People don’t seem to realize that their consumption of a product is seen by its beneficiaries.
Sure not YOU directly, but when someone sees “oh this place also set up something dedicated solely to the thing I made, they must really like me and approve of the things I do/say!” and others who agree with their shitty views think “oh they agree too, otherwise why promote it?”
Is it possible to separate the creatOR from the creatION? Yes. But not for everyone, and many of those who can’t will see your support as support of their own shitty ideals that match the creators’.
Sure, you may not be antisemitic, but the country club you go to for lunch sure is. Go ahead and pretend you’re not supporting them I guess.
blueberry@diagonlemmy.social 8 months ago
If it would be that easy, yes. But you ignore that H.P. does have a cultural value to it. Now you could try to re-build this, but first of all: it will be pretty hard to come up with something that noone feels offended by. And second of all: it will be pretty hard to come up with something that is equally popular.
For me, this is about post-structuralism vs. structuarlism. The current zeigeist is all about “deconstruction”, but if you de-construct everything, you are left with nothing. You need to build something new and that structure will always leave some room to deconstruct.
So I’m for leaving some of these cultural structures even if they are in parts worth overcoming. In case of the social web, which the Fediverse tries to create: it will not work without some kind of cultural structure on which it is build. People don’t want to spent time in a non-place, the Metaverse already failed because of that (at least its first try). That’s basically the point I’m trying to make with this whole instance apart from setting up a nice instance for people to interact with one another: post-structuralism is bad.
melmi@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
I love to be able to reclaim works from their hateful authors, especially cultural ones. I’m a big fan of Lovecraft, and that dude was hateful. He makes JK Rowling look sweet and kindly. But it’s a lot easier to reclaim the narrative and make it a part of our culture when the author is literally dead.
Lovecraft is a cornerstone of modern fiction, despite being a bigot. We can acknowledge how he was a terrible person, even analyze it, but we know that our enjoyment of Lovecraftian fiction isn’t benefiting Lovecraft’s hateful causes, especially because the work is public domain.
In contrast, JK Rowling is not only still alive, she is active and vocal about her hatred, how she spends her money towards hate, and how she considers support of Harry Potter in light of her hate to be support of her vile views.
Consumption of media is not a passive action. Even if you do not actively give any money to the franchise, promoting the franchise encourages other people to do so, and then their money goes to fund hate.
I understand that HP is important to a lot of people. It was a cultural phenomenon. But we aren’t leaving it behind just because JK Rowling said something offensive. We’re leaving it behind because the author is actively using our consumption to fund hate and campaigning to deny rights to trans people.
There are plenty of other forms of media, new and old, that aren’t being piloted by known bigots. If you want a cultural backbone, using one that is currently controlled by a bigot will probably make a lot of trans people feel unwelcome at best and at worst, if HP continues to be a cultural phenomenon on a large scale JK Rowling will use the platform and the money to further the oppression of transgender rights.
blueberry@diagonlemmy.social 8 months ago
Agreed. The athmosphere he creates is great but that dude was really problematic.
Sure, we find ourselves in a pickle, there. On the one hand, she is actively harming people and this will stay this way until it eventually becomes part of the public domain.
However, boycotting Harry Potter also comes as a price that, at least I would argue, also hurts minorities. Because the places create structure, which protects vulnarable people.
Why don’t we replace it with something else that does the same? Well, because in my opinion, Harry Potter culturally serves as a mythologization of the digital. People use it to understand the digital world. In past centuries, humans always made up stories and myths to understand complex concepts. The same thing is happening with the digital world and Harry Potter is one of the first to do this. It has a unique and central societal purpose.
That doesn’t mean that it can be improved, as can be seen in Hogwarts Legacy, which is kind of progressive, and also still slightly antisemetic, which is not so great, BUT I think overall the books still do much more good for vulnarable people than anything Rowling does against them, if she wants it or not.
So at the end of my line of thought, I always end up with two options: either create something new that does the same thing as H.P. while being more progressive but still hugely popular (which is hard to impossible), or to use H.P. and build on top of it to make it more modern (which is much easier).
What I would like to see more in these discussion is the question how EFFECTIVE Rowlings actions really are and if boycotting doesn’t hurt more than it helps.
melmi@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
Harry Potter spaces are not unique in creating structure. There are tons of fandoms, with millions of members. It’s not the first modern fandom by any means either. It’s not like if HP suddenly disappeared there wouldn’t be any fandoms of equivalent or larger size to provide “structure” to vulnerable people. Lots of them have more queer people in them too, and less transphobia.
I’m not sure what makes Harry Potter uniquely digital in your mind either. I’m sure you can interpret it as being about that, but I don’t think that’s the interpretation most people walk away with. Even if it really is a lens some people use to understand the Internet or whatnot, I certainly don’t think it’s the first story to be used in that way… There are a lot of stories that can claim that title that far predate Harry Potter, many of which have fandoms of their own.
I just don’t think HP is an essential backbone of culture. It’s important to a lot of people, for sure. And I can’t imagine what it’s like to realize that the creator of a work that’s so important to you is a terrible person. That has got to be a really shitty situation to be in. But there are other fandoms out there. There’s other great fiction, written by authors who won’t weaponize your consumption against minorities. It’s not a dichotomy of either you embrace Harry Potter or you must write your own.
Omniraptor@lemm.ee 8 months ago
This, it is our duty as people with good taste in media to promote better and less popular books to children. Earthsea by leguin, his dark materials by Pullman etc.