Reminder: “separating the art from the artist” is an approach to engaging with an artwork, and is a separate question from whether or not you should engage with an artwork when doing so has real life consequences.
Whether or not you should consume HP Lovecraft media despite the fact he was a racist is entirely up to you because he is long dead. He doesn’t make any money. He isn’t even racist any more. Because he’s dead.
When you consider whether or not you consume Harry Potter media, you must consider that JK Rowling will make money and will donate that money to anti-trans groups. If you still go on to buy licensed merch, or pay a streaming service to watch it, you will literally be helping to propogate transphobia. Continue to enjoy anything you currently own if you want. That is where separating the art from the artist comes into it. But if you still actively promote the material online and thereby increase the demand for it; again, transphobia, arguably.
Can we pirate it. Or will that just make it more popular
Edit: or should we just boycott
Pirating it wouldn’t make it more popular if you kept it to yourself, but talking about it after you watched it probably would.
I have to say, this is just such an in-the-weeds moral stance that it crosses the boundary of reasonableness. Honestly, it’s this sort of thing that drove me away from left wing styles of thinking a while ago.
The impact you make on the world in any of your possible actions with regard to Harry Potter is miniscule. Like, truly, utterly insignificant. Are you going to organize an anti-potter boycott? Participate in a protest? Harass the actors in an online trolling movement? Throw eggs at JK Rawling’s house? Great! Go do all those things! Actively participate in changing the world for the better! These actions might actually lead to real change.
But denying yourself pleasures in the name of moral purity accomplishes nothing. If all you do is sit at home and think to yourself “I wanna watch the new Harry Potter thing, but I can’t, because then I’m a bad person.” (or in this case, "I wanna talk to my friends about the new Harry Potter thing I pirated, but I can’t, because then I’m a bad person) then you are accomplishing literally nothing except making yourself miserable. Again, if you are going to actually do something, then go do it! But if you don’t have the time or energy or interest or social battery to actually do something, then shaming yourself or others into not doing things is actively counterproductive. Go take a road trip without calculating if the pleasure you will derive is worth the carbon footprint! Eat an ice cream cone without feeling bad about the the suffering of the factory farmed cow it came from! Get one of those good-paying jobs in oil and gas or defence and make some goddamned money! You are simply not important enough for any of these actions to have any actual real-world impact. The only thing that happens is that you convince yourself that if you ever enjoy anything, then you are a bad person. You train yourself to constantly be looking for the ways in which life’s simple pleasures are destroying the world, so you can feel bad about them.
Just stop it. Be happy. Do whatever you need to do to chill out and enjoy your life and gain some sense of contentedness and security. And then go out and make the world a better place by actually doing something. Hyper-anxious, shame-ridden, depressed know-it-alls rarely create effective social change because no one wants to hang out with them. No one see them and thinks “yeah, that’s what I want my life to look like.”
In order to lead by example you have to show a path to a better world. Not a cell.
Don’t confuse that mentality for left-wing thinking. It is an entirely liberal, center-right reactionary mentality to be overly concerned about optics and moral purity.
What you have said is actual left-wing thinking. You have essentially described the point of “no ethical consumption under capitalism”. That if people really care about this, then they need to actually do something about it instead of just shaming others for indulging on simple creature comforts.
Guarantee that the people bitching about others enjoying HP media also go home to suck down a bottle of Coke which directly funds militant anti-labor hit squads in South America to prevent their bottling plants from unionizing. Or maybe they are a Pepsi person, where their purchase has helped fund the exploitation of prisoners who are forced for pennies an hour to make their cans. Or any other of the myriad of things under our current economic structure that funnels wealth into the hands of the elite who seek to oppress the working class.
You are hardly the arbiter of what is left wing thinking. Fuck ethics im going to concern myself with my own needs is apolitical. Its neither Left nor right.
I mean, you’re more than welcome to stay politically ignorant. I’m not an arbiter, but I am just describing facts.
Also, what they said was absolutely not 'fuck ethics I’m going to concern myself with my own needs"
Nice bad faith misrepresentation of what they said.
Also most people’s actions are on the overall ALL small. Most people make no big ripples. Telling them to either change the world or do nothing is telling them to do nothing.
Ethics are a habit if you can’t give up a tv show what can you do exactly
Ethics isn’t just big things it’s little things as well. I don’t matter I shouldn’t need to do anything just isn’t Left or right wing it is an apolitical thought. Claiming that because you hold yourself to be left-wing and you thought it and thus it is left wing thinking is just flat out wrong. Please explain exactly how Im wrong. Explain how your position is left wing
Just pirate it and don’t speak about it. Win win. No monkey for the bigot and you get your pleasure.
Congratulations. You successfully managed to both not engage with my point in any meaningful way, and also provided a solution I already deflated in the comment you are responding to.
You didn’t successfully deflate it
The potential pleasure is in speaking about it.
Instead of not enjoying something why not enjoy something else there is finite time and far more to enjoy than you shall ever find time.
What of value would be lost?
If being a POS takes half of your income potential away people will be less likely to behave so and others will think it less acceptable.
Dismissing the aggregate effect of small effects is dismissing most actual effects. Its ahistorical.
I think its best to move on
Anyway, will most probably be shit. 99% of series these days are bad and just money grabs.
There are usually some good scenes or themes or characters that make some of the 99% worth a watch. The Netflix Avatar series was shit that didn’t understand the tone of the original, except for the scenes added for Lu-Ten’s Funeral and the 41st Division. These alone added enough for me to begrudgingly accept the existence of the live-action series. There are usually some things like that in most of the new ones I’ve seen.
Don’t deprive yourself of happiness to spite her. That being said the books have several reasons to not read them on their own merits. Don’t forget “dobby is weird for not wanting to be a slave” is an actual plot point in the books. Not to mention the goblins. If you want to revisit a beloved fantasy series, give LOTR another read/watch.
Count the number of times female characters are described as “shrill” or “screeching” etc. There’s a weird misogyny and dedication to patriarchy that just oozes out of the books.
Wheel of Time!
And Hobbit!
I was actually planning on qatching Star Wars, we have a long weekend, but LOTR is also a great idea. Thanks.
Only applies to artists who can no longer enjoy the spoils.
It’s up to society if we should separate a work from its artist. We’ve collectively agreed that this work shouldn’t survive the century. Not only that, you can’t separate an artist from their work when they’re literally tangled in it and controlling it
JK Rowling is rich enough to fund anti trans groups for decades without any input from us. Boycotting HP has no effect on trans rights.
☠️
But if you still actively promote the material online and thereby increase the demand for it; again, transphobia, arguably.
I agree with everything you wrote up to this point. I’m not really a Harry Potter fan and I certainly don’t think much of J.K. Rowling since she revealed her true nature but this last bit is a very slippery slope.
You know the slippery slope fallacy right?
I had not seen that before but I’m not sure it applies. Perhaps the wording was poor to indicate my intent but it was not my intention to indicate “a chain reaction resulting in an undesirable end or ends” as that article says.
I was trying to communicate that making a broad statement, like OP did, that promoting Harry Potter online indicates transphobia or transphobic behavior by itself ignores both intent and context, which I think matters.
They’re not saying it’s transphobic, but it is promoting transphobia. Which isn’t really any better in my books.
it ispromoting transphobia
It literally is not, not without context and intent.
Somebody going online and posting, “I grew up with Harry Potter and loved it and I’m interested to see the new [whatever]” is not equivalent to promoting transphobia.
You cannot make a black and white determination like that without context and intent. Without those you’re just making assumptions.
“I grew up with Harry Potter and loved it and I’m interested to see the new [whatever]” is not equivalent to promoting transphobia.
It is equivalent, because in this case, it is literally promoting transphobia. One of the worlds leading transphobes will directly benefit from the profits this show makes, and will directly turn those profits against dismantling the rights of trans folk.
This isn’t an analogy, it’s not dramatic license, or over exaggeration.
You cannot make a black and white determination like that without context and intent.
If you know she will hurt trans people with the money she makes, and you do things that continue to make her money (which includes just advocating for continued consumption of her work), it is black and white, and the context and intent are quite visible.
By itself, it doesn’t mean someone is transphobic. But it does mean that at the very least, personal nostalgia is more important to that person than the harm their actions cause. And that is plenty of intent and context.
It is equivalent, because in this case, it is literally promoting transphobia. One of the worlds leading transphobes will directly benefit from the profits this show makes, and will directly turn those profits against dismantling the rights of trans folk.
adverb: literally in a literal manner or sense; exactly.
It literallyis not. I posted the definition in case you needed it. Purchasing or consuming a product is not exactly the same as promoting transphobia.
By your logic every person in the United States who pays any kind of taxes that go to the federal government is promoting transphobia. If you’ve ever shopped at a store that employs a transphobe, you’re promoting transphobia. If you’ve ever watched a movie or tv show that has a transphobic actor in it, you’re promoting transphobia. Doesn’t matter if you know it because, as you put it, they directly benefit from your money.
If you know she will hurt trans people with the money she makes, and you do things that continue to make her money (which includes just advocating for continued consumption of her work), it is black and white, and the context and intent are quite visible.
The only part of this that’s true is “advocating for continued consumption of her work” and even that’s a stretch because a person could have any number of reasons. Also, simply expressing interest in something is not advocating for it, it’s sharing an opinion or preference.
By itself, it doesn’t mean someone is transphobic. But it does mean that at the very least, personal nostalgia is more important to that person than the harm their actions cause. And that is plenty of intent and context.
It doesn’t mean that, that’s what you’re assuming because that’s what it means to you.
You do not make the rules for other people.
I am so tired of this “fall in line or else” attitude everyone seems to have.
You want to preface it with “in my opinion” you go right ahead and we’ll have to agree to disagree but it is by definition and factually not literally promoting transphobia.
Except for the fact that the money spent on the movie directly funds transphobia via JK Rowling…
You get she’s literally doing that right?
No, it indirectly funds her through a convoluted system of ownership and IP law.
The problem isn’t people consuming media. The problem is the system that funnels wealth into the pockets of bigots.
You get that the only person who controls what JK Rowling does is her, right?
You don’t have to like that someone may choose to continue to consume Harry Potter but trying to claim they are directly promoting transphobia unless the context and/or the intent is there.
Someone with a track record of transphobic behavior, sure. Someone who is posting about it in spaces intended for trans people, especially if that space has already clearly communicated their stance on it, maybe.
Context and intent matter.
Whether or not you should consume HP Lovecraft media despite the fact he was a racist is entirely up to you because he is long dead. He doesn’t make any money. He isn’t even racist any more. Because he’s dead.
I always say “If you’re going to be a shitshow of a human being but a talented artist, the least you can do is also be dead.”
See also: Phil Spector, Pablo Picasso.
HP Lovecraft was more a clinical xenophobe and expressed that in his writings. He was afraid of different races, but he was also deadly afraid of scientific advancement and even the color indigo. He also didn’t fund terrible politicians or get into feuds on twitter. You also don’t see terrible people on twitter using his writings to justify their beliefs.
JK Rowling is actively funding and bragging about making other people’s lives worse.
Yeah, I actually think Lovecraft was doing what was probably the healthiest thing available to him at the time with all his fucked up phobias by turning them into inspiration for spooky stories. He was creative and articulate enough that he could have been writing political screeds and trying to get others on board with driving out all the immigrants, but instead he wrote about crab monsters from space. Far from the worst possible outcome considering a lot of the other possibilities from the time.
HP Lovecraft is a national treasure.
His detractors are potatoes.
His writing can be good and he personally can be a piece of shit. One has nothing to do with the other. His detractors as it were virtually all hate that he was a racist POS.
Your opinion is shallow, conformist fluff.
There’s also something to say about someone that was a racist in his mind, but made some effort to move in a better direction and/or live in isolation, versus someone that’s actively moving toward ruining other people lives with the benefits they reap.
There is a novel called “The Art of Monsters” that came out in the wake of Harvey Weinstein (not that he’s an artist). It’s a good read.
If only everybody would conform to the consensus morality. We’d be living in caves, eating garbage and telling really stupid stories but at least we’d all be non-shitshow human beings.
I’m sure some is profiting from his estate, no?
Well his estate is pretty loose about enforcing copyright and don’t take in much per product. That’s why you see so much merch. Secondly they are not some racist dipshit.
Plus, it was a shared mythos. He created the main core of it, but others contributed as well. So, figuring out copyrights would be difficult, since some stories reference other stories. Remember, they thought they were just writing some horror stories, but that they would never be something anyone other than other horror story enthusiasts would see.
IP was not a thing yet, and they were just writing for fun. A modern version would be the shared SCP universe.
Their right to anything is as fictional as any of his works
https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Copyright_status_of_works_by_H._P._Lovecraft
Is his estate run by raging racists?
No
His works are public domain. People are profiting who did their own work compiling or creating derivative works
Hello, username cousin
It’s pretty simple. Rowling is an avowed bigot who is using all of her means, financially and socially, to punish trans people for existing. She is a hateful person who should be judged harshly and ostracized. It will be a good day for the world when she is no longer able to or allowed to espouse her bigoted views.
Supporting her in anyway, be it paying for her works or even enjoying her content should be stigmatized to the maximum degree. Actors agreeing to work with or for her should lose everything, as they are even worse for helping to continue her pursuit of hate and villainy.
If she were to fall down a literary flight of stairs, I would be most pleased—especially if this were to happen daily until she were unable to fall any further.
Here’s to hoping that anyone that hitches their wagon with hers suffers pain and ruin.
If she were to fall down a literary flight of stairs
She already did - it was called the Harry Potter series.
I guruan-fucking-tee there’s going to be a new character who’s basically just a transgender boogeyman
No, I bet the trans character will be more of a “look! are you happy now?” like with the game.
Naw, JK Rowling has actual creative input this time.
And it be the most male-looking figure they can fucking find
I’m probably gonna watch it because it’s interesting to see what they made of it, I’m gonna pirate it and seed it far and wide tho lol
The online portion of the community that is complaining about all this may be valid, but it’s still a small portion of the actual public. Regardless of all the negative press, if this show is good, it’s going to be a commercial hit.
John Lithgow reacted to the open letter mentioned in this article, sent to him by “a very good friend who is the mother of a trans child” by saying “Why is this a factor at all?” and expressing sympathy for the transphobic bigot.
So it’s unfortunate that he probably wouldn’t know what a social media is if it slammed him right in the asshole - which is the entirety of him - because he certainly sounds deserving of decades of hell. Especially from his now hopefully former “very good friend.”
“I thought, ‘Why is this a factor at all?’ I wonder how J.K. Rowling has absorbed it. I suppose at a certain point I’ll meet her, and I’m curious to talk to her," he said.
“Decades in hell” for being a clueless, out of touch old man? Jesus Christ you people are unhinged. You fucking act like he’s personally bankrolling her anti-trans crusade.
Hopefully he dies early in production. How’s that for winding down?
I wonder if he’d be ok with others wishing he would die. Or is it only acceptable when he’s playing a character or working for bigots? In any case I’m sure he finds it all very exciting.
Fuck the whole HP franchise.
It was always shitty writing and the plot was garbage. The whole story was a thinly veiled glorification of British exceptionalism.
The only saving grace of that stinking turd of a franchise is that, in the '90s, it seemed like a good way to get kids to read.
The kind of hilarious part is there was right wing pushback in the southern US when they came out because it was “teaching kids witchcraft.” Which is so fucking funny to me now. It’s just so plainly obvious that they were literally judging a book by it’s cover. I read the first two books as a young adult because of the right wing pushback and even the 2nd book was an absolute slog. To my dismay I didn’t learn any witchcraft along the way either.
On the other hand, my youngest brother absolutely loved those books. I remember sneaking him one of the new ones when we were staying with our Southern Baptist grandparents for the summer. They absolutely were his first books that he really read independently. He was quite bitter when JKR decided to be all anti-trans and shitty. If you even bring it up now it sends him into a tirade about how shitty she is.
Thank you for speaking some sense. I never had any interest in anything HP ever since the beginning, long before JK revealed herself to be a piece of shit.
My cousin dragged me to one of the films once (IDK which one but it was the one where the Gollum ripoff dies). It was so boring that I fell asleep in the theater. Never understood why people find this garbage entertaining.
What? You mean a celebrity doesn’t really give a fuck about people and just wants to make money? But they were so silly and sweet in their interviews!
Unless this hurts their bottom line, I doubt they’ll move. Her behavior is not new and they auditioned and signed the contract anyway, the same way people still buy their house themed merch and take trips to Potter land or whatever the fuck it’s called. That woman’s growing wealth is a sign of just how little people are willing to give up.
a sign of just how little people are willing to give up.
Also telling a lot about how much many people care about transphobia. Or trans rights at all
Never give these people an inch, or they’ll take a mile.
When you say “these people”, who exactly are you referring to?
Bummer, I like Katherine Parkinson…
Don’t watch the series of Taskmaster that she’s in then. You’ll lose respect for her, she crashes and burns so hard it’s cringe and difficult to watch
I’ve enjoyed every single series of Taskmaster, including the one she was in. I’m sure if I watched it again with this in mind, I’d recognize what you’re referring to, but aside from that I remember having zero issue with her on TM.
She didn’t shine, but crash and burn is an exaggeration.
David Baddiel lost all my respect during taskmaster.
Possibly the worst taskmaster cast member of all time.
Honestly she probably needs the money, I’m least upset about her casting.
Starting a covert, underground marketing campaign on Lemmy this early is pretty extreme. I guess we can’t underestimate fandom: the promoters here don’t need payment with this kind of passion.
the death eaters have already infiltrated…
Mainstream social media is hell to begin with, that’s why I’m here
Due to how capitalism works, every purchase you make helps fund oppression. That’s how the system was designed: to ensure those in power who wish to oppress will ensure wealth is funnelled into their pockets through their convoluted system of ownership.
If it isn’t Harry Potter media that tangentially funds Rowling through royalties it is something else that funds another bigoted owner somewhere along the supply chain of the rest of the items you purchase in your life.
You really give a shit about this? Then direct your criticisms at the convoluted system that forces people to give up the things they enjoy because some bigot holds a piece of paper that says they own an idea.
This production has nothing to do with JK except for the fact she has a piece of paper that entitles her to reimbursement. That’s the problem, not the people simply trying to make a living or people indulging in media that they enjoy.
You can’t opt out of capitalism. You can opt out of not funding Rowling
Congratulations on missing the point
yeah yeah we all live in a society, you’re extra deep, we know the schtick. Not what we’re here for
We’re doing what we can, and that’s a whole lot more valuable than sitting around and talking about what we should do when we can’t at the moment.
Please, tell us your plan to dismantle capitalism that requires us to blindly consume Harry Potter media.
Just because there’s an underlying issue doesn’t mean that it’s pragmatic to hyperfocus on it and ignore the more immediate issues. If I have cancer, I’m not gonna stop eating fruit because I really need to focus on fighting the cancer and my other health-conscious activities need to be put on hold. That’s not how responding to problems works.
if they missed your point you should feel the urge to be more clear. Not act holier than thou
Then help them understand your point of you feel they missed it.
Sorry but I really don’t follow. Are you saying we shouldn’t boycot and socially cancel products created by bigots?
There’s so much entertainment and its honestly kinda sad that people would sacrifice their moral and justice stance for sake of “comfort consumption”. Ew.
Yes that’s their point. “no ethical consumption under capitalism” There are no degrees of evil or complicity, shut up and let me continue to not think about what I’m paying for when I buy nestle chocolate. You can’t be perfect so trying to cause less harm is just a distraction.
Eh disagree with this weakling mindset. It is our duty to be responsible and caring citizens even in systems you disagree with.
