"Can I Still Read Harry Potter?" BBC R4 Thursday 12th November 2020

Absolutely. I guess it just shocked me to see how it has filtered into a little suburban library in the middle of Middle England, and how a woman who is pretty bolshie in other areas has just rolled over on this. Although I do understand she probably values her relationship with her daughter too highly to disagree over something she doesn't feel she knows much about.

It's all "don't find out the facts, this is how you must feel and you DO NOT question this".

If you told them that this approach is pretty much how Trump true believers operate they would have a fit.

Had a depressing conversation with a colleague in her 60s today, who suggested to her daughter that she buy The Ickabog for her GC for Christmas, and was told absolutely not, as JKR is so anti-trans. She seemed a bit sad about it, but obviously believed her daughter. She's a tough northern lass who has no hesitation in speaking her mind on anything, but had obviously just rolled over on this without questioning it.

I pointed her to Rowling's website, suggested she had been misreported, and that she should read JKR's statement and make up her own mind. (That's a summary; I wasn't quite as blunt as that.) I don't want to say too much more at work because management are obsessed with mouthing all the right woke things. Another colleague raised the pronoun issue with me the other day, and I felt I could only go as far as saying I didn't feel comfortable talking about my personal opinions on the subject.

My only consolation is that I work in a public library, and as far as I can see all Rowling's books continue to fly out the door - for the time being. But will the next generation not be given Harry Potter to read at all?

PS It was our newly arrived copy of The Ickabog that started the conversation, so we're not there yet, thank goodness.

I've only just listened to this and thought it was pretty balanced (given the provocative title) and raised some really interesting questions about the way authors are now the public face of their work - they have to be in order to stand out in a crowded marketplace - and have become public property and moral compasses for their fans. Although I ultimately disagree with Aja, she did a good job showcasing a diverse set of points of view.

”Can I Still Read Harry Potter?”

Yes, as long as you hold your magic wand very tightly and be ready to shout “ExpelliamusBigota” if anything scary appears.

I think I first realised this as a mature student in the 90s with the advent of Facebook. I realised I had a totally different set of boundaries on what I thought it was appropriate to share and what it was better to keep private from those of the "normal age" students. When they explained to me about livejournal and blogging, I was baffled: why would anyone want to share every detail of their lives? And why on earth would they think anyone else would be in the least bit interested? It was as if everyone suddenly thought their very ordinary lives were Samuel Pepys.

Ben Elton tackled this very well in Blind Faith - a society with no privacy where you're seen as ideologically suspect (and potentially reportable to the authorities) if you don't overshare everything online, including the obligatory "loosing my virginity" video. In fact the hero first realised the woman he fancies is "not like other girls" (TM) when he realises her video is in fact not of her, just of another superficially similar looking woman. She's stolen it to preserve a tiny corner of privacy.

What about films like Ammonite which has just won a bunch of awards and is supposed to be a serious film? It invents, and shows us, a passionate lesbian affair which, for all we know, might have been unappealing or even considered wrong from the POV of the real person the story is supposed to be about.

I've also wondered about this in terms of where the line is drawn in our own minds. Since the sexual revolution the mainstream view seems to be that you can think about whatever you want in your head, about anyone, because it doesn't affect them. There was even those books about women's fantasies, many of which were involved people who would have been taboo sexual partners, that came out in the 60s or 70s, and were supposed to be about freeing women's sexuality.

I wonder though, if we accept that, over a few generations until it seems totally normal, maybe people begin to lose sight of the boundaries? If it doesn't hurt to do it in our heads, then why not on screen or in a story, if we think it makes a good story?

I do think the younger generation in general lacks a sense of privacy and personal boundaries.

I like the first Sabrina. When susie became Lachlan I switched off

BTW, it's interesting to find out that the awful line that the new Sabrina went down was actually pushed by the actor who played Theo. I watched it like this:

It was cringetastic. Theo (formerly Susie) comes out as a transboy in series 2 and insists on playing basketball to validate Theo's masculinity a week later, even though Theo is five foot nothing and can't play basketball. Sabrina casts a spell so Theo can play.

All this stuff was presented positively, but it's very difficult not to see it through a GC lens. Series 1 even started with Theo (then Susie) being sexually assaulted by the jocks from the basketball team for not being feminine enough.

There used to be a guy on a Doctor Who forum who billed himself as a fanfic writer, and he basically posted a paragraph of exceptionally silly plot summary, with a character that was clearly himself as the Doctor and an adoring companion and that was it, and he still had a following. I don't know about the other people, but I used to read it in the same spirit that I used to watch You've Been Framed compilations of blokes doing stupid stunts and making tits of themselves when I was 12...

Yes, A/B/O could in principle be used as an interesting exploration of the confluence of biology and society's gender expectations, with everything made new and visible and obviously unfair to the reader by having it happen to men rather than women (a related, but different trick underlies Naomi Alderman's The Power, I think). Instead, it mostly seems to be written by Stepford wife types who decided they liked "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" so much they'd try to apply it to slash fiction too.

There's something quite comforting about truly bad fic, though. And I love to write parody, and bad fic is an absolute gift for the parody writer. ("Golly, gosh, gee, gloriousky," said Lt. Mary Sue, stepping onto the bridge of the Starship Enterprise...)

My local library had a waiting list for 50 Shades. WHSmith was selling it like hot cakes, and publishers rushed out other novels in the newly-popular genre. (They all had distinctively grey covers to signal that they were like 50 Shades!) I was baffled. I'm still running into people mournfully wishing that EL James would write more. I helpfully direct them to the Twilight fandom on Ao3. They mostly seem appreciative.

By the way, I've read all the Twilight books except the newest one that just came out, and I will probably read that too, just to see how it turned out. (I remember the drama about how Stephanie Meyer wasn't going to write it after all and I am intrigued.) No-one here can rationally feel ashamed of what they read while I'm around- I've been reading fanfic since I was a teenager. I have read such dross in the past and enjoyed it! And yes, I am bonkers.

Oh gawd, Alpha and Omega fics. The first couple of A/B/O fics I came across were thoughtful explorations of oppressive expectations and biology determining one's future, and it was interesting, seeing authors explore all the ways women have suffered and continue to suffer across the world, but using well-loved male characters to illustrate the psychological impact.

My expectations having been raised, they were then cruelly dashed. I've learnt to avoid anything with that tag unless I already know the author.

It is strange how JK can be cancelled for transphobia in Troubled Blood when there wasn't a single trans character in it, by people in the Harry Potter fandom. I can't believe I never saw this hypocrisy before. How many rousing defences of people's rights to write fanfiction about abuse without incurring personal condemnation have I read? Many, many, many.

Even the most outrageous lies about what JK wrote aren't on par with what was factually out there in the wilds of Livejournal.

Thank you Floral & Pothole I knew 50 was a dramatisation/romanticised abusive relationship so I have actively avoided.
I have read twilight because if people put a book in front of me I am almost compelled to read it - I was banned from polishing shoes on newspaper as a child because I just read the newspaper

I can’t formulate any words about BBC proms presenter fanfic

It's an odd fit for R4, yes.

Yes I think that’s baffling thing as well. Doing this as a programme on bbc3 I could sort of see but R4?

Yes, I own it. Completely bonkers. FWIW, most of mine manifest out of an interest in discussing character and motivation. I'm not there for implausible slash fic and utterly bizarre crossovers.

Wankers. I didn't know this programme was on, but happened to turn R4 on just before it started. I lasted about a minute and a half. What a self-absorbed idiot.

My feeling on hearing it was much the same as yours Ihaventgottimeforthis. It made me ask myself "What will the average listener of Radio 4 make of this?" and the answer was sympathy to JKR and irritation at young people afraid of growing up and facing the real world.

I can't get my head around fanfic.

And here:

www.vogue.co.uk/miss-vogue/article/lachlan-watson-interview

that one with the short hair in the new Sabrina

This one? Glamourising scars?

www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2019/05/234065/lachlan-watson-top-surgery-scar-interview

I was never into fanfic, but got exposed to the tropes through fan communities. This thread just reinforces my old beliefs that most fanfic writers are completely bonkers. (not you lovely ladies of FWR though, I'm sure )
When young girls grow up online and their friend circle consist of people writing "real person slash" and "omegaverse" surely it must affect them.

I think this prog IS worth a listen. Yes the presenter is incredibly self absorbed but the content does go a long way to putting their views into a realistic context in the wider real world and is fair to JKR. I made it through the whole thing without combusting and felt reassured.

pothole I was utterly baffled that so many women paid money to buy 50 shades when if they wanted to read terrible erotica they could do it for free on the internet when ever they wanted - even the original twilight fanfic that became 50 shades was available for quite a while after the book was published

It does say a lot that despite the pornification of our culture, so many women were completely unaware that well written erotica was out there available for free

I was curious enough to suffer through Fifty Shades when it first came to Netflix and I'm astonished EL James wasn't sued, tbh, given how much was lifted from a combination of the Twilight books and films. I am not a fan of Twilight, but I am a voracious reader so I have read the Twilight books.

I know that fanfic itself raises some interesting questions about intellectual property, but my take is that as long as you're not profiting from someone else's creation then it's just meant to be enthusiastic approval and I think it's ok. But I think taking someone's original work, whether you think it's any good or not, and making money from it, is simple plagiarism.

I'm being very judgy today. Must be time for wine.