Cancellations

[version]

I didn't realise the male pseudonym she's using, Robert Galbraith, also happens to be the name of a psychiatrist who experimented with gay conversion therapy. I dunno whether that's why she chose it, but it doesn't look good when taken with everything else.

Robert Galbraith Heath - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[chava]

true fact: wherever there's money, there's shitty people behaving shittily.

Back when 99% of everyone was dirt poor, now that was a time of proper behaving men

 

[boxedjoy]

Rowling being so insanely wealthy that she never has to do anything ever again, and yet continuing with this nonsense, it's absolute madness

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I think Rowling must be actively trying to upset people at this point

her cards are on the table at this point, no point for her in pretending otherwise. and, controversy sells.

caricatured transgender serial killer of women was stale when Silence of the Lambs did it 30 years ago

then again, the last thing that would surprise me about JK Rowling is the reuse of stale, hackneyed plot devices

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Rowling being so insanely wealthy that she never has to do anything ever again, and yet continuing with this nonsense, it's absolute madness

she believes it

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Back when 99% of everyone was dirt poor, now that was a time of proper behaving men

when Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?

 

[boxedjoy]

if I had Rowling's money I would just live in my mansion, drinking fine spirits and shagging models all day, diving around pools of money like the opening scenes of Ducktails - she can literally go fuck off into an ivory tower and not have to deal with any of this regardless of how she feels about it, and the fact she feels compelled otherwise is just so abhorrent

 

[Leo]

Back when 99% of everyone was dirt poor, now that was a time of proper behaving men

yeah, you're right. there have always been shitty people acting shittily, but perhaps not all drawn like moths to a flame as they are when money can be made.

also, was there ever a time when 99% of everyone was dirt poor?

 

[Benny Bunter]

I didn't realise the male pseudonym she's using, Robert Galbraith, also happens to be the name of a psychiatrist who experimented with gay conversion therapy. I dunno whether that's why she chose it, but it doesn't look good when taken with everything else.

Robert Galbraith Heath - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

FTR

JK Rowling tells story of alter ego Robert Galbraith | JK Rowling | The Guardian

<p>Harry Potter author explains how she gave her crime-writing undercover alter ego Robert Galbraith his name</p>

amp.theguardian.com

 

[boxedjoy]

"just a coincidence" aye OK

 

[Benny Bunter]

Er...yeah? I think all these people tweeting #RIPJKRowling and getting hysterical over a book they haven't read should seek help tbh. The media reporting of this has been terribly irresponsible on the whole.

JK Rowling's latest novel isn't 'transphobic'

The object of a slanderer is to blacken the name of his target so thoroughly everything she says and does reinforces his slander. She can have no independent life or complexity. No one is free to say, although I disapprove of her views on X, I admire her for speaking out on Y. No quarter

www.spectator.co.uk

 

[boxedjoy]

Let's say it was a coincidence. She would still have Googled "Robert Galbraith" to check he wasn't like some massive paedo from overseas or something. It's completely disingenuous.

 

[Benny Bunter]

It's not even a 'coincidence' its blatantly just a nasty lie somebody has made up.

 

[boxedjoy]

That Spectator article is only available to subscribers btw

 

[Benny Bunter]

I'm not a subscriber, maybe you get some limited free views or something cos I've just read it

 

[boxedjoy]

I mean: publishing a book where the plot can be so easily summed up as "trans presenting character is violent killer", under a pen name that's identical to a gay conversion enthusiast, after having spent months cultivating the drama and criticism of being deliberately outspoken against trans rights - none of that exists in a bubble.

I imagine the reason people are hysterical about it is because for a lot of people in their late 20s and early 30s these books were pivotal in their identity - the first books they loved, and lots of parallels with Harry Potter finding his sense of self and home to be made with LGBT+ people and their struggles. People who would have taken Rowling's much-publicised personal battles with adversity as inspiring and heroic.

 

[constant escape]

Well do you think the goal (of those opposing Rowling here) is to prevent bigoted narratives from gaining steam (and thus the argument would be whether or not the narrative is bigoted)?

In trying to prevent such things, is collateral damage justified? In this case, giving Rowling the benefit of the doubt (I'm not familiar with the situation beyond this thread), the collateral damage would be the suppression of a narrative created not by a bigot, but by a commentator, a commentator who doesn't classify under the demographics being commented upon.

She did make prior comments about biological build determining gender, no? So that likely, for most people, makes it less plausible to give her the benefit of the doubt - but the above questioning should apply, in broad strokes, to such situations in general.

Just asking for opinions, not for what the Right Answer is.

 

[Benny Bunter]

That Spectator article is only available to subscribers btw

Works for me when i click on the link via twitter

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I mean: publishing a book where the plot can be so easily summed up as "trans presenting character is violent killer", under a pen name that's identical to a gay conversion enthusiast, after having spent months cultivating the drama and criticism of being deliberately outspoken against trans rights - none of that exists in a bubble

yes that would all seem totally obvious, wouldn't it

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

giving Rowling the benefit of the doubt

as @boxedjoy lays out she doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt

she has spent a great deal of time staking out her position - fine, that's her position. she has to live with the consequences.

she, for example, has literally compared gender-affirming therapy to conversion therapy - about as ugly as it gets short of actual slurs

so when her alias turns out to be a literal pioneer of conversion therapy, of course it raises eyebrows

she doesn't get the benefit of the doubt in this situation, either