Imagine
Huh. Subway ads for the New York Times attacking JK Rowling. That’s a new level.
The New York Times has come under fire for an ad that describes a woman imagining what Harry Potter would be like without its author JK Rowling.
Setting aside the morality of a major newspaper singling out a woman for hatred in its advertising, that’s just plain a stupid thing to say. Let’s imagine what The Trout Quintet would be like without Schubert. What would King Lear be like without Shakespeare? Wuthering Heights without Emily Bronte? Fallingwater without Frank Lloyd Wright?
At least it’s an easy exercise. The answer is nothing. Zero. An empty space.
And as for the morality…well. It’s beneath contempt.
The advertisement is part of the paper’s new brand marketing campaign, ‘Independent Journalism for an Independent Life’, which according to a press release aims to give an insight into the lives of several New York Times subscribers.
By singling out a woman for abuse because she has an independent mental life.
Critical feedback sent.
Pretty sure that’s the DC Metro (those vaults!). Though perhaps it identifies as the NY Subway.
That ad depicts typical trans delusion:
WISHFUL THINKING
In other words:
Lianna is imagining a lesbian with a dick.
What a Maroon – I think it is the Metro – I think one of the sources I saw named it. Is it wrong to call it the small s subway? I think of that word as generic rather than brand but maybe I’m wrong.
Ophelia,
It’s one of those regional things–everyone here refers to it as Metro (just as everyone in Boston calls it the T). I don’t think it’s wrong, exactly, to call it a subway, but if you do you’re marking yourself as an outsider.
Well, I’ve used it a few times, so I’ll try to remember to pretend to be an insider by calling it Metro. (In Seattle it’s called “light rail” which is just stupid and literal and bad. Might as well call it thingy with wheels.)
The 2020 NYT article Harry Potter Fans Reimagine Their World Without Its Creator: A slice of fandom divides itself from J.K. Rowling was awakened from the archives to find its way into my RSS feed today, perhaps in response to this campaign. It shows how silly this nonsense is. People are described matter-of-factly as belonging to Hogwarts houses; really? I had harbored a thought that maybe this was a group of people concerned about how to continue to expand and maintain a fictional world after Rowling bows out or dies, but no, it’s people cutting themselves off of Rowling but still wanting to hang onto her creative output.
‘if you do you’re marking yourself as an outsider’
Reminds me of one of my finest* moments–I was doing some work in a small upscale town with a name that could be pronounced in two different ways. I always pronounced it one way; a local proceeded to lecture me that if I pronounced it that way and not the other way I was clearly marking myself as an outsider. ‘God forbid I should want anyone to think I was FROM here!’ I blurted out.
*for certain meanings of ‘finest’
My ex-wife, who had borderline personality disorder and various other mental illnesses, insisted that she was a Hufflepuff and that this was really important. She insisted that I take an online quiz to see which Hogwarts house I belonged to. I didn’t want to, but eventually I gave in. The quiz seemed to have been written by an eleven-year old, if we judge by the poor spelling and coherence (and the childishness of the whole exercise). Some of the questions were things like: “What is your favorite color? I don’t know why I put this question here, lol, but I think the site needed a specific number?” I filled out the first few, and then after that I filled out all the rest as “none of the above” or “not applicable” or something. The result came out: “Hufflepuff.” My ex was so excited, and said: “See, I knew it! I knew you were a Hufflepuff, too!” And she assigned great significance to this.
Okay, I’m gonna leap down this rabbit-hole for a moment, because I think it really gets at the critiques of Rowling and Harry Potter from the TRAs:
H. P. Lovecraft was the creator of the Cthulu “mythos”. He pretty much invented, whole-cloth, the idea of ancient gods who are so far beyond human experience that to apply mortal morals to them is absurd, and to contemplate them directly is to invite insanity. Just as Mary Shelly created the first real Sci-Fi Horror story, Lovecraft pretty much invented the whole genre of Existential Horror. His writings have inspired scores of other writers to produce work in the same genre, as well as art, music and parodies. (I’m fond of the HP Lovecraft Christmas Carol book, personally.)
He was also a flaming racist. And not just by modern standards; even by the standards of a white man in the early 1900s, he was an extremist. (He also was terrified by science and technology, including the notion of air-conditioning.)
And these views are rife throughout his writings. The view that anyone who isn’t a high-born WASP is in some way not merely inferior, but actually dangerous, is inimical to his stories.
Naturally, this has created some difficulties in the modern era. When retelling his stories in new adaptations, or in new works based on his mythos, writers, filmmakers and others generally take considerable effort to excise the elements that are so offensive. One of the biggest triumphs in the remake category comes from Jordan Peele, whose Lovecraft County takes pretty much everything that’s fun and enjoyable about HP’s writings, and then infuses it with a strong anti-racist vibe. Perfect subversion.
I went on this tangent to show that it’s possible to ‘imagine the art without the artist’. But now, let’s look at the billboard slogan again.
What, exactly, would be changed in a Harry Potter-verse that was written by someone who wasn’t J.K. Rowling? Well… pretty much absolutely nothing. At most, there might’ve been a greater diversity of skin-tones among the characters. But there’s no intrinsic social or political views that are driving her world-building the way there is with H.P.’s. You can’t eliminate her ‘transphobia’ because there’s nothing in the work that contains her views on sex-based differences in the first place, other than the existence of boy’s and girl’s bathrooms.
Re the word “subway”, I think that’s a perfectly good generic term that can be applied to the underground rail systems in many cities. I’ve never thought of it as a term specific to New York. Most cities seem to have some name they use for their specific subway system. The MBTA, which runs the Boston transit system, refers to it as a subway, even though the system is commonly called the T.
Well, that’s that, then: this is how I’m going to refer to it from now on.
“Do you need a ride to SEATAC?”
“Naw, thanks, I’ll just hop on the thingy with wheels.”
@11 I just want to point out that Lovecraft Country was written by an in my opinion highly underrated sf author, Matt Ruff–I think all his work is terrific and am surprised he’s not better known (was really pleased Lovecraft Country got picked up for TV treatment, but I don’t think the TV version did the novel justice).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Ruff
“Imagine Judaism without its creator”
… because Christianity worked out so well…
I’m a Slytherin, not that it matters or is really part of my identity.
I think that J.K. Rowling’s lawyers could be very busy indeed this year.
Freemage, excellent comment. I agree that it’s not only possible, but sometimes desirable, to re-write a fictional world without the nastier aspects put in by the original writer. But that’s it, isn’t it? There are no nasty aspects in the Rowling world; even the accusations that her other writings are ‘transphobic’ have to twist, or cherry-pick, or even actively ignore what she actually wrote.
(My emphasis) Autocorrect for integral?
[…] a comment by Freemage on […]
Sackbut @ 12 – a mildy amusing story about generic “subway” and local usage. Years n years ago I was living in London and an aunt and uncle were there for a couple of days and we got together for an evening. We parted to go in different directions at Hyde Park Corner; they were heading for their hotel somewhere beyond Piccadilly, and they wanted to walk there so I told them the nicest way would be to take the subway and then walk through Green Park. They said but they wanted to walk. I said I know but just the subway to the far side of Hyde Park Corner because it’s a roundabout and the traffic is murder, and Green Park is just on the other side. They repeated they wanted to walk. This went on for a surprisingly long time before I realized I was using the local meaning of “subway” – a set of passenger tunnels under Hyde Park Corner. We had a good laugh and down into the “subway” they went.
Freemage #11, a couple of points.
I wouldn’t go quite that far. His racism and fear of dark-skinned/poor/foreign Others is present in a number of his stories, but not integral to the mythos. And not all of his characters are high-born. The farm family ravaged by The Color Out of Space certainly aren’t, and what happens to them, through no fault of their own, is presented so sympathetically I have trouble reading the story without wincing and being brought close to tears.
Anyway, other writers started borrowing from HPL’s mythos and expanding it within his lifetime–almost immediately, in fact–and he participated in the world-building give and take.
But we still acknowledge Lovecraft as the creator of the Cthulhu/Elder Gods mythos and the grandfather of “cosmic horror.” Readers then and now have recognized the racism (and classism, and xenophobia) found in (some of) his stories, and acknowledged its ugliness, without trying to deny that. It seems to me that the Gender Elect really do want to write JKR out of the Harry Potterverse. They want her to stop writing, now, and would prefer nobody mention her again. They want to Unperson her.
“I’m re-imagining without its creator” is a really euphemistic way of describing plagiarism
The NY Times launched a campaign nytimes.com/life
That page shows those seven subscribers (on a first name basis) in 30-second videos, e.g. the video for Lianna with 1.1M views on YouTube:
I recommend the video of Jordan Peterson interviewing Bari Weiss (June 2021) about the time frame of when she started at the NY Times to when she left. I don’t have time right now to pull quotes, but as I recall, she said that the business leads them to this style of reporting. So Bari Weiss predicted this was where the NY Times was going.