Pottermore? Please, Potterless

You know that gif of Michael Scott where he is just like, “Noooooooo!” Yeah, that’s how I feel about the new Harry Potter series coming to Max (not HBO Max, because the fucking Discovery Channel bought one the best TV brands - and film brands with Warner Brothers - in existence only to destroy it from within, but I digress). Yesterday the multi-billion dollar multi-media conglomerate announced they’d inked a new deal with none other than THE Transphobe Supreme JK Rowling for a new exhaustive (and exhaustingly gross, honestly) new “Harry Potter” TV series. She who I wish we didn’t have to keep naming will serve as executive producer and nicely pad her existing billions. Wonderful, thrilling, no notes whatsoever! Just kidding, let’s Avada Kedavra that news with fire!

Making this deal even more gross is its scope and cost. The books will become a “decade-long series” with an entirely new cast. To make it they’re forking over a “Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon”-sized budget, or even higher. So that’s $125 million and up, folks. Gosh, what good in the world could $125 million a year accomplish other than continuing to enrich a billionaire transphobe? Probably nothing, so might as well give it to Joanne.

An executive at the streamer formerly known as HBO Max told The Hollywood Reporter: “[It] will be that scale or higher. Whatever it takes to make a quality show.”

Well, here’s a thought. To make a quality show please start with quality people, and Rowling is definitely not that — not anymore and not for a long time. The thing is, people change. She has changed. And the person she is now is blinkered by her staggering wealth, siloed thinking and misguided attempt at so-called feminist advocacy. (Also, if she was such an ardent feminist, why create an elaborate fantasy universe with a cis white straight boy as its ultimate namesake hero? Like, you have the entire universe and that’s as far as your imagination extends? Weakest of sauce.)

I enjoyed the Harry Potter film series (I’m a tad old for the books, to be honest). And I really enjoyed their casts. But I have no reason to return to that world of wizarding as is because it contains nothing new and instead comes from someone who now harbors hateful ideologies. The best stories, the ones we hold dearest, root for the underdog. But when the champion of the underdogs becomes a bully instead, we all lose.

Right now, trans people are among the most maligned, the most discriminated against, the most vulnerable among us. This year already some 417 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the country, according to American Civil Liberties Union. Most of these focus on education and health care and public access — basically just trying to ban trans people out of public existence. Now, remind me again, what kind of people like to eradicate entire groups of marginalized people from the planet? Not good ones, that’s for sure.

I think the bare minimum we can do as consumers is to be judicious about what we give our money and attention to. Sure, some conflicts are unavoidable because phrases like “multi-billion dollar multi-media conglomerate” exist and so much is owned by so few. But there’s no reason to get back on the Hogwart’s Express at this time. Just like I won’t be watching or rewatching the works of Woody Allen or Roman Polanski (and, truly, a host of other gross men) anymore, I won’t be revisiting Joanne’s Potterverse. New times demand new stories. Let’s go find and support those instead in this for the next decade and beyond.

Author, Heal Thy Words

With everything happening in the world (An Incomplete Recap: ongoing global pandemic, massive economic downturn, wildly corrupt and morally bankrupt administration with fascist authoritarian tendencies, righteous civil unrest against systematic police brutality and racism – and, yes, all of these are connected), you’d think a formerly universally beloved children’s author who has made legit a billion dollars by telling kids that friendship, bravery and magic can defeat any evil would have better things to do with her time. But amidst all of this, Harry Potter scribe J.K. Rowling has decided the most pressing thing to speak out against right now is *checks notes* trans people. Wait, I can’t be reading that right? Nope, sorry, I am reading that 100 percent correctly. J.K. has come to the defense of TERFs right now at this particularly striking moment of history. I mean, I guess we should have seen this coming. She also came to the defense of Johnny Depp, of all people.

I don’t know if something happens when you become so rich that literally no law, no government, no authority can change the comfort of your life (I mean that would explain why every tech billionaire appears to be nothing more than a high-functioning psychopath), but damn has J.K. been on consistently on The Wrong Train of late.

Her TERF defense came as a series of tweets from this past weekend where she appears to have taken offense to the phrase “people who menstruate” in an article headline about COVID-19’s impact on access to menstrual health resources.



Now this is not the first time J.K has let her TERF flag fly. In December 2019 she showed her true colors in what only the most charitable reading could be considered TERF-adjacent tweet showing support for a U.K. researcher who lost her job for being transphobic and saying that people cannot change their biological sex.

So here she is, again, stepping up to the plate for the wrong side of history and needlessly not to mention cruelly picking a fight with hands-down some of the most vulnerable members of the LGBTQ community. A trans or non-binary person being able to live her, his or their best life does not diminish my ability to live my best life as an out lesbian cis woman. Cis queer or straight women and trans/non-binary people are not enemies. We are, and should only ever be allies. Oppression is not a competition. Equality is not a race. In fact, it’s not achieved until every single person crosses the finish line.

I’m sorry to see that someone I once respected has decided her duty is to punch down, instead of up. Author, heal thyself. Accio, empathy.

p.s. If you feel like coming here and spouting some “TERF is a slur” nonsense, I will delete your comment because it’s my blog and that hateful bullshit can fuck off forever.

Wizarding While Gay

So this week J.K. Rowling went on a bit of a Twitter tear answering fan questions. And the question of representation an diversity in Hogwarts came up. She confirmed that people of every religion/belief/non-belief system are represented in Hogwarts (except Wiccans – aw, no Willow?) As far as individual affirmations went, she confirmed the presence of a Jewish wizard. And she also affirmed the presence of LGBT students. I mean, there’s a gay headmaster already.

This news is glorious, obviously. I respect Rowling, her work and the universe of good it has created immensely. But, and sadly there is almost always a but, I sure do wish she had made that representation more front and center in her actual work instead of clarifying in her after-publication addendums. What can I say, we humans tend to be a stubborn bunch and unless shown something directly we tend to not believe it. It’s sort of like how people who actually know a real live LGBT person tends to hate them less than those who only think of LGBT people in the abstract terms.

Anyway, like I said, it’s a quibble amid an ocean of good. Also, bonus points for the big gay graphic.

.@claraoswiin But of course. pic.twitter.com/Galu47MT4X

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 16, 2014

We are family

By now, you’ve probably already heard the big news around Hogwarts the world that Dumbledore is gay. Harry Potter headmistress J.K. Rowling flung open the closet door Friday during a reading at Carnegie Hall when a fan asked her if Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore had ever fallen in love:

“My truthful answer to you... I always thought of Dumbledore as gay… [ovation] Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, and that that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was. To an extent, do we say it excused Dumbledore a little more because falling in love can blind us to an extent? But, he met someone as brilliant as he was, and rather like Bellatrix, he was very drawn to this brilliant person, and horribly, terribly let down by him.

Yeah, that’s how I always saw Dumbledore. In fact, recently I was in a script read through for the sixth film, and they had Dumbledore saying a line to Harry early in the script saying I knew a girl once, whose hair... [laughter]. I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter, ‘Dumbledore’s gay!’ [laughter and ovation] If I’d known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!”

Later, after another fan thanked her for the revelation [read the full transcript over at The Leaky Cauldron], she added:

“You needed something to keep you going for the next 10 years! Oh, my god, the fan fiction now, eh?”

OK. First of all, Yay, Dumbledore! Welcome to the family. Dude, the bears are going to love you. Second of all, Yay, J.K. Rowling! Just when I thought she couldn’t get any cooler for making millions upon millions of children (and more than a few discerning adults) excited about reading, she goes and does this. I always thought some dark magic had to be at work for there not to be a single gay character in the Potterverse. (Would it have better if he had been declared gay from the start, obviously. Obviously.)

But what I really want to do is take a moment to put this historic outing in perspective. The Harry Potter series is the best-selling children’s series of all time. To date it has sold more than 350 million copies and been translated into 64 languages. The five film adaptations so-far rank among the top 20 highest-grossing films of all-time worldwide. And now, the whole world knows that one of the most important and beloved characters in the series is gay. Wow. I think that makes it a pretty good day to be gay, don’t you?[Hat tip, suenami; Dumbledore Pride photo via mrslaurenm]

My Weekend Crush

Today, all across the globe, children (and more than a few unashamed adults) are nestled comfortably in chairs, lying outstretched on couches and sitting slumped over kitchen tables racing through 784 pages as if their very lives depended on it. They are reading, they are excited about reading, they are no doubt going to beg their parents (well, not the adults -- I hope) to let them stay up to keep reading because of one woman: J. K. Rowling. The author of the Harry Potter series had done something that in this age of electrified entertainment I thought was damn near impossible, gotten kids to put down their Playstations and pick up a book. And to pick up said book, they’ll happily line up and wait for hours and hours. Wow, she really is magic. The story of how she dreamed up Harry is fable by now -- the dole, a train trip, a four hour delay -- and the legacy of what she created will live on in the imaginations of generations to come.

I’ll admit, I haven’t read the entire series. Still I think I’ll pick up “Deathly Hallows” so I can find out how it all ends for myself (if I can stay strong and stay away from all those damn spoilers). Because I too know the thrill of falling in love with literary characters and reading along as they grow up page by page, book by book. I had my own J.K. Rowling, but her name was L.M. Montgomery. Instead of Harry it was Anne. Instead of black magic it was red hair. And instead of Hogwarts it was Green Gables. But I felt the same delight that today’s crop of bibliophiles no doubt feel while cracking open the final book. Their joy of finding out “What happens?” will too soon become a bittersweet “Is it really over?” It will be with sadness that boys and girls (and discerning grownups) will let Harry, Hermione, Ron and the rest go at the end of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” But the love they feel for those characters, those books and (with any luck) reading will never end. And that’s all thanks to the talented Ms. Rowling. Like I said, magic. Happy weekend, all.