this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2024
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J.K. Rowling is embroiled in a fresh row with another Harry Potter actor over transgender rights.

Following exchanges of fire with Daniel Radcliffe and others, Rowling has blasted David Tennant after the Goblet of Fire star voiced strident views on those who speak out against trans rights.

During an appearance at the British LGBT Awards over the weekend, he called on British equalities minister Kemi Badenoch to “shut up” after she advocated for banning trans women from entering women’s toilets and sports teams.

In an interview at the same event, Tennant called transgender critics “a tiny bunch of little whinging f*ckers who are on the wrong side of history, and they’ll all go away soon.”

Earlier in the week, Rowling branded people like Tennant the “gender Taliban.” In posts on X (once Twitter) on Friday, she expanded her comments to address Tennant’s “wrong side of history” quote.

Rowling wrote: “This man is talking about rape survivors who want female-only care, the nurses currently suing their health trust for making them change in front of a man, girls and women losing sporting opportunities to males and female prisoners incarcerated with convicted sex offenders.”

She added: “For a man who’s supposedly a model of compassion and tolerance, he sure does want a lot of people to cease to exist.”

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[–] muse@fedia.io 44 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

I'm so glad I stopped giving a shit about Harry Potter and accepted that just because a zeitgeist happened in my childhood doesn't mean I should cling to fictional fantasy that hadn't actually done anything novel in the genre or touched upon topics that aren't handled in better novels elsewhere

[–] EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone 39 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Once again, I am tapping the sign for people to go watch the two hour video by Shaun on the subject.

The moral of Harry Potter is that the status quo is correct and should never be questioned, and nobody should ever try to change anything.

Harry doesn't defeat Voldemort or change any of the issues inherent in the bumbling bureaucracy of the wizard world. Voldemort kills himself on a magic technicality, Harry becomes a magic cop and helps to ensure that magic is never used to help the undesirables of society (Muggles), and Hermione is ridiculed for being a girl with blue hair and pronouns who tried to end the chattel slavery system before she "grew up" and became a much more sensible person who realized that the slaves actually want to be oppressed, and it's for their own good.

You can see Rowling's morality change practically in real-time as the books go on, from criticizing the system to defending it as she began to benefit from it as her wealth grew. And underneath it all, you can see her discriminatory opinions of people. That was always there. When she wants you to hate a woman, she makes them fat or gives them masculine features. If I have to read the phrase "mannish hands" one more time, I might vomit.

[–] Emperor@feddit.uk 13 points 5 months ago

Once again, I am tapping the sign for people to go watch the two hour video by Shaun on the subject.

Good call, here is a link.

[–] A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world 32 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Dude I'm saying! Harry Potter was never good, it was just popular

And yeah I read them and watched them, at least the first few. I'm not talking out of my ass. It's a series with a few imaginative ideas sprinkled throughout otherwise super typical schlock with casually racist seasoning.

Fuck Harry Potter

[–] Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yep, I never understood the appeal besides making kids feel special. It seemed like a water down fantasy which when I criticized people just said read the books.

Ironically I did read the first one before the movies became a big hit. It was an okay children’s book at best.

For some reason we have these unwritten social rules that say you can’t critique certain pop culture icons once they hit critical mass.

[–] zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago

Harry Potter is sort of the Classic Lays potato chip of the children's book world. Dependable, reliable, not the most exciting in the world but any stretch, but easily snackable all the same.

They're easy to read, not super deep, and because of that, probably got a lot of kids into reading who otherwise wouldn't have, and there's something to be said for that. It's unfortunate that the author turned out to be a bigot the whole time.

[–] bitchkat@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

I unfortunately had to watch all the movies because I had a child of the appropriate age range that wanted to watch them. Every last one was boring as all hell. Some of them were even in the theater so I added a little to them being popular. But they were not good.