I'd just like to point out, it was not a mistake. The first half dozen or so times, sure maybe you can believe it was a mistake. But a full essay? You don't write an essay and than a transphobic book by accident. Mistake is not the right word. Mistake implies she didn't mean it.
oops I fell on my keyboard and made several rants and essays for years about how trans women can take away women's rights. My bad, lol. Only human
Really it not on me or you to forgive her, @WhiskeyClone it on the people she insulted.
I can understand giving someone the benefit of the doubt, but Rowling is being bigoted and willfully ignorant. This isn't a mistake, its a pattern of behavior. Should people send her death threats or degrade the people who enjoy and purchase her work, no. But down playing what's she done said and how it affects others, is not helping the situation. Chalking up her behavior to a 'mistake' is pretty irresponsible.
I feel like you're talking about two different types of people. Let's face it: people throw around -phobes and -ists way WAY too easily. Many times, the person on the receiving end would never consider themselves to be whatever the label thrown at them is. IIRC, Rowling does not consider herself to be transphobic or a TERF so when she gets approached in that way, it really doesn't do much to help. Those types of people I do believe you can talk with and at least come to an understanding. If she says something factually wrong, the best thing you can do is use your voice and own platform to spread the correct information. But screaming out -phobe or -ist, people are just going to shut you out and ignore you (general "you" here, don't mean anyone specifically).
Then there are the people who are actually part of brainwashing groups who are really just looking for a place to belong or let out their rage at the world or whatever. Those people need help in a completely different way. No matter what you say to them, it doesn't matter. I watch a lot of flat Earth "debates" and I can tell you, a lot of them repeat the same things over and over. This is because flat Earth is basically like a cult and they spread around videos and have discords/FB groups where they repeat the same thing. No matter how much evidence is presented to them, they absolutely refuse to see it. Presenting arguments doesn't help and many of them need real, professional help and someone close to actually get them out of the group.
Onto the issue of the thread, I'll just say that I agree that cancel culture is complete BS. It doesn't do anything, it oftentimes backfires and it only riles up people and pisses them off and divides us more. If you don't like what someone has to say, use your own platform to say what you think is right. At the end of the day, we will never agree with each other. We will never completely understand each other. Oftentimes, the intentions of the person saying or doing the thing is misunderstood, especially on Twitter with its character limit really, really doesn't help.
The only time cancel culture works is when someone has gone out and committed an egregious crime. Like I think most people can agree that Shueisha continuing their contract with the Rurouni Kenshin author is wrong, though thankfully they did cancel their contract with the writer for Act-Age who had gone out and attacked two middle school girls.
Adding a JK Rowling's worth of legitimacy to the anti-trans people seems pretty egregious.
And the people protesting aren't really trying to change her mind or those if her followers. They're trying to warn everyone else and maybe send a message to the corporations. You don't want any part of this controversy.
It's here today and it'll be gone tomorrow, that's my honest opinion on it.
Like I think if you try to make change through shame it just never works. It just makes people more cemented in their ways.
And when it comes to people losing their minds on twitter about this...I think it's partly covid? Being quarantined forever? the worst year ever just happening outside our windows?
And...honestly the book funds thousands of artists and writers. She ain't even writing the series anymore. The only people you're banning is the artists trying to get a foothold in this industry. If you want to ban her works ban her new works she's making now not the old stuff.
And one last thing--as a millennial who is old enough to have been Harry's age when the 3rd book came out. We don't care. We've known about JK for a good long time and we were there for the series, not for JK Rowling. (I blocked her like 5 years ago, y'all are late!) The more she has added to the series the more the HP fandom was like "stawwwwp your work is so bad!" And the stuff that was made without her input so much was actually pretty good.
So I don't really see it as fully her creation anymore! In the same way I don't see other book inspired movies as owned by their respective writers. These things start as books by one author--and then after a while...it's just owned by everyone else. She'll slowly lose more and more control and then...Harry Potter will be free to do whatever it wants.
I've never read harry potter, so I have zero attachment to JK and her work (closest I've come to consuming harry potter at all is enjoying the theme park at universal and having watched one of the fantastic beasts movies) so as an outsider I'll say: I might've given her post-HP works a chance since she was such a massive figure in the writing world, but her recent behavior has solidified my drive to never touch a single thing she has or ever will produce. Honestly don't care how masterfully it's written, if the writer has harmful beliefs, it'll bleed into the product in one form or another. That new mystery novel about the gender nonconforming murderer is soaked with it.
And I don't see it as cancel culture personally- JK is a massively successful person with probably enough money to last 5 more lifetimes. She is still getting book deals. She has a video game releasing centered around her creation. She has a theme park. She has people bending over backwards to defend and rationalize her words. She's still succeeding. I'm just making the personal choice to avoid someone who thinks people like me are confused and need fixing, and distancing myself from others who tolerate that belief.
There's precedent for writers and other artists using their fame and influence to get into politics, start harmful social movements, or both. It's never too early to abort these things, is what I mean.
You can like the Harry Potter series and NOT like JK Rowling. series =/= author imo.
Throwing away precious childhood memories because some add-on DLC that happened years later shouldn't change the past.
It's like enjoying Last of Us but not liking Last Of Us 2 XD or playing Pokemon Red but not Pokemon Sword.
We just need to set our own line for when the journey ends.
I think its pretty stupid, honestly. Like there's more hot button issues at hand than a wealthy writer whose swimming in money at least a decade and half past her golden years when she was still relevant. Reminds me of all the times the internet tried canceling notch and it didn't do jackshit. Just don't give them money or publicity if you want them to fade into obscurity. All this is doing is making more people buy her work for the outrage.
Soft power is simply being in good odor with a lot of people. To counter it, you have to make a stink.
People have done a lot of damage with a lot less than what Rowling has. Constant vigilance!
congratulations, you're giving her what she wants lol more money and publicity. You know she's trying to rile people up right? It's exactly what notch was doing and other rich people on twitter once they got bored with their money.
I’m here to clarify on my post. I did not defend anyone. I was just trying to point out that we saw the worst of human nature, and that this is how some humans are. I knew about the transphobic thing, I just never knew that it was this bad, that she published a whole fricking essay on it. I was ignorant about this topic. Rowling might never change, and this is what we have to accept, that she will never say she’s sorry. We don’t have to forgive her. While I never liked her books, I’m disappointed. People should still read Harry Potter if they feel like it and enjoy the movies but enjoy them with the consciousness that what she did was horrible. We shouldn’t to give her attention. I will say no more. Agree, or disagree but I will not add on because this debate has already gone up in flames. I suck at debates anyway.
I always fallowed the "separate content, artist and fandom" rule, so yeah, harassing someone just because they enjoy something that was created by a problematic person just sounds stupid, especially because they might just not know who they're supporting.
If you want to cancel someone, do not go after their fans with pitchforks and such, just inform them, and if they still want to consume the content, show them how to get it without supporting whoever you're canceling.
But if they still support the problematic creator after that... Then still don't go after them! You'll just give them a martyr complex and they'll assume a "us vs them" mentality, and then they'll just get worse than members of a creepy cult, trust me.
There seems to be the implication that there's no way to push back against the rich and powerful once they reach a certain level. That after a certain point there's no such thing as bad publicity. And to an extent this may be true . . . but I refuse to buy into the idea that there's nothing we can do, that we have no control over how the cultural conversation goes. Culture belongs to everybody because it comes from everybody. Learned helplessness is not the way forward and we ought to distrust anyone trying to push it on us.
Someone has to say that something is wrong when it is wrong. Someone has to call out the ridiculous. Someone has to say that the emperor has no clothes.
There’s a really easy answer actually- you stop talking about them
Cancel culture is shit cause it only hurts the little guy; all that happens to the big guy is that rumors start happening and WOM starts happening- and that ONLY helps the people your upset with- there’s plenty of people who had no idea that JK had a crime series and NOW people know and some people are even like “well the magic system was shit in HP but the mystery was good so maybe crime books are better?” And they don’t give two shits about the controversy cause - as I’ve already stated - humans only have so much brain power each day to be responsible consumers especially where we’re talking about consuming entertainment.
This only helped her.
You wanna make a statement and reduce her income? Stop talking about her.
But first we all have to agree to shun her, and that means a certain amount of conversation and maybe a sign for the latecomers.
And if someone hears that something is hate speech and then goes out if their way to buy it, that's not the fault of the people calling it hate speech. If I advocate being a responsible and ethical consumer, that doesn't make me an accessory to someone's irresponsible and unethical purchases.
