Post name reminds me of one of the very first Onion News Network videos: Victim In Fatal Car Accident Tragically Not Glenn Beck
Glass of Gin? This cunt is like a bottle of flavored water away, shit.
who’s going to be the brave soul that gives her that bottle
Rich person asshole, more at 11
Are we sure JK is a terf? Is it possible it’s actually Barty Crouch Jr., posting from her account? Has she been compulsively drinking from a flask in person?
Can I ask what terf means?
Trans-exclusionary radical feminist.
We are sure she is TE. Not sure about the RF.
Rowling is a nasty cunt. (making this my motto)
Fits nicely on a bumper sticker.
Some people can be real JK Rowlings (derogatory)
If people could stop centering their entire lives around a mediocre piece of entertainment and letting themselves being spoonfed art in the form of capitalist “Franchises”, maybe people like Rowling wouldnt get this much undeserved attention.
Yes. Decry the fact she has a platform. By commenting on a post about her… Thus amplifying her reach and her platform.
Or perhaps join the rest of us and call out her shitty views any time she is mentioned helping to ensure her platform is at least also used to amplify dissenting views.
Or just not comment if all you’re trying to do is be super edgy or whatever.
It feels like people make loving or hating this literally a core part of their personality, and is a good model of the enshittification of the internet. The more one side pushes, the further the other side pushes back. A new species has emerged from the mingling of internet trolls and keyboard warriors. I’m going to call it the internet troglodyte. Constantly inflamatory and escalating conflict, the trog does not troll for the lulz, but they have such strong opinions they must share them everywhere every chance they have, often harming the cause they purport while turning online spaces into echo chambers.
Maybe I wasn’t clear, I don’t think calling out Rowling’s shitty views is part of the problem. What I was trying to point at was that fandoms are just a means of marketing and people are too uncritical about how capitalism interferes with art. People are getting steered towards “investing” time and attention into something that isn’t really worth it, and the author, unable to follow up the success because she really isn’t that talented, instead clamps on the attention by putting out edgy political statements.
Or just not comment if all you’re trying to do is be super edgy or whatever.
Telling lemmy not to be super edgy is a losing battle, friend.
Or maybe we could let parents know whose books they’re reading to their kids.
This is what happens when you get the gender identity ideology bullshit people running countries, others get pissed and then “radicalized”.
Downvote as much as you can but note that society won’t function in the basis of people identifying as apache helicopters, “they/them”, replacing “mother” by “person giving birth”, a complete social division caused by everyone identifying as some minority group, drag queens dancing for children in schools and stuff like what happened in the olympic games.
One can’t offend an Islamist foreigner with a light joke about his religion but then the organization of an event financed by most of the world can force some Brazilian surfer to remove a picture of jesus from his board* because it is a religious symbol while the same fucks decide to create an opening ceremony that is essentially a satire against the same religion? lol
* Note that the picture of Jesus in question is not only a religious thing but also an important cultural landmark of Brazil even for non religious people.
How considerate, consistent and mentally stable those people are. lol
If anyone wants some fun reading … click through the link they provided and just have fun.
Hey, you’re offending me! Stop it! I’m going to melt down! I’m not a “they”, I’m a “he” . 🌈
I don’t know who has different pronouns than you and hurt you but I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for.
You are just trying to defend your trans hate. Guess what? Trans people and drag queens (drag queens usually arent trans) exist. The zombie you worship doesnt.
I’m not hating on anyone, besides International Olympic Committee, as those pieces of shit have no problem bitching about a surfer having jesus on his board and at the same time decide to mock an entire religion on the opening ceremony. How come you don’t see something wrong with that logic?
Anyways, why would you choose a minority like that doing a performance like that one for the “ceremony”? Since when does it represent anyone besides the said minority?
What’s wrong with representing that minority?
Lol you said the quiet part out loud:
“Minorities dont deserve representation”
So sad they didnt pander to your views, must have made you feel all small and afraid.
“Minorities dont deserve representation”
Why should they? If you’ve a majority that’s the culture that should be represented not a minority instead. This applies to everything in life not only ideologies.
The opening ceremony wasn’t mocking any religion, it was an homage to Dionysus.
Saying you can’t offend a religious person but then getting offended by a misunderstanding of an artistic ceremony is peak irony.
The rest of your comment reads like a fox news host going for a hate filled misinformation speed run record, so I don’t think there’s any point trying to point out logical inconsistencies or try to show you that we’re not the boogey man (or the boogie non binary people) you hate us being. Hopefully you can stop listening to the rhetoric that actually causes division, meet some real life trans or non-binary people (like me, I’m not easily offended but will call you out for being intolerant) and touch grass.
The same law the French use to remove the religious images in public, is the law they use to demand Muslims don’t have public displays and must further integrate into France’s secular public culture. There is an exception to the rule, historically significant displays of religion can’t be removed. The only historically significant displays in France are all Catholic displays.
This does mean they have to make people remove non historical images of any nature, a surfboard isn’t 100 year old.
Do you need a Midol? Holy shit the butt hurt over nonbinary people existing.
Are you ok?
I am, but the IOC people aren’t for sure. Why would you choose a minority like that doing a performance like that one for the “ceremony”? Since when does it represent anyone besides the said minority? Why would you allow a minority to mock an entire religion that for better or worse is the largest religion in Europe? Makes no sense whatsoever.
Bottom line is: those in power keep pushing these bullshits and then regular, normal people otherwise tolerant and open to minorities and different ideas start to be radicalized - after all everyone has a limit on mockery against their culture.
What do you have against minorities? Seriously… please explain this.
Nothing, but why should they be on display when they are… a minority?
Because it makes bigots like you mad.
Why do you care so much? It’s not normal, my man. Are you getting out enough? This isn’t healthy.
Because… nobody can say “we’ve lost people” while voting for people who push this kind of bullshit that will then “radicalize” the same people they’ll say that are lost.
Your comments are pretty weird dude, you might want to do some self reflection. This kind of attitude takes a lot of effort and drives people away. You could be doing something better for you right now.
Your comments are pretty weird dude, you might want to do some self reflection
Yet nobody provided an explanation / answer to my question above. Maybe I’m the only one actually doing some self reflection there…
Just consider it, sometimes it’s better to go out then stew in this. Why are you being so aggressive towards strangers? That’s not normal, my friend.
When the answer to your over caffeinated skreed of internal misunderstandings is ‘you clearly don’t understand what’s going on, this is what’s going on’, then you don’t register that as an answer?
Here answer my question first, why are you the man named Jeffery S. McMillan, so in love with Susan Thorton (22f apprentice cobbler) that your willing to move to Amsterdam on the future date of May 5, 2024? Explain yourself!
No one has pointed out how stupid your specific post is because the entire internet has spent the past week pointing out how the Olympics opening ceremony had absolutely nothing to do with jesus. If you are choosing to ignore facts so that you can maintain your dumbass persecution complex, then there’s no reason for us to keep pointing it out to you. Instead we’re just going to mock your stupidity.
You still think France, a former colony of Rome, doing the opening ceremonies to The Olympics, a tradition started by the ancient Greeks, using images of Dionysius, The Greek god of wine and festivities, was a mockery of Christianity, in one of the most Catholic countries that’s ever existed. Your DELUSIONAL, maybe consider therapy.
and stuff like what happened in the olympic games.
Oh, shit! I didn’t hear about this. How many people died?
Nobody, and that’s kind of the point. Imagine the games were hold in the UAE, I’m 100% sure a ton people would’ve died after that performance.
What performance? (I’m out of the loop.)
ETA: I tried a search. Is this about the boxer? The rapist volleyball player? The Taiwanese fan?
I posted the photo, but yeah you can read more about here and maybe view it on YouTube.
Wow, that’s… something. I read a bunch of articles about it, but it seems strange that nobody answers some really basic questions: Even if the scene was modeled on The Last Supper, so what? How is that mocking Christians? (I’ve seen more parodies of that painting than I can count.) The artistic director apparently denies it, so what motives are people alleging are his secret motives?
And, then, even if it was mockery, why does he (and presumably the performers) deserve death?
Catholics accuse trans people of being rude to them. What an impactful article, trans people really are doing catholics dirty.
Can you remind me how catholics treat LGBTQ people?
Yeah sure, let’s try to get this minority to do a live performance on a major event on some Islamic country and then we can discuss treatment.
Depends on how much she’s had to drink.
Much like my mother, she should have no access to phones or internet after a bottle of wine.
Nah, give her another bottle. Let it all come out. Ask some questions and get some real honest answers.
Neither should I tbh. Not that I turn into a racist or anything, I just end up sending random unfunny shit in old group chats and get in arguments with people online.
Good to know that I am not the only one doing this 😅
You do this after drinking, not before?
This is such a low-effort shitpost. “Person I don’t like probably thinks even worse thing than I’ve heard her say”
I’d argue that TERF-ism, especially JKR’s brand of it, has both classist and racist elements ingrained within it
The whole ideology is based around gatekeeping ‘womanhood’ to a single shared demographic experience, denying feminism to those outside of it
There are ways in which trans women have had differing experiences of femininity from cis women. But the same is true of black women of white women, etc
It might be explicitly anti-trans; but it’s implicitly anti-in-group
I think what the person on Twitter wrote is in response to Rowling going off on a rant about cisgender female boxer, Imane Khelif (from Algeria), in the Olympics, and insisting that she’s a man. Rowling’s tweet here. There’s an article here that outlines the response from the Olympics, and the other female boxer, Italian boxer Angela Carini, who lost to Imane Khelif.
Carini, however, said to reporters after the match: “I wish her to carry on until the end and that she can be happy … I am not here to judge or pass judgment. If an athlete is this way, and in that sense it’s not right or it is right, it’s not up to me to decide.”
And as that article also notes:
It’s also worth noting that it is illegal to be transgender in Algeria – so to peddle the information that the country would send a trans athlete to compete in the Olympics would frankly be laughable if it wasn’t so maddening.
And yet, at no point did she say or even infer “only white people can be women” nor bring race into the issue. The OP disagreeing with Rowling on transgender issues is absolutely fine, but to smear her by innuendo to associate her with also being racist is going too far.
It is also an example of the straw-man nonsense deployed by right wing extremists all the time; it’s disturbing to see the same tactics being deployed by the left or centre on twitter and then more disturbing to see it being upvoted and even justified here.
Seeing someone deny the womanhood of two women who aren’t white and calling that racist only seems like a smear if you aren’t familiar with the long history of associating femininity with whiteness, and more specifically associating black women with masculinity. Black girls and women are consistently viewed as more masculine and less innocent than white girls and women.
Waiting for JKR to say “I’m doing a racism” before calling things she’s said racist essentially means never calling her racist.
I hate that the tankies have stolen the phrase “blue MAGA”, because I came up with it to describe them and I thought It was pretty eloquent. They have very similar thought processes, just support different things.
That’s probably why they started using it, actually, to rob it if its descriptive power.
You mean imply, not infer. If you’re going to use big words you don’t understand to try and sound smart, look them up in the dictionary first.
There is a history of racists denying non-white women their womanhood. See Michelle Obama.
Is she racist too?
Racist? No. Racist™? Yes.
The last I heard, she’s starting to associate with Nazis, so probably
How long before we start hearing her spout that old canard about “well, as much as I disagree with Nazis, at least they’re willing to speak honestly about the threat of <insert libelled minority group here>”? I believe this naziwashing manner of argumentation is called the Sam Harris Code-Injection Exploit.
Or my personal favourite: “Given how much society and the media have lied about trans people being human beings, I’ve now started to question everything else I’ve been told, such as the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines and the truth about the Holocaust”.
I think Graham Linehan has actually said that about vaccines and climate change, that he now questions them because most of society doesn’t agree with his vicious bigotry about trans people. JKR isn’t far behind him.
I don’t know whether she is actually racist herself or not, but she is definitely willing to promote racists like Christopher Rufo and Matt Walsh so long as she sees them as being on her side regarding her hatred of trans people. On that basis I don’t think it much matters what she actually believes, what’s she doing is spreading racism
She started with ‘the Nazi’s didn’t target transgender people’ which is…
You know, provably wrong.
And since she’s hanging out with more and more Nazi’s, it’s getting worse.
Great compassionate discussion.
Big time:
- Asian character with a nonsense name that sounds like Ching Chong
- black character Kingsley Shacklebolt (MLK Shackles)
- Jewish character named Goldstein
- Jewish stereotype goblins
- Irish character who’s obsessed with whiskey and explosives.
- she went on Pottermore and explained that Skinwalkers are actually just misunderstood wizards, and the native american muggles were wrong to oppress the skinwalkers
- her designs of the international magic schools are ignorant nonsense
Christ, what a bunch of contrived bollocks. Who’s the irish guy with the whiskey? Seamus? I don’t even know if he mentions it once. And his spells blowing up is just the films.
What’s the skinwalker thing from?
It’s not so much that he’s INTO blowing things up, more so that his spell work is often atrocious enough that things just explode.
I actually have a headcanon to explain this. We can sort of weakly infer that magic is influenced by the caster as well as just the incantation. Lily did a lot of stuff with flowers (even before she could control it properly), Hermione’s magic is always particularly detailed, Ginny seems to have a penchant for nasty hexes, Lockhart is inexplicably good at memory charms. Maybe something about Seamus’ magic just naturally gravitates towards exploding?
Never have I identified with Seamus as much as I do now
That all seems very weak.
I’ve avoided the Rowling stuff for a long time, but lemmy’s hated of her is just so vitriolic I decided to look into it. It’s ALL very weak. I don’t agree with Rowling, but I don’t think she’s a bigot. I do think she’s having a natural reaction to being viciously attacked online. And I think her initial comments were an illogical fear brought about by her own sexual trauma. In a sane world, we would react by saying “I understand you’re scared but that’s just not rational, I suggest you work on it with your therapist” instead of death threats.
J.K.'s initial comment was perfectly fine. She simply said that being born a woman and transitioning are different life experiences, and pretending they are the same does a disservice to both. The backlash to that was irrational. And for someone who’d spent years being told by the vast majority that she’s the greatest thing for child literacy since the printing press - her ego just couldn’t handle it. So we set her up to fail with a one-two punch. All that said, she did take that bait quick, and at this point she just acts like another billionaire internet troll.
I meant her concern about bathrooms. Realistically, having separate bathrooms for men and women at all is a weird cultural vestige. Being worried about assaults specifically in bathrooms is a product of Rowlings trauma.
But yes, similar deal with her comments about cis women and trans women having different life experiences. Trans women are women, but there are many different kinds of women, and it’s perfectly fine to acknowledge differences.
that said, she did take that bait quick,
Yeah and that’s unfortunate. I kind of get it, if you’re being viciously attacked online unjustly, there’s a desire to say “well fuck it, you lot suck but there’s a different ideology who loves me”. But you have to resist that comfortable feeling of finding an in-group. Sometimes you have to be okay just being hated by everyone, if the people on “your side” decide for whatever reason to ostracize you.
And his spells blowing up is just the films.
Wait, wasn’t there explosion by Seamus somewhere in first book?
So, once? It happens to a few others, probably.
Irish character who’s obsessed with whiskey and explosives.
If you try to talk about Seamus, I don’t remember him making explosions intentionally. Obsession requires intention. Same with Lockheart’s explosion in second book.
- Jewish stereotype goblins
So also add speciesism?
i feel bad for all the people i know who got harry potter tattoos 15 years ago
I know several “ally” and one trans HP fan. They all just “separate the art of the artist” as cope. They’re also a bunch of adult children and I don’t really respect their opinions on media.
When you separate the art from the artist, you still have:
- a slaveowner cop main character
- an Asian named Ching Chong
- slavery abolitionism as a joke
- genetic superiority of certain characters (the bad guys were just wrong about which people are superior)
- rampant fatphobia
- Jewish goblin bankers
- slaves who like being enslaved
- slave heads decorated in Santa hats by the “good guys”
- freeing slaves is bad because they become alcoholics
- a black guy named MLK Shackles
- a Jewish guy named Goldstein (I did not have to change this name to make the racism more clear)
- none of the systemic issues that created the villain are ever addressed by the main characters beyond a surface level so nothing has actually been fixed, they’ve just delayed the takeover of society by fascists another generation or two
Ching Chong
This is so absurd I can’t help but laugh.
To be honest, I am Chinese and that easily can be a legit Chinese name.
This is why I said I don’t trust their opinions on media. This group lacks any media literacy and just looks for “roller coaster” type experiences. There’s so many better children’s/YA fantasy out there, many a direct response of HP, but to them, they’ll just be imitations to the sort of people who can’t read subtext.
It’s not that deep. It’s a fantasy world that people can suspend themselves in and each person has their own self made story. If we start nitpicking which fantasy worlds have done something politically motivated we would be left with literally nothing to read/watch.
JKR is an absolute cunt who has indeed damaged the image of the HP universe but for those who just care about that fantasy world because magic is cool that’s their get away from the hell that is real life.
If we start nitpicking which fantasy worlds have done something politically motivated we would be left with literally nothing to read/watch.
The above criticism of Harry Potter is hardly nitpicking. When so much of a setting is stained by bigotry like that, it’s time to move on. Some fantasy worlds are better/worse than others. The HP world is clearly up there with the worst because of the myriad of hateful sterotypes.
The problem isn’t that the world of Harry Potter is politically motivated. The problem is that it’s racist, transphobic, fatphobic, misogynist, and it’s centrally designed to accommodate a political philosophy of systemic inaction even as it directly and clearly shows us systemic problems that are never solved.
The first book was good, but after that point the books keep getting more mature and discussing bigger issues, while also refusing to have the protagonists do anything to help these issues on a permanent basis, even though some of them try! Hermione tries to abolish slavery and the author has to intervene to say no. Harry Potter is trying to be a complex and political story for big kids, and it promises political payoff to the political story arcs, but it consistently fails to deliver.
By the time of book 4 or so, the fantasy of Harry Potter is an imaginary world where nearly everyone sucks and nothing about the world or society ever gets better over time. That’s a depressing AF fantasy. People get stuck reliving the whimsy and delight of the first two books and don’t see that Harry Potter has become grimdark. They don’t see the art for what it is.
Racist I can see, but where did the other -ist and -ics come in to the story? Fatphobic? Are you talking about the part where his cousin just starts eating someone else’s birthday cake with his hands and gets magiked with a pig’s tail? Genuinely curious here, idk any of the hot garbage takes from Rowling herself since I never made and will never make a Twitter.
In book 4, Dudley is trying to lose weight. The narration says he’s “the size of a baby whale”, and constantly mocks him. Harry taunts him with food, and the Weasley twins give him magic candy that causes his tongue to swell to the size of an anaconda. Thing is, Dudley doesn’t actually do anything mean to Harry in this book. This treatment is retribution for abuse that happened years ago, and Dudley was and is a child.
The narration constantly insults women characters by calling them fat, saying they have “mannish hands”, and pointing out masculine facial features. When Rowling doesn’t like a woman, she calls her fat or masculine. In Harry Potter, moral failings are usually accompanied by failure to embody femininity.
Oh yeah. He did work on loosing weight. I really liked his redemtion arc and character by the end of the books. Yeah, that was retribution from children to children. Felt very “Lord of the Flies” esque when I was reading it. I wouldn’t call that fatphobia myself, but I understand your perspective better. Thanks for the quick response.
Why? I have a HP tattoo and don’t regret it. The fandom has gone past the author at this point. She’s a hateful removed but that doesn’t mean that we can’t still love the world and characters she created. We’ve made it our own.
I am once again asking you to please read a different book
Except she still gets royalties and uses those to donate to political organizations, so you know
Political organisations like Remain
Why not sail the high seas?
AARGH MATEY!!!🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
Tons of ways to enjoy the fandom without giving her any money.
I’m happy for you being able to pretend these things are separate from the weird cringe asshole who created it. personally, hp shit just makes me think bigot
Better apply that energy to other things, too.
Like the rolling stones? You’re a pedophile.
Enjoy Top Gun? You support scientology.
Ever played any Blizzard game? You support sexual harassment.
Ever ate anything related to Nestle? You support slavery.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. You better get used to it.
Pretty much everything you listed is a convenience that can fairly easily be cut out of your life. Except for Nestlé, because keeping tracking of what brands are under any given food companies umbrella is not an easy task and the lack of competition means that oftentimes there are simply no good alternatives.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, but that doesn’t mean that I’m under any obligation to respect somebody who continues to give money to an author who has openly said that they consider buying their merchandise as explicit support of their politics and donates a portion of their proceeds to extremist political groups with ties to far-right Christian groups in the US. The same as I’m not obligated to respect Republicans who say that they’re not racist, homophobic, etc, but still continue to vote for extremist candidates year after year who openly run on bigoted policies.
It’s one thing to have no alternatives to buy or to simply not know of an issue with a company, it’s an entirely different thing to continue to buy something from a company because it would be a minor inconvenience to avoid them.
Nobody is saying that we should go without things that make us happy, but there are plenty of other books to read, movies to watch, and games to play that don’t support the FART.
Enjoying Harry Potter doesn’t mean they have to engage with JK Rowling.
It can mean talking about it with fans, getting a tattoo, cosplaying, or just rereading a book.
If you see a harry potter tattoo and the first thing you think is “bigot”, youre just a prejudiced dickface.
donates a portion of their proceeds to extremist political groups with ties to far-right Christian groups in the US.
Where can I read more about this?
Not really a part of this conversation but I just wanted to say that I literally do subscribe to all these statements lol. I try to reduce harm where I can, and not playing a game made by Blizzard is so easy.
i don’t like the rolling stones or any of that other shit, but you make a good point. literally everything we do is immoral.
the thing is, i’m still going to shit on rowling and harry potter. YOU better get used to it
You’ll find most are particularly unconcerned about your fervent desire to shout into the Internet void. We’re not going to get used to it because we really don’t care.
Lol, then thanks for spreading hatred in an unjust system?
That’s super cool of you.
Youre using Lemmy right now, a system created by an unabashed tankie.
Congrats on the genocide support you fascist.
/s
You must not be able to enjoy anything from older than 20 years ago.
It is pretty unpleasant to be watching old media and be slapped in the face with overt homophobia and transphobia treated as a joke, thanks for your concern.
Or pretty much anything younger than 20 years ago either
back to the main point though: fuck j.k. rowling, and fuck harry potter
Last time I checked it was a little more complicated than that. I think the Wizarding World is now owned by WB, whereas Harry Potter is where Rowling gets royalties. That’s where the distinction between the two lives, which is why there are so many things being spun up lately.
I don’t know how involved she still is but I know back in 2010ish when universal was opening the wizarding world in Orlando they had to run all the design desicisions through Rowling. The park ended up changing the color of the name tags for just the workers in that area of the park because she thought the white on them was to bright.
At my last job, the only who was in his 50s or older and was nice to the trans employee had HP tattoos. He saw JK being a terf (we taught him the word) as her (referring to Rowling) own problem to solve.
You mean the world where slaves like to be slaves and trying to release them is wrong, apartheid is right because the other sentient people look different, the bankers are antisemitic stereotypes and the main character becomes a literal cop enforcing all this?
It’s really a magical world /s
None of that is correct.
- The slave thing was about brainwashing and exploitation, and how it’s wrong.
- I don’t know what you’re referring to with the apartheid thing.
- The goblins are antisemitic because they have big noses? That’s been a staple of goblin anatomy since they were created.
- The main character becomes an anti dark sorcerer guy, like counterterrorism, so nothing to do with enforcing all that gubbins anyway.
Oh, and thanks for the ‘/s’. You know, otherwise I really would’ve thought you were giving it a compliment after a full paragraph of invective.
apartheid is right because the other sentient people look different
This is what the fucking bad guys believe, it’s not like the books are advocating for apartheid. What the hell kind of criticism is this.
What species are allowed to use a wand and attend Hogwarts?
What other species has wizards?
At least goblins and giants and the wand ban is broad enough to imply more.
If they’re a reader of fanfiction that is typically one of the major changes to the story that’s done. Fanfiction has effectively rewritten the entire series to be more palatable at this point. Bonus points that you can read it without giving Rowling any money too.
can you please share where can I read that fanfic? :)
If the fanbase needs to rewrite the entire series to be “more palatable” that might indicate something about the series itself.
Might be time for people to just move on to a different series.
That’s a tall order with how most people act. Disney vibes anyone? There were few things that could capture a whole generation’s imagination so strongly, and people want to bond over it. My stance is taking what you like and making new things is how we get new series’s, and fanfic has it’s place in that.
hateful removed
[EXPLETIVE DELETED]
They instance they’re on automatically censors certain words the admins consider slurs. “Bitch” is one of them.
wow thats pretty unnecessary for regular swears lmao
Have you seen the two hour video by Shaun on the books? I highly recommend it for a look back on the books and the issues that we couldn’t have picked up on as kids but are pretty obvious on a reread.
They’re not as great as we remember them to be (if I have to read the phrase “mannish hands” or another word about a 16 year old girls “square jawline” again I think I might vomit) and if the best parts of the world are the bits created in spite of the author, why continue to associate it with her work. Obviously, it’s easier said than done when you’re talking about an entire community, but there’s plenty of other worlds created by nicer authors.
The best thing to come out of the series was the cast from the movies being as cool as they are today, but any time I think of the world, all I can think of is the token diversity characters named things like Shacklebolt and Cho Chang (almost, but not quite Ching Chong), the young Irish boy obsessed with whiskey and explosives, and the defense of slavery that’s identical to arguments from actual slave owners in the US.
Plus, there’s the whole thing with the hook-nosed bankers that totally aren’t Jewish stereotypes. You know who created a fantasy race based on Jews that doesn’t feel like an offensive stereotype? Tolkien. Tolkien’s dwarves are based on Jewish stereotypes, but don’t come off that way at all because of how they’re presented in the world.
Anyone who thinks “shacklebolt” is some sort of callback to slavery need to have their brain rebooted. That’s Qanon levels of pattern-finding.
While I agree with you in most things (especially the jewish stereotype, yikes) I must call you on the defense of slavery. I always got the impression we weren’t supposed to agree with the magic world view of house elves. I think the only point of Hermione going over the top was showing how something so hideous had become so normalized and accepted by good people in the magic world. Hermione being an outsider sees how fucked up it is and calls it.
Things are not black white. As fucked up as JK Rowling is, it doesn’t mean everything she says is bad. She tried to make some good points…others sucked ass. It is what it is.
To me, the Hermione thing had always felt like JK was trying to make her out to be a “blue hair/pronouns” feminist who shouldn’t be taken seriously and in the process she accidentally walked face first into making the same argument that actual slave owners made to justify themselves. I don’t think she intentionally meant to justify slavery, but she ended up there trying to criticize Hermione.
This is why I recommend Shaun’s video to people, as it tries to take an impartial look at the books. He points out how it feels like JK’s point of view shifts as the books go on, and she goes from criticizing the system to defending it as the money started rolling in and she began to benefit from that same system. But there are some constants with her open bigotry now even as far back as the first book, some of which I’ve already mentioned, like the stereotypical characters (which could easily come from growing up in a sheltered environment, but she claims to deeply research a culture before creating a character) and applying masculine traits as a negative to female characters. Whether or not she supports slavery we can only guess at as she’s never made a statement on the subject, and I can’t imagine that she does, but her bigotry can be seen to not be a recent development, just a more deeply entrenched or worsening belief.
One of the only freed house elves we hear about literally drinks herself to death because she can’t ‘handle’ freedom, which was a defense of slavery back in the day.
Also, even more eerily, Joanne has tried to retcon Hermione as black. When you then read her as the only character to try and free the house elves, something everyone makes fun of her for, it becomes EXTREMELY unsettling. Even if she weren’t black, it’s upsetting, and not because we’re meant to see how problematic the Wizarding World is. May I remind you, Harry also thinks she’s being crazy for trying to free them, and he’s just as much of an outsider as she is. When all characters from all walks of life in a work believe the same thing like this, it feels very much like it’s the author who believes it and is putting it into the work.
The other freed house elve Dobby is portrayed as a good meaning, but over the top eccentric, quite literally wearing a dozen hats in book 4.
Cool nonsequitur
Harry Potter tattoos have a higher regret rate than gender affirming surgeries.
That’s a low low bar to try to beat in the first place lol
Edit response: yeah it is very weird. Imagine getting a tattoo of Hitler’s (obvious exaggeration) paintings, and then have people come along to say they shouldn’t feel bad because “the fandom has gone past the author”.
I don’t think the people with tattoos should feel responsible, or bad about themselves in any way, but I would look at them sideways if they then were saying actively that there’s no part of them that’s sad or disappointed about getting it.
It’s a great example of why you shouldn’t get a tattoo of something that is intellectual property. It’s way too easy for that shit to get associated with bigots/hatred/etc down the line.
Another example: I’d love to eventually get a Star Trek tattoo. I can see the suits at CBS eventually burning the IP to the ground, sure. But they probably wouldn’t turn anything Star Trek related into a hate symbol. But what happens if it turns out that neo-nazis start using ferengi imagery to spread anti-semetic hate? You can’t guarantee your favorite skin art keeps the ethical values or meaning over the entirety of your life.
I’ve seen quite a few people with the old Carlsberg logo tattooed on their bodies. Imagine being a beer lover only to discover people think you’re a Nazi. /s
I don’t have to imagine. I’m a bald white man. People think I’m a cop or a Nazi. I’m the opposite. My only tattoo turns out to be used by Nazis as a symbol. Not commonly but I have seen it.
I go to Lowe’s a lot for work supplies. Workers there commonly tell me I’m forgetting my veteran’s discount. I have never been in the military. It’s crazy how people just try to put you in a bucket.
The fuck is this dense comment? Rowling being a cunt doesn’t change anything for Harry Potter. Jesus fucking Christ.
We lost nice people during covid, others like op prevail. It’s not fair.
Wishing someone dead, in public is always a dick move. Don’t you think, op?
(unless we’re talking about Josef Mengele and those kind of proven assholes. Then it’s allright.)
you mean like rowling wishes trans people dead?
I might have missed this. To you have any sources or quotes?
There’s a lot of dog whistles in these TERF/fascist-lite spaces, but one of the early items JKR advocated for was sending trans women to men’s prisons. You should be able to look this up, it’s well known. Would you not agree that that is wishing harm and/or death on trans women?
I’m sure there are plenty more dog whistles that have happened after that one that I’m not versed in, but hopefully that gives you a jumping off point in your fact checking. I’d recommend videos by Shaun, Jesse Gender, and ContraPoints if you are interested in more compilations and perspectives.
Used to work commissary in a local county jail (basically food delivery). There was a trans woman there that the county didn’t know how to deal with. She had fully transitioned, was extremely passable. The state doesn’t allow you to change your gender on your ID, so they stuck her in a men’s jail. Her first week there she was assaulted and spent 2 weeks in the infirmary, then they decided to put her in solitary confinement to keep her safe. Her choices were literally get beaten to death to go into solitary, something that’s considered literal torture in many parts of the world. She was there for petty shit, too, like possession of marijuana, iirc. Fuck transphobes, and fuck anyone advocating for women to be sent to men’s prisons.
How about fuck the prison system?
Obviously that, too. Fuck the prison system, abolish prisons.
If you think I’m going to feel bad for wishing a transphobic asshole with a large audience ill, the answer is I most certainly don’t.
Sad little duck that you are
So then only black people can be men?
Actually, some people have argued that we live in a multi-gender society through racism. Black women are denied white femininity, and black men are denied black masculinity. Some feminists make the case that black woman and black man are nonbinary genders in the way they are assigned to people.
White people said that, I can guarantee it.
I like your comment. It’s interesting to consider how the construction of gender varies not only across cultures (e.g. what is expected of womanhood in Canada versus in Japan today), but also across different cultures perception of each other.
In my country, women who are indigenous looking (physically speaking) are considered less elegant or classy than their white/whiter counterparts by these white/whiter people. These people see their femininity as not wide enough because a mix of classism and racism/colorism makes them believe that an indigenous-looking woman can only put a costume, an imitation of a high class woman, because they cannot really be one (as they think money comes only from European descent, and so being classy belongs to them) and that they don’t fit those things due to their physical appearance anyways.
That’s a widespread belief turned into an aesthetic perception. Show people who believe and now feel this way an indigenous woman in a gala attire and they’ll feel something’s wrong.I wouldn’t say this is a non-binary experience, though. I’d say this is the plurality of understandings about what is a woman and who is ‘more woman’ than who. It’s not possible to establish what a woman is simply because it is an ever changing matter. Gender, in itself, is fluid. We expect different things from it at different times, often influenced by external factors (as seen in wars, for example). I wouldn’t say this makes the people living these experiences non-binary, trans, etc. They’re imposed a rule-set by their sex at birth, by their physical characteristics, just like everyone else. “You shouldn’t behave this way”, “you should not wear this”, “do this instead”, etc.
You can only say it’s non-binary if you judge that the dominant ways are the standard. That is, that a woman of European descent with Western ways of life is the way women are, and that a deviation from that is non-binary. That’s only true in countries like mine, like the U.S., like Argentina or the Philippines, and only for the white/whiter population. Thinking that everyone else is measuring against this standard is an ignorant and inflated vision of themselves. Sure, this standard is influential, but people have their own cultures and ideas of gender aside from possible cultural interference and influence from Western values. I’m sure an indigenous woman of my country finds the way she is criticized and scrutinized for wearing different clothes obnoxious, but that’s not her whole experience as to say she lives non-binarily. She still has traditions, beliefs, and ideas of gender within her community in which she might be the epitome of womanhood. She’s only living non-binarily according to white/whiter people. These people shouldn’t be the ones from which names are given. It reminds me of the dichotomy of “white - POC”. Why are people in the entire world categorized as “of European descent - any other” as if Europe should be the center and the defining criteria in human populations? While these divisions are common within groups (“Jews - gentiles”, “Christians - heathens”), they shouldn’t be used outside limited contexts and definitely not in science or any serious analysis. But that’s Western egos, especially U.S.-American egos, I guess…
Consensus reality is a social construct, and nowhere is this clearer than in gender. Whoever has the social power to enforce their beliefs on others decides reality. This will continue as long as we have powerful groups, and/or the construct of reality
duh
