JK Rowling’s transphobia casts and inescapable shadow over the new Harry Potter adaptation.
I used to say that it didn’t matter. A person like JKR is so obscenely rich that the entire world could boycott all Harry Potter content and it wouldn’t affect her at all. But now she’s directly lobbying for hateful policies with her wealth. Now it truly is inexcusable.
And yet millions of fans will mindlessly tune in.
I’m gonna not watch it for exactly the same reason I didn’t watch Starfleet Academy.
You say that as if pirating isn’t a thing.
As we saw with Game of Thrones, even pirating testifies to the popularity of a property and generates revenue.
I wouldn’t even pirate this garbage
I rather pirate this so my friends and family won’t get tempted to give this cunt any money.
That’s a whole different discussion about the “seperate artist and art”-argument, not wether or not I want her to get any money off of it.
For example: EA is a garbage company but I’m a sucker for their open world formula so I have no problem pirating their games.
So about those House Elves. What did Rowling mean by that?
idk what you’re getting at specifically but I’m not pretending that it’s a perfect work of art with absolutely no flaws. Just that I can enjoy it without being constantly aware of real-world views of the author.
Because JK Rowling puts her real world views in her world. As a kid, I stopped reading the books halfway through and just assumed that the House Elves and SPEW storyline would be resolved by the House Elves being freed. By setting up that would be storyline and leaving it at status quo, Rowling is endorsing race based slavery.
There’s a lot of small story elements that can be brushed off if they stood alone, but together add up and reveal Rowling’s conservative word view. Hagrid is naturally violent, the sorting hat, there’s a whole school house for evil kids and not one of them ever breaks expectations… I could go on if I wasn’t on my phone.
My whole reason for dropping the books halfway through was nothing ever changed. It was frustrating.
is endorsing race based slavery.
Wouldn’t something similar affect most of Fantasy? In TLoTR there are many races that are evil, with no redeeming qualities whatever. The race makes them evil, endorsing some racists ideas too.
I actually don’t like most fantasy, but Lord of the Rings is a bad example of that. Most of the races are not evil, but had evil or faulty leadership. The Uruk-hai weren’t a natural race, but a corruption created by Sauron.
Most fantasy that do have evil races are descended from D&D, which has self described, biological determinist, Gary Gygax to blame.
By setting up that would be storyline and leaving it at status quo, Rowling is endorsing race based slavery.
Her point was to make a point about young people, when they quite often make the mistake of thinking that issues can be fixed easily. Making actual changes is hard and gradual work.
A brilliant thing to teach young people before they make that mistake, in my opinion. At least if you want them to make a difference.
No, that really wasn’t her point. That was my theory when I was reading it as a kid and when I dropped the books halfway though for being annoying, I had assumed that it would be addressed later. I was shocked when I learned it was never addressed. Did it seem right with you that the Weasleys wanted a house elf? How about when Hagrid used house elves to test for poison in foods? Or when Harry thought that Hermione was being annoying about her whole Civil Rights thing?
The house elf situation is actually really easy to fix. At least within Hogwarts. Dumbledore could have simply given them freedom and payed them to stay. Little Witch Academia did a House Elf story in 23 minutes that links to the greater season story arc. Reign of the Seven Spellblades did demihuman rights as a core part of it’s first story arc and world building.
Lisa Simpson is an example of having the right idea, but being too young to have a greater effect. The show depicts her as annoying, but right. Rowling depicts Hermione as wrong because she’s annoying.
Rowling is either a bad writer or a bad person if she couldn’t or choose not to address the slavery of the house elves in the seven books of the series.
Ok, and some people are able to put that aside and enjoy them anyway. If those people are pirating the content she gets no money. If those people are able to say “yeah, that part is bad/shit/wrong” then her shit beliefs aren’t being propagated.
The people who care about this sort of stuff are already aware. The people who don’t aren’t going to be reading articles like this anyway.
This discussion is about whether or not there are ethical ways to consume the content, not about the merits of the content itself, which is the rabbit hole you seem to be stuck in.
We know. We aren’t defending it. We’re just saying that it is possible to get the content in ways that don’t enrich the creator’s bank account, and it is possible to consume it without going “Rowling was right”.
nah. There are Harry Potter fans who’s world views are shaped by the franchise. To the extent that they’ll write articles defending the House Elf Slavery. Here’s one example. https://web.archive.org/web/20191002072741/https://www.pottermore.com/features/to-spew-or-not-to-spew-hermione-granger-and-the-pitfalls-of-activism
So your priorities are a wizard book for children that you like some of, then below that, in second place, the rights and lives of persecuted minorities.
“to the well trained mind, doing mental gymnastics to ignore harm to minorities is the next great adventure” - Professor Domblewomble, probably.
I’ll agree but also say even putting her aside, these look like they’re going to be garbage, the movies did not need a reboot. Just over a decade since they finished and they decide it’s time to reboot them
me neither but I will watch it if its conveniently free.
Cool.
Now tell me about how pirating Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is ethical consumption.I would read mein kampf but there is a bunch of other historical literature I should likely get around to first.
I read it.
I’m not an expert, but that guy was fucking bonkers
I’m okay with YOU thinking that’s unethical.
I think stuff about you too, all good
yeah I actually blocked him. Im leaning toward blocking if folks treat questionable things as the greatest trajedies in all of history.
Oh fuck, better tell every historian that’s ever read Mein Kampf that some guy online thinks they’re all nazis
Critique is different than consumption, but nice try bud
How do you accurately critique something without consuming it? You can’t analyze something critically without knowing what it is.
Edit: typo
False comparison. One is a children’s story (which does not mention the issue at hand) and the other is mein Kampf.
Children’s books are different because their intended audience is children! Apples and Oranges!
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Poisoning-young-minds-in-Nazi-Germany%3A-children-and-Corelli/198bafb16c54b40f9fd8e4c043df4327fb57c325Harry Potter does not mention trans or trans issues once dude. I read them cover to cover.
Tell that to the
House Nhouse ELF, slave… Or the Nazi Jewish caricatures running the banks… Or the dozens of other dog whistles in there.I get it, you’re ignorant and tolerate racism, sexism, misogyny, slavery…
Oh wait no I mean, Raceuffleism, Sexofflepuffletuffism, slavertifflepifflery, and misogynotiffery.
Yes trans and gay people don’t exist in the Harry Potter universe because they were all killed.Besides are you a pedophile or something? Why are you obsessed with some children’s story?
Disengage
Wow. The absolute insanities in jumps of logic. There’s no sense arguing with you.
Disengage
Reductio ad absurdum (Latin for “reduction to absurdity”) is a form of argumentation that disproves a statement by showing that its logical conclusion is absurd, contradictory, or untenable. It works by assuming a premise is true, following its logic to a ridiculous result, and thus proving the original premise false.
Yeah they’re two different things, that’s why I’m comparing them. That’s how comparing things works.
The similarity is: they are both biggoted pieces of fiction, and there is no ethical consumption of biggotry. Even if you pirated it.
Great, I have another concept then. Apples and oranges.
Both round sweet fruits. There are a lot of things you could say similarly about the two of them.
They’re as classic as unoriginal thought, cliches, and a stubborn refusal to be responsible for supporting racism, classism, and transphobia.
There is no ethical consumption.
