Let me pose a hypothetical to you then. If the transphobic rhetoric of JKR escalated, and transphobes took action, like just started doing even more harm to the trans community than they already have. At what point would you say “you know what, I’ve had enough of HP. It’s just distasteful to engage with this anymore”.
Let’s say a trans person enters, participates, and becomes a part of your HP fan community. What if they are directly, or even indirectly harmed by JKR’s transohobic rhetoric. If you continue to engage with how great the content is, while ignoring what just happened, was that trans person, who was harmed, ever really part of your community? Or were you just paying lip service to your community’s inclusivity?
These hypotheticals can happen, it’s not even remotely outside the realm of possibility. At what point is engaging in HP fandom distasteful?
Chozo@kbin.social 9 months ago
I'd say when the material that makes up the HP franchise, itself, becomes distasteful. I'm not hugely invested into HP, but last I've seen of it, the franchise is LGBT-inclusive, directly in spite of Rowling. I see no reason why one shouldn't be allowed to enjoy the story.
Yeah, Rowling may still profit from it. But the bitter pill is that she's allowed to. People are entitled to make money from their IPs, it's how society enables creatives. Just because somebody's a shit person doesn't mean they're not allowed to earn a living. And realistically, she's going to make money from it, anyway. Blocking a Lemmy instance has literally zero impact on Rowling's bottom line, making the act little more than posturing.
The HP material, itself, is fine. And the HP community largely seems inclusive toward LGBT fans. I can't think of any reason to consider liking it or talking about it to be distasteful. Rowling's a TERF shitbag, and I think most of the HP community is generally onboard with that notion, too.
nforminvasion@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Idk the slavery, the goblins, the blatant love of all the worst parts of 19th century high British society… The world is pretty wild.
And she doesn’t really set those things up to challenge them in the books, you’re just supposed to accept that they’re there and be fine with them.
Twelve20two@slrpnk.net 9 months ago
Yeah, it’s these things that make it harder to enjoy. She actively put pretty bad things in alongside the fun, whimsy, and magical.
z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
It’s not about ”allowing” people to enjoy the story. I’m only pointing out consequences both intended and not intended incurred by choices to engage with, and inherently validate, an author who has engaged in transphobic hateful rhetoric.
Engaging in communities that reinforce a positive viewpoint of a story written by a transphobic hateful person is harmful to those communities in ways that are both overt and subtle. If you are okay with that, then at least don’t deny it.
I never mentioned boycotting her material because it somehow might starve her of profit. You are obfuscating the argument from the main point. This farcical argument is often brought up as if the harm that the trans community experiences from JKR’s rhetoric is directly related to JKR’s wallet. It’s not. It’s her hate speech and the complacency around that hate speech that is the issue.
Obviously I agree on Rowling being a TERF shitbag. And in all truth, I’m sure the majority of the HP community aren’t blatant transphobes. The problem is not in any obvious transphobia exhibited by the HP community, but rather what an HP community inherently must ignore in order to enjoy the material. To continue to find the HP franchise tasteful, you must ignore the hateful rhetoric of it’s author, and the repercussions of said rhetoric.
Again, if you’re okay with that, then I’d encourage you to admit that to at least yourself.
Chozo@kbin.social 9 months ago
How? If the community at large is against Rowing and is inclusive in defiance of her stance, then it would seem to me that they have enough self-awareness to take care of themselves and mitigate any of this nebulous harm.
z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
Because continuing to engage with her content is a form of endorsement of her viewpoints (As mentioned in my previous comment, it is not inherently monetary support).
By saying, ”I enjoy the content. I don’t support her views, but I’m not going to go out of my way to condemn her, and I’m going to continue to engage in positive discourse about her work.", you are s indicating “I don’t stand against trans bigotry unless publicly pressured to do so. I value the entertainment of her work more than dislike the harm my turning a blind eye to the harm the author causes with her hate speech.” Most commonly followed by “I’m just going to pretend it’s okay because it makes me uncomfortable to think otherwise. I’m not a bad person, and refuse to evem acknowledge that I might be wrong here.”
This simple line of thought that is understandably easy to fall into is often used amongst outright hate groups, transphobes in this case, to empathize with people within his community.
With that empathy built off of a mutual dislike for the trans people making them feel bad for just wanting to like their little HP fan club, they form a bond of an us vs them mentality, where the “us"becomes less and less about their love of the content, and more and more about their dislike of the " other.”
Part of this discourse I’m engaging in here isn’t in the hope that somehow I can dissuade anyone from joining this community. People gonna do what their gonna do. But pointing out the potential pitfalls of founding and perpetuating this community is meant to instill in those that join an awareness of exactly WHY trans people and their allies are so upset that people are willing to turn a deaf ear to their voices when they tell you to think more carefully on this, to reconsider your position.
They don’t though. Because to mitigate the harm would mean having a more difficult discussion on how JKR’s works and awkward stumblings around inclusivity in her works have been nothing but tokenism. A facade of inclusivity made in bad faith. But that’s not what this community would ever want to do, because to do so would be to point out exactly what I’ve been arguing this entire time, that to ignore the fact thst you are celebrating the works created by a bigot means you silently are endorsing her, even if you vocally condemn her.
People claim to care, and heck, words matter. But words only matter inasmuch as what those words do, or inspire people to do. JKR’s words obviously have inspired a lot of people in a lot of different ways. But what have they ulimately inspired people to do really?
At best, they inspired people to get together and engage in conversations about a fantasy world, maybe come up with amazing stories of their own. At worst, they inspired some people to go out and make some poor trans person want to kill themselves.
The question I pose is, does the good really outweigh the bad? I don’t think so.
dameoutlaw@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
Let me ask you this. Tell me what companies and what countries pass this purity test? Where is the line drawn? If someone spends money on leisure in the states for example, are they supporting racism, transphobia etc due to their moneys going to states like Florida, Texas etc? What about people that buy video games even though companies are known to work their employees into depression and have harmful ethics regarding female employees with sexual harassment? Are people that buy games endorsing that culture? How should those victims view fans that continue to make those companies money? What about companies that outsource their manufacturing processes to China? Some companies have put suicide nets to prevent employees from unaliving themselves. Many companies use China for manufacturing. By purchasing products are we endorsing that culture that has led to people taking their own lives?
z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
Whoa, lots of whataboutisms going on here. I don’t think you’re making these questions in good faith, but hey, I’m always willing to field questions from z’haters.
No, only if they knowingly support the businesses of those who are racists, transphobes, and other hate groups. Yeah, their tax money goes towards very hateful politicians, but as long as their beliefs don’t align with them, then they’re just people trying to survive in a state run by shitty politicians.
Yeah, don’t play those games, and let those companies know why! Video games and entertainment aren’t inherently necessary to your survival, and if you knowingly purchase, and engage in positive rhetoric around those games, you are endorsing the bad practices that made that game possible. I know game devs just need to make a living in a shitty industry, but that industry will remain shitty unless you hit those corporate asshats where it hurts, and the only place it hurts is their wallets. It sucks because the devs don’t deserve to be dragged down monetarily with the asshats up top, but that’s the way the capitalist cookie crumbles right now, and the only moral choice in my view is to not buy those games at all.
If they buy those games specifically, while also knowing about the disgusting business practices that were engaged in during it’s production? Yes.
As ignorant participants in a flawed corporate infrastructure in which they are trapped in at best, and uncaring knowing participants at worst. If these employees speak out, they are left without a means of a living wage income due to horrific minimum wage laws and no social safety net. I’ve met people in the video game industry, gotten beers with them, talked with them, most of them didn’t know how toxic it was going to be when they got into it. But they invested so much time, energy, and usually also money in their education, that they have little recourse now to abandon their job for my “purity test”, as you put it. I am sympathetic towards their plight because their livelihood and lifestyle depends on it. The same cannot be said of those wanting to create a little HP fan club.
Ah yes, the big elephant in the room, right? You can’t get away from Chinese products, their everywhere! You can’t live cheaply without China’s horrible work practices, right? All the while they additionally suppress public forms of dissent, have a literal dictator for life as a “president”, have displaced the Dalai Llama, have imprisoned dissidents in Hong Kong, refused to acknowledge the statehood of Tibet and Taiwan, not to mention the horrific treatment of the Uyghur Muslims. So yeah, it’s a shitty situation and in the US, many goods are difficult to find that don’t come from China, and most cheap goods are produced in China. So what about that?
My take on it is if you can do without Chinese products, do it. If you don’t need it for work or school, then yeah, you get a pass from my “purity test”. If you can’t afford to buy a more expensive product that doesn’t come from China, and again, you really actually need it (and don’t simply want it), then buy it. Then go out and condemn the Chinese Communist Party regardless. Condemn them loudly and in public, on the internet and IRL, as often as the subject comes up. Bring up the topic from time to time if it bothers you, and it should.
Ultimately your bad faith arguments are basically saying “There’s a lot of bad in the world, and if you do any of the things I mentioned, your hands aren’t clean! You’re not holier than me, you’re just like the rest of us, so STFU!” But that’s the whole thing, I’m as disgusted with this shit as the rest of you, the only difference is I refuse to STFU about it and say nothing.
I’m not blind to the fact that some people are in bad situations they can’t get out of. Capitalism as a whole and the history of racism, homophobia, and transphobia that have plagued human history has put us all in a shit situation that we can only play our small role in, and survive in. But that doesn’t mean things can’t change. Slavery was once thought a necessary evil that propped up the American economy during the 19th century, the Feminist movement was ridiculed as promoting an “unnatural” restructuring of the existing social hierarchy, Racism was silently accepted by the majority until the Civil Rights movements upended the status quo, and Homosexuality only became more socially accepted after the Stonewall Riots occurred and people died for their right to personhood. Societal change has never been solved by a comfortable nice conversation or sticking your head in the sand. It has always happened because disenfranchised people stood the fuck up, said something, and did something, and very often this had to happen many many times over before society at large got the fucking message, heard their voices, and changed (we’re still addressing all these issues on some level or another right now, and our rhetoric around these subjects continues to change, overall for the better, thanks to these initial challenges to the status quo).).
Now, you could argue that joining an HP fan club can do the same from the inside, but, obviously, I disagree. Many of these aforementioned movements didn’t succeed because they ignored the bigotry around them (though trust me, many of them wanted to, they tried, and they failed). These movements only succeeded when they called out the hatred, bigotry, and INDIFFERENCE for what it was over and over and over again.
So…what about your next whataboutism?