Hey, you know what I love? Harry Potter.
Like, every couple years I watch every movie in a marathon because those were some of my first experiences with the artistry of cinema, rather than the junkfood movies I'd thought were the ceiling. I love the theme song so much it makes me feel a warmth in my chest.
And I still respect the hell out of JK Rowling, for her achievements. She's done a ton of charity work, has given more money to charity than even most millionaires will see and her story as a writer inspires me to try harder with my writing.
However, recently it's been hard. I don't agree with the a lot of the choices she's made lately, and she's disappointed me plenty. And I recognize the tough position she must be in, but I think that power and influence comes with responsibility and one has to try act as ethically as possible.
I don't want this to get too political, and I get that people wanna have a good laugh, but there's this icky feeling I get when I see Rowling criticized for Hermoine's stage play casting with the same fevor as she gets criticized for the queerbaiting stuff. There's an icky feeling I get when I see people call details about Dumbledore's sex life gross, but no one batting an eye about Voldermort's secret daughter. I get an icky feeling when people use a mocked up tweet to criticize JK Rowling when she hasn't actually said anything as egregious as the 'wizard poop' retcon. There's an icky feeling I get when I see criticism for JK Rowling weaponized towards the goal of the radicalization of people who just wanna see themselves represented in the work.
To that end, I just wanna say, be careful when you're disappointed to be a little more scrutinizing? I'm afraid for the future. I'm afraid that there's going to be a co-opting of the discourse by radicalized individuals. I'm afraid that this thing I loved when I was a kid is going to be hard to enjoy because we stopped talking about how we felt when we first read/watched it but instead are caught up in stuff that we know we shouldn't care about, but also can't avoid.
Hey, you know what I like? Harry Potter. You wanna talk about how much you like Harry Potter? I think you should. You wanna talk about what you dislike about Harry Potter? I think you should.
I just don't think you should spend too much time dog piling on JK Rowling. Not accusing you personally of anything, but when you've dog piled on top of someone, sometimes it's hard to see that the people you're dog piling with are radicalized towards rhetoric that you yourself find abhorrent.
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