this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2025
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Imagine reading Harry Potter today, now knowing how openly and blatantly transphobic and hateful the writer is...
Classic question if you can seperate the art and the artist. Rowling, MJ, Lovecraft (even if you will be hard pressed to find any old artist that wasnt misogynistic, racist, homophobic and all other narrow minded ideas under the sun)
Buy second hand book. Then artist gets nothing. Any penny she gets seems to go to attacking trans rights. Do you really want to be complicit in that? It's not like the art is even that good or relevent now.
You can't separate the art and the artist while the artist is still alive and causing harm.
You can ask this question again when she kicks it.
As long as it's pirated and they don't give any money to the bigot I'm ok with that.
Same as I'm ok reading Lovecraft. The dude is dead and reading his work is not going to make anyone racist, so why not enjoy it?
Lots of people still read and many don't know or don't care about the author
To each their own, I'm not here to judge anyone, especially over things they simply just don't know or might just not care about.
I never was a fan of Harry Potter in the first place, even before the author started showing her true colors. I was always more of a Lord Of The Rings fan.
🤷♂️
Oh man L. Ron Hubbard is as problematic as J. K. Rowling.
How do you know the perfect thing to say every time? Just …how?
Similarly, I was never much into it. I read the first four books because my best friend back then was really, really, really raving about it. This is about the time the books were first released. I found the first three books okay, the fourth an absolute piece of boring slop, and lost interest after that one.
What parts of Harry Potter is hateful? Its a genuine question since I havent read it.
For one, the goblins who run the bank are directly modelled off of antisemitic stereotypes, even down to copying antisemitic fascist caricatures for their models in the movies.
In the book goblins are "A short and stocky humanoid with black eyes, a domed head and long fingers." but the movies add hooked noses and a Star of David mosaic on the bank floor.
It's not Harry Potter, it's the writer J. K. Rowling that is hateful.
Yeah that makes more sense. I realized when reading the comment again that I misunderstood what was said.
Is it wrong to enjoy art made by bad people? I think it's a very complicated question and the answers will definitely have a lot of variation between people. What if it really is a good art? Or just enjoyable? Should everyone avoid it? People still listen music by Michael Jackson, for example, are they bad because of it?
My own approach is that qualities of what someone creates don't need to be inseparably tied to the personality or views of the author. Everyone can enjoy what they like without the obligation to find out details of the author and adjust their preference based on that. It's fine to make them aware of the problems, it's not fine to make them feel bad because they like something that is not wrong on its own. If you dislike the author enough for it to spoil their works for you, good for you. I also feel this way about some authors. But don't require it from other people.
That's my take. I'm curious, what's yours?
She's using the money to attack trans rights. Buy second hand or sail the seven seas so she gets nothing. If you fund it, you're complicit in it whether you rationalise and compartmentalize or not.
Yes, but I didn't write anything about buying. The comment I replied to was only about reading, which I thought may be excessive.
From my understanding, Mozart had some sort of shit fetish. Do I listen to his music often? No, but I have heard his works before and totally respect his compositions.
It turns out having a shit fetish doesn't actually make you a bad person