power in any way because power is constantly valorized in these books. His biggest ally is the headmaster of his exclusive private school (or would it be a public school in British vernacular?). So instead she makes him a cut-up and a delinquent who’s misbehavior is constantly hand-waved by everyone, except the one hard-ass professor who absolutely has Harry pegged except that professor happens to be a former Nazi so we can’t really sympathize with him, no can we?

The whole thing is a fantasy for suffering lower middle class British kids who dream of secretly having a peerage even as they resent the class system for all the opportunities it’s denied them and doors its slammed in their face. It’s an extremely British point of view and it’s not really surprising most American readers are oblivious to it, but at the same time it’s weird that more critics haven’t pointed it out. 

This point of view perfectly unites the three main political causes Rowling has taken up: empire fetishism, austerity politics, and TERFism, all hallmarks of middle class British social climbers. Rowling has of course made it long ago, made it far further up the ladder than Hitchens ever did, and is fantastically wealthy beyond the dreams of many of the peers she once might have envied (and maybe still does). Still, the basic grubby insecurity of the class position she lived in for years before her big break remains, which explains a lot about how she sees higher taxes as some kind of personal affront, above and beyond what even many rich people born into money would see them as. 

I think it’s also crucial to look at JKR in terms of where she existed fiscally and socially when she wrote Philosopher’s Stove and where she did by Deathly Hallows.Philosopher’s StoneandChamber of Secrets focus far more on Harry’s internal experience of the clash between his Muggle and wizard existences. That clash remains in the other books, but it becomes more and more artificial; Harry’s assimilation into the wizarding world parallels JKR’s assimilation into wealth, fame, and power (not perfectly, obviously).

The author of Chamber of Secrets presents house elf slavery as an unequivocal evil, but by the time she became the author of Goblet of Fire the implications of widespread slavery in wealthy wizard households became far more problematic to who JKR saw herself to be. The author of Goblet of Fire wasn’t able to condemn the various things that house elves symbolize about modern Britain because she was now part of those things. The author of Deathly Hallows couldn’t even bear Kreacher hating Harry; so Kreacher went from being someone who bought into pureblood supremacy to someone whose support of purebloods was nothing more than loyalty to the ideology of those who treated him well.

Again and again throughout the middle books of the series, the society of British wizards is shown to have clear, gaping, structural flaws. But as JKR became increasingly wealthy, she began to profit from the clear, gaping, structural flaws in the real world that her fictitious one paralleled. The injustice in Chamber of Secrets of Hagrid’s expulsion fifty years ago and his imprisonment during the book itself is very different from the injustice Harry faces in Order of the Phoenix, where he is able to escape from being framed unscathed and the consequences he suffers afterward are purely social; he is not treated to the same systemic injustice Hagrid received because JKR could no longer acknowledge those systems in the way she did previously.

This is a really good addition, which I rather missed having lost interest in the series half way through Goblet of Fire (for reasons that are alluded to here).

daughter-of-sapph0:

dat-physics-boi:

c0zm0zg4m3z:

fullyfunctionalminiaturebeehive:

daughter-of-sapph0:

it’s really disappointing how people’s critique of jkr starts and ends with her transphobia, and they completely ignore her blatant antisemitism, racism, homophobia, slavery apologism, sympathy for the wizard nazis, (the wizard nazi incel) snape’s redemption, the villain of fantastic beasts trying to stop the holocaust, and the new game literally being a rehash of the blood libel myth.

&her ableism, fatphobia, classism, and general naked imperialism(look at things like the “thunderbird” in fantastic beasts, or anything and everything she’s ever said or done about Scotland, for example)

This ass-hat has actually lobbied against things like “letting disabled people survive” and “the colonised nation I live in taking steps toward independence.”

Oh, and you already mentioned it, but - antisemitism, again. Cannot stress the antisemitism enough because, holy fuck she’s so antisemitic!

as a trans person this is is so important to look at and spread bc us trans people are not the only people affected, and we need to band together to spread awareness about the full extent of JKRs bigotry.

JKR is the example of why death of the author needs to be a thing sometimes.

Butch Hartman is another.

Hartman and rowling are very different. I made the same example in a different post comparing jkr to Markus Pearson, but jkr is still incredibly connected to the hairy potty franchise, makes money off of every single sale for any piece of media or merch, and her bigotry is inside the books and movies and games at full force.

Hartman on the other hand, while he is transphobic and annoying as shit, he hasn’t made any money on anything relating to Danny Phantom in years. sure there are those shitty fairly odd parents movie and new cartoon, but honestly they look like shit and most fans of the original show probably don’t give as shit. at the same time, there’s no real transphobia in Danny Phantom, and actually a lot of unintentional subtext the hints that Danny is trans. compare that with Hermione being seen as annoying and crazy for wanting to free slaves, the only Chinese characters name being two Korean surnames, lycanthropy is supposed to be an allegory for hiv and one of the characters literally infects children with it, and all the extreme antisemitism in the books movies and games. you cannot separate that shit from the creator because her bigotry is intertwined with the work.

Oh i totally agree that they’re in different leagues of shitty people, no doubt.

And that’s why my tags said “We take aspects of their works“ not their entirety.

A magical world with a secret society of wizards and a school where kids learn magic is a cool concept, you gotta admit. Of course, the pro slavery (house elves) antisemitism (the goblins), misogyny (i mean, just look at the schools besides hogwarts in goblet of fire, like come on) and many other things detract from the execution; but we’re taking the basic concept and some names and writing cool fanfics anyway, fuck the author.

c0zm0zg4m3z:

fullyfunctionalminiaturebeehive:

daughter-of-sapph0:

it’s really disappointing how people’s critique of jkr starts and ends with her transphobia, and they completely ignore her blatant antisemitism, racism, homophobia, slavery apologism, sympathy for the wizard nazis, (the wizard nazi incel) snape’s redemption, the villain of fantastic beasts trying to stop the holocaust, and the new game literally being a rehash of the blood libel myth.

&her ableism, fatphobia, classism, and general naked imperialism(look at things like the “thunderbird” in fantastic beasts, or anything and everything she’s ever said or done about Scotland, for example)

This ass-hat has actually lobbied against things like “letting disabled people survive” and “the colonised nation I live in taking steps toward independence.”

Oh, and you already mentioned it, but - antisemitism, again. Cannot stress the antisemitism enough because, holy fuck she’s so antisemitic!

as a trans person this is is so important to look at and spread bc us trans people are not the only people affected, and we need to band together to spread awareness about the full extent of JKRs bigotry.

JKR is the example of why death of the author needs to be a thing sometimes.

Butch Hartman is another.

celtic-pyro:

exigencelost:

exigencelost:

I maintain that Hey There Delilah by Plain White Tees is a 450% better song if it’s about a guy who’s lost custody of his daughter

Literally every lyric has so much more Energies if it’s sung to a child I’m gonna die on this hill. “Hey there, Delilah /Don’t you worry about the distance /I’m right there if you get lonely /Give this song another listen” and “Hey there, Delilah/ I know times are gettin’ hard /But just believe me, girl / Someday I’ll pay the bills with this guitar / We’ll have it good /We’ll have the life we knew we would / My word is good” like? He’s trying to get his daughter back? Idk if she’s with the other parent or in foster care or what but it’s So Much I have a lot of feelings about this. The repeated promises, “I’d walk to you if I had no other way” and“I’m right there when you get lonely” when, like, obviously, he’s not, and he’s just sort of desperately hoping that she still understands that he loves her, and that she doesn’t feel abandoned. And then, “Delilah, I can promise you /That by the time that we get through / The world will never ever be the same /And you’re to blame” that’s so fucking sweet? That’s such a sweet thing to say to your daughter. Romance is over. Noncustodial parental love songs are where it’s at. 

This is what “death of the author” means. We know that’s not what the song was written about, but what if it was? What if we explored the lyrics as though the speaker was a heartbroken father missing his daughter? It changes EVERYTHING. And it’s so good.

Anyway, OP you are wonderful and I love you.

Hace algunas semanas dije que iba a hablar de Joker y que iba a ser un poco diferente a lo que suelo hacer en el blog. Ha pasado más tiempo del que pretendía…

La historia es que vi la película Joker y, aunque tuve sentimientos encontrados, me dejó buen sabor de boca. Mis sentimientos encontrados vienen en parte porque soy fan de Batman y fue duro ver el tratamiento que recibieron los Wayne, en particular Thomas Wayne. Sin embargo, admito que, de no ser esta una película ligada al universo DC, mi descontento se hubiera reducido en un 32%.

Después de ver una película como Joker, normalmente me gusta discutirla y diseccionarla y luego voy a YouTube, donde sé que existen decenas de vídeos dedicados a diseccionar películas, para tener nuevos puntos de vista. En la lista de vídeos estaba una crítica de treinta minutos titulada “Well, I didn’t like Joker” (“Bueno, no me gusto Joker”). Hasta aquí todo bien. Justo debajo de ese vídeo había una respuesta de once horas (¡¡¡once horas!!!) al primer vídeo.

Obviamente, como soy una cotilla a la que le encanta el drama, vi el primero e hice un intento de ver el segundo (son once horas. Es casi un día entero si descontamos horas de sueño en fin de semana y tengo cosas mejores que hacer). Las críticas en el primer vídeo eran opiniones sobre el aspecto de la película, la música, el vestuario y las decisiones de los actores. Nada excesivamente profundo o relacionado con un hipotético mensaje derivado de la historia. El segundo vídeo, sin embargo, desacreditaba el primero precisamente por esa ausencia de profundidad en el análisis, alegando que la primera youtuber estaba ignorando el mensaje de la película y las intenciones del director, y por lo tanto, la crítica era inválida. Y aquí me dio por pensar, ¿realmente existe tal cosa como una crítica inválida? Y si es así, ¿qué hace que una crítica valga menos que otra?

Vamos a empezar con la primera queja de la respuesta de once horas (la primera que yo sepa. Reitero que me niego a ver el vídeo entero): las observaciones no son profundas.

Una película es un método de contar una historia. Las historias tienen un mensaje y un argumento para hacernos llegar ese mensaje. Algunas tienen incluso moraleja o un intento de abrir un debate. Por otro lado, el cine es un medio visual principalmente. El método utilizado (por medio de la cinematografía, el vestuario, y el sonido) también forma parte del mensaje. Se podrían haber tomado mil decisiones diferentes en cuanto a esos elementos y posiblemente habrían cambiado nuestra percepción de la historia.

Se puede hacer una crítica que se centre únicamente en el tema y el mensaje? En mi busqueda de vídeos sobre el Joker vi un total de cuatro que cumplen este requisito (y esos son sólo los que yo vi. Seguramente hay más), pero estos vídeos no cuentan con respuestas de once horas que cuestionan su legitimidad. Admito que la ausencia de respuestas no signica nada y sería una falacia sacar conclusiones de este hecho. Pero si asumimos que una crítica que se centra sólo en el producto final de una película (la conclusión de la audiencia) es legítima, ¿por qué no sería legítima una crítica que cuestiona la metodología sin tocar la otra parte? 

“Las películas y la televisión son medios visuales. No son únicamente sobre de argumento, caracterización y tema. La escritura analítica sobre cine y televisión debería incorporar cierta discusión sobre los medios por los cuales el argumento avanza, los personajes se desarrollan, los temas se exploran. Debería dedicar algo de espacio, una pequeña parte del recuento de palabras, a la composición, la edición, la música, la decoración, la iluminación, el ritmo general y la atmósfera de la pieza.
Si no es simplemente un informe o un panfleto político que resulta tratar sobre el cine o la televisión. Es literalmente una crítica sobre un medio visual. Sólo alcanza la mitad de su potencial, si acaso. Y no hace nada por ayudar al espectador a entender cómo una obra evoca un sentimiento en particular al verla.”

       Matt Zoller Seitz

El segundo punto que trataron fue una supuesta falta de comprensión del mensaje que el director quería transmitir.

Partiendo de la base de que cada uno es dueño de sus opiniones, y es imposible tener control sobre las opiniones de los demás, ¿existe una opinión equivocada cuando se trata un tema subjetivo? E incluso más relacionado con el tema, ¿es la intención del creador relevante en absoluto cuando interpretamos arte?

Todos los autores tienen una intención cuando crean una pieza de arte, y su trabajo es transmitir esa intención o ese mensaje. Pero, si la falta de habilidad o de medios hacen que falle esa transmisión, ¿tiene la audiencia derecho a ignorar las declaraciones hechas por el creador y basar su interpretación únicamente en aquellos aspectos presentes en la obra?

Aquí entramos en el terreno de “La Muerte del Autor” y la intención autorial.

“El diseño o la intención del autor no está disponible ni es deseable como un estándar para juzgar el éxito de una obra literaria.”

      Wimsatt y Monroe Beardsley en su ensayo “The Intentional Fallacy

Un ejemplo notable es JK Rowling y sus innumerables anotaciones a Harry Potter años después de la publicación de los libros. Dumbledore puede ser gay según sus declaraciones, pero si no esta añadido a la historia, ¿es homófobo entender lo contrario? JK puede hablar de la raza de Hermione, ¿pero sería racista decir lo contrario cuando no existen pruebas en los libros que soporten las declaraciones? Veo que me estoy metiendo en un cenagal, así que lo dejaré en interrogación.

Basándonos únicamente en aquellos aspectos que realmente forman parte de la obra, cualquier opinión e interpretación es valida siempre que no contradiga contenido explicito, y el creador se convierte simplemente en una voz mas cuyo valor no difiere de un consumidor cualquiera.

Mi conclusión es que cualquier opinión, trate el aspecto que trate y sin importar el rigor, es válida siempre que no contradiga contenido explícito expresado en la película.

Sé que este tipo de artículo es muy distinto a lo que suelo hacer. Técnicamente no he analizado la película sino las reacciones a la película. Últimamente me encuentro con menos contenido nuevo sobre el que hablar, quizá por la falta de estrenos debido a la cuarentena, así que me apetecía debatir un poco sobre la forma en que consumimos entretenimiento. 

Si este pequeño experimento da frutos, puede que lo próximo sea hablar de Por 13 Razones y GTA.

Como he dicho antes, esto es un debate. Si alguien quiere dar su opinion, me encantará seguir hablando de este tema.

b-ko-daitokuji:

caterfree10:

b-ko-daitokuji:

caterfree10:

b-ko-daitokuji:

freedom-of-fanfic:

unpopularfanopinion:

I will never stop thinking it’s extremely fucked up that creators will get less credit and more shit, for trying to be progressive and inclusive but falling short in some way, than creators who don’t try at all.

And they will never not ‘fall short’ because no creation will accurately reflect the experience and worldview of every member of a marginalized group that’s depicted. Marginalized people are also individuals with wildly different lives from one another, after all.

But of course we don’t tear apart creations that only have white cis straight able characters. We don’t even notice that they’re not even bothering to try … and when we do, too many of us shrug and think it’s too much work to try to make them change.

Instead we do what everyone else already does: pick on the people who are trying because we know they care.

(But when we’re all doing that, with the huge amount of access that modern social media gives us to creators, it’s clear that pressure is nigh unbearable.)

You mean the people who believe in “Death of the Author” treat authors like crap?  How surprising.

Death of the Author means letting their work speak for itself instead of insisting the creator’s intent is the only reading worth anything. It doesn’t mean the creator is expendable, and that’s not how it’s supposed to be used in any kind of proper critique. If someone IS using Death of the Author to excuse shitting on a creator, then they’re a piece of shit who needs to grow up tbfh.

Death of the Author does exactly that.  It’s stealing people’s work from them so it can be critiqued in absurd ways that have nothing to do with their intent or even often the words on the page so Marxists in academia can push their propagandizing on their students in exchange for money stolen form them for a product that has no value in the career marketplace.  It’s applying communists’ disrespect for the individual on fiction, and it’s disgusting.  The fact anyone would defend it is cringe-inducing and perhaps evidence you  are still a neophyte that is naive to the true nature of academia.

Creators are not gods who get to override other people, I’m sorry to inform you. Different people are going to have different readings of the same piece of fiction. Even on a basic fandom level, it’s how we get various groups of people thinking completely different ships are going to be canon (or not) even though they all consumed the same piece of media.

This isn’t about liberal or conservative “propaganda”, it’s basic facts about how media and media consumption works. It’s how literary analysis works. Surely you’ve seen posts that went something like this:

Someone: the curtains are blue to demonstrate the character’s depression.

The author: I just chose blue because I liked the color and so does the character, it’s their room ffs.

And the thing is, both can be correct. Just because two people see a work of fiction differently doesn’t mean one is right and one is wrong. They’re just two views on the same work. Death of the Author just allows for more interpretations than just the creator’s vision. Bc creators are not gods and their words are not laws of nature.

It’s not stealing a piece of work away from an author when they’re sharing it with the world by publishing it. Someone interpreting a work differently than the author intended isn’t stealing work away from them either. If the idea that someone might interpret something differently than you, then I sincerely hope you’re not a creator of any media.

Creators are not gods who get to override other people

Hell yes, they are.  They’re the gods of their stories.  That’s the entire point of being an author, to be in control of your own fictional world.  The fact you think the reader and the author are on the same level is some new level of brainwashing.  Really, pull your head out of that academic fog and reassess this.  Your view point is beyond entitled, and the point of OP has completely flown over your head.

This isn’t about liberal or conservative “propaganda”

Academia is filled to the brim with Marxists who want to create a world in which individual people are not allowed to own property.  Death of the Author is just an extension of that applied to fictional works.  You’re right about one thing though, the left stopped being liberal a very long time ago as OP indicates.

Someone: the curtains are blue to demonstrate the character’s depression.

The author: I just chose blue because I liked the color and so does the character, it’s their room ffs.

And the thing is, both can be correct.

Incorrect.  The author is correct.  The reader is inventing meaning that doesn’t exist in the first place.  While they are allowed to do that, it doesn’t CHANGE the original work.  Only the author can do that.  The fact you think such an illogical conclusion is actually logical again points back to the fact you haven’t spent enough time in the real world post-English department to deprogram yourself from these absurd academic concepts.  Jesus, it took me only a few months to realize this stuff was garbage when I left grad school.

Death of the Author just allows for more interpretations than just the creator’s vision.

The fact academics invented a device to allow themselves to create more worthless critique and discourse doesn’t mean the idea isn’t completely idiotic.  Of course these entitled, self-important academics want to be able to invent things they can talk about after the author is dead.  It gives them the ability to keep getting that big fat paycheck from much poorer students who are actually naive enough to think these people are authorities on something when in actuality they’re pulling it all out of their butts.  Just because I say Moby Dick is actually about modern identity politics and the whale represents white privilege doesn’t make it true, but through your own argument that interpretation matters as much as Melville’s.  Give me a break.

It’s not stealing a piece of work away from an author when they’re sharing it with the world by publishing it.

It’s stealing when they take their work away from them, completely change the meaning, twist their words into something that was never intended or even implied and then tell others that it’s some kind of truth regarding the work.  It’s definitely a form of theft.

I sincerely hope you’re not a creator of any media.

I am, and I doubt anyone with your mindset has the ability to create since you don’t believe in the ability of the author to create meaning for their own words.  And while we’re hoping for things as a way of throwing thinly veiled insults, I hope you never become a parent because your disrespect for the individual and what the individual can accomplish independently would be disastrous in regards to raising another human being that can actually achieve success in life.

electracraft:

“do NOT tag this generic textpost i made with fandom stuff” my brother in christ you’re posting on tumblr 

prokopetz:

Death of the author: Treating the author’s stated interpretation of their own work as merely one opinion among many, rather than the authoritative Word of God.

Disappearance of the author: Treating the context and circumstances of the work’s authorship as entirely irrelevant with respect to its interpretation, as though the work had popped into existence fully formed just moments ago.

Taxidermy of the author: Working backwards from a particular interpretation of the work to draw conclusions about what the context and circumstances of its authorship must have been.

Undeath of the author: Holding the author personally responsible for every possible reading of their work, even ones they could not reasonably have anticipated at the time of its authorship.

Frankenstein’s Monster of the author: Drawing conclusions about authorial intent based on elements that are present only in subsequent adaptations by other authors.

Weekend at Bernie’s of the author: Insisting that the author would personally endorse your interpretation of the work if they happened to be present.

jonnywaistcoat:

So, since I have returned to this site, I’ve seen a few people going “oh no! what if Jonny looks at My Posts with the judgemental eyes of The Creator?! what if he reblogs me out of nowhere to the scorn of millions?”

Thus, in the interests of assuaging the growing Climate of Fear, I have composed the following

List of ways Jonny will be interacting with Tumblr dot com

Things Jonny will do

• Shitpost / reblog shitposts
• Answer asks that catch my fancy
• Promote current projects or appearances

Things Jonny MIGHT do occasionally if the mood takes him

• Quietly browse tags of finished projects (Magnus, Mechs, etc.)
• Engage with posts that specifically @ me

Things Jonny almost certainly won’t do, but not going to swear to it

• Answer asks about past projects (I’ve done plenty of Q&As and prefer to let them stand on their own)
• Meaningfully engage with fandom stuff

Things Jonny will NEVERdo

• Look at anything tagged #do not archive
• Let you know whether or not I have seen your weird post about me or my work. You will never know.

Hope that clears things up and establishes that you have nothing to fear from my presence here. It’s fine. Go about your business. All is well.

neoflect:

rather than death of the author i subscribe to a critical framework i like to refer to as Schrodinger’s Author where the authors intentions are important except for when i dont like them

fireleaptfromhousetohouse:

the-grey-tribe:

the-grey-tribe:

dagny-hashtaggart:

the-grey-tribe:

Death of the Author - We don’t care what the author says he wanted the work to mean. We let the work speak for itself.

Weekend at Bernie’s of the Author - We don’t care what the author said. The authorial intent must be whatever we found in the work. (h/t @raggedjackscarlet)

Cryonic Stasis of the Author - The author is actually dead for a long time. Nobody gets all the references any more, but my literature teacher told me I have to take the context at the time into account, so I got a book that explains the work, instead of letting it speak for itself.

Frankenstein’s Monster of the Author - We let the work sort of speak for itself. We ignore what the author said about the intent behind the work. Instead we will use the author’s tweets on unrelated issues in order to ascribe intent and meaning to the work.

Night of the Living Dead Authors - Teeeeeeeeeeeeexts

Vampirism of the Author - The author reads a clever but far-fetched interpretation of his work and decides that it will become canon.

Near Death Experience of the Author - The author wants the work to speak for itself, but after a long period of restraint and silence, says that while the work still stands for itself, some interpretations of it are just plain wrong.

Faked Death of the Author - Author adopts pseudonym, explains intent as a series of YouTube fan theory videos.

Schroedinger’s Cat of the Author - The author publicly confirms that the ending was meant to be ambiguous all along.

Attempted Suicide of the Author - The author tells you that he wants the work to speak for itself; also he’s a huge Roland Barthes fanboy.

Suicide of the Author - The author admits that the story was not meant to be that deep and all meaning is accidental.

Necromancy of the Author - If author is dead, finding some similar literary figure and seeing what they reckon about the work’s authorial intent

Necrophilia of the Author - Slashfic - not all of it, just when it concerns a cartoonishly obvious sexual relationship that was for some reason not explicit and canonical in the original work

Induced Coma of the Author - The author stays quiet to see if we can work it out, as a test

Suicide-by-cop of the Author - The work concerns, or seems to concern, a hot-button issue. Some vast cultural institution decides what the real meaning of the work is, regardless of anything the author says or any basis in the text itself. This interpretation becomes the best-known and most widely accepted reading (cf. that comic about English class that ends ‘The curtains were fucking blue’)