cardassiangoodreads:
I say this with the apprehension that I’m sure some people are going to conclude “it’s because she’s a woman and they’re not!” which I really don’t think is the answer in this case (I’ll explain what I think it is in a moment), but it is interesting to me the amount of energy that is spent online getting fans of Harry Potter to divest from even purely fannish, not-giving-her-money interest in the franchise - but the fandoms for stuff like Good Omens or the various Whedonverse works get relatively little pushback. And even I personally don’t feel any apprehension for say, using my (bought for me as a gift by someone else before we knew) tote bag for Aziraphale’s fictional bookstore or wearing Buffy t-shirts in public or putting my “Buffy will patrol tonight” mug out at work, that someone will think I’m endorsing the horrible things that Gaiman and Whedon have done. But I do feel a bit more sheepish openly wearing Harry Potter stuff nowadays, since others so often do seem to take that as saying you’re okay with JKR, especially in LGBTQ+ spaces, even if obviously a lot of people don’t intend it that way. Even just the risk of a trans person thinking I’m not an ally is to me, not worth getting to sport my Ravenclaw keychain on my purse.
Anyway, I think the reason for this is less because she’s a woman (I would argue plenty of fandoms centered around shitty women don’t get that kind of pushback) and more the extremely high-profile nature of both her and all things Harry Potter. Other than Whedon’s work on the MCU (where he was but one of many people working on it, so I don’t think anyone associates liking those characters with him), the stuff the other two have done haven’t really reached the sort of massive culture-eating, voice-of-a-generation level of popularity HP has. I realize some fellow Buffy fans might take issue with that, but think about it - how many people not engaged in online nerd/fandom/TV critic spaces know the intricacies of characters and plots on BTVS the way they do Harry Potter? It was very popular and influential, but HP is on another level. So I think both that JKR turning out to be a monstrous bigot has been a much bigger story (and she’s also obviously had a huge influence on anti-trans politics in the UK), and the franchise itself feels much bigger. It feels like people would be striking a much bigger blow by letting the wind out of its sails. I also think it means that the personal feelings that a lot of people have caught up in it are much stronger, and so it feels much closer to home when you find out that JKR is a bigot.
(Some of this also likely has to do with the nature of the works itself - the HP books being JKR’s sole creation. That’s also true of some of Gaiman’s other works, but Good Omens was famously co-written by Terry Pratchett who, LBH, probably wrote the majority of it. The Sandman was a comic. Whedon’s TV and film works have also been collaborative processes; its’ a lot easier to be a Buffy fan who disowns Whedon because you can celebrate the contributions of other writers, directors and actors instead on that show.)
Whereas I think that by contrast, people seem to be more acutely aware that beating up on Good Omens fanfic writers or Etsy/Artist Alley merch sellers is attacking largely powerless fans who often have their own complicated feelings about the series that they’re grappling with; it doesn’t do anything against Neil Gaiman. Same with Whedonverse works - maybe the feelings about Buffy or Firefly fandom would be different if we were still in the 90s or early 00s, but the fandom is way past its prime.
The issue is, though, that this is still true for Harry Potter fandom too. It’s largely not people writing fanfic or making fanart who are who is keeping it relevant. It is the people going to the theme parks, it is the numerous brands you buy from that do HP collabs. By and large, people buying those things aren’t active in online fandom (which is way more niche than a lot of people active in it realize). If you actually want to attack the influence of Harry Potter that is where you have to hit it! One thing that I think that is under discussed in terms of boycotting Rowling is the idea of boycotting brands that do official HP collabs, and sending them a message telling them why. I’ll admit that I haven’t always been consistent about this, but it is something I am trying to do more that I think would go a lot further than getting mad at people online for writing Dramione fanfiction.
Sidenote: misogyny is an element in the responses to JKR, but I’m pushing back both because I really don’t think it’s the primary thing going on here, and also obviously because that is always immediately launched on by people who think that is the only reason people are mad at her and no one would take issue with her transphobia otherwise. Usually people who think transphobia is not a thing anyone should take issue with in the first place! So, you know. Bigots keep preventing us from having nice things.
I think, part of this is rooted in what Rowling is doing.
Whedon and Gaimans are (sexual) abusers, who harmed individuals. While they hurt a lot of people (and sometimes in pretty horrific ways), that hurt is kind of isolated, because it mostly affects their direct victims.
Rowling, on the other hand, is a political activist. She has made herself the figurehead of the gender critical movement and uses her money to lobby for transphobic policies. She uses her twitter account (and her massive following) to spread transphobic propaganda and to harass trans people. She also supports (and leads!) harassment campaigns against intersex women and women of color, has denied Nazi crimes, peddles far-right conspiracy theories, and routinely espouses the far right. On top of that, she sprouts a lot of misogynistic, queerphobic (against all kinds of LGBTQIA* people) and ableist bullshit, too. And recently, she has taken the murder of Charlie Kirk to disparage the left and quoted Hitler to do so.
It’s not really surprising, that responses to Rowling are different. She is much more in line with people like Kirk, than she is with people like Whedon and Gaiman. The harm she’s causing is much more indirect, but it’s also affecting much more people. She might never touch a single trans person herself - but she sure encourages her followers to do so.
That said …
… a lot of people are taking way too many wrong lessons from Rowling and her political activism. In my opinion, this is caused by people
- not really understanding how boycotts work - or consumption, for that matter
- equating hating Harry Potter with pro-trans activism
and - applying a very puritanical lens to that “activism”
Which is a potent recipe for anti-culture.
And anti-culture is what we’re seeing - and a lot of it, too.
Rowling is using her wealth, to spread her views and to lobby for transphobic laws. Most of her wealth is coming from the Harry Potter-franchise, and Rowling has flaunted that fact on more than one occasion.
And because of her wealth, it’s really hard to fight her activism. She has all the funds she wants, both for lobbying and to pay lawyers to sue her critics into oblivion.
That’s where the boycott-idea comes from: Rowling-critics are aware that she uses the money she gets from the franchise, so boycotting the franchise will reduce the amount of money that ends up in her pockets.
Rowling-critics are also aware that the Harry Potter-franchise keeps generating money, because the franchise is still culturally relevant. So some of these critics are advocating for a broader boycott, to diminish that relevancy.
And that’s where things are starting to go wrong.
Critics who advocate for hate against the HP-fandom, allocate that cultural relevancy in fandom spaces - in fanarts and fanfics, here on tumblr, on AO3, on ff.net, on reddit and on social media websites.
And that’s not really it.
The whole Harry Potter-fandom on tumblr, AO3, ff.net, reddit, etc. could vanish overnight and Rowling’s bank account probably wouldn’t even feel it.
Because that’s not really where the money - and the cultural relevancy - gets generated.
It gets generated on the streaming services that host the films and the TV stations that broadcast them. It gets generated by the access to the games (not just Hogwarts Legacy, but also the mobile games). It gets generated by all the companies that create HP-versions of their products. It gets generated by all the fucking stores that sell Harry Potter-stuff, from bookstores to toy stores to clothing stores to supermarkets. And a large part of that gets generated offline and outside the English-speaking sphere, where few people even know about Rowling’s bigotry (let alone care about it).
Educating people about Rowling’s bigotry and encouraging them to join the financial boycott - and to expand that boycott to companies that collaborate with Warner and Rowling - is good. But a lot of that has to happen offline, because the people who don’t know and who don’t boycott are largely offline. A callout post on tumblr or reddit won’t reach them.
Going after Harry-Potter fans beyond that isn’t helpful - especially, when it’s crossing over into harassment and bullying. It’s also not activism and it won’t provide any material help to the trans people affected by Rowling’s hate.
But it’s easy.
Unlike Rowling, Harry Potter-fans can be reached, by sending them DMs, reacting to their posts and commenting on their work.
So that’s what a lot of people have started to do.
We’ve reached a point, where people are using Harry Potter as a form of purity test. It’s not just openly supporting Rowling or refusing to boycott her, that is seen as immoral. Engaging with Harry Potter itself at all - even if it is done on a purely fannish and critical level - is seen as a moral failing.
Quite a lot of people have taken Rowling’s ideology and have applied them onto the whole fandom. They don’t just see Harry Potter as the thing Rowling wrote in the 1990s and 2000s. At least some of them claim that it’s her manifesto and that it’s basically the Rowling-version of Mein Kampf.
So everyone who engages with her version of Mein Kampf has to share her views and consequently needs to be treated the same way Rowling herself should. So HP-fans should be fought tooth and nail, all in the name of protecting trans women.
Which then serves as a justification for all kind of horrible things, including:
- advocating for censorship
- public shaming, harassment and bullying, including death threats and suicide baiting
- forcing queer people (including trans people) to leave the queer fandom spaces they built for themselves
- open and blatant transphobia and ableism
I’ve seen people guilt-tripping and hating on trans people for having a connection to HP (like an HP-reference in their nickname or talking about HP on their blogs) - after said trans people called them (directly or indirectly) out on their transphobia. (Classic “I’m not transphobic, you’re transphobic!” kind of spiel.)
It’s surreal.
If I had to guess, this comes mostly from two distinct groups:
- people who never liked Harry Potter and who use Rowling’s bigotry as a welcome justification to hate on the fandom
- people who are former fans and who use the hate as a coping mechanism
And of course, we’re also on a website, where anti-culture is quite common. So I’m not even surprised that people have latched onto this behavior.
