Firstly, this thread is not quite about "the death of the author" as Roland Barthes meant it. It is more about the idea that a work of literature can be separated from its author and enjoyed on its own merits even if you no longer wish to endorse the author due to their political views.
Secondly, hello JKR if you are lurking on Mumsnet. I hope you are having a lovely day.
I am in a baby bumpers group for mothers of children born in the same month as my son. The group originated on Reddit, so it is very US-centric, and has given me a lot of insight into women like me, living in a political environment completely unlike the one I am used to.
In this group, dissenting political views simply are not tolerated. It isn't explicitly said, but members of the group feel perfectly at ease expressing certain political views, such as that trans women are women, trans kids should be allowed to use spaces and compete in sports according to their gender identity, and that the conservative attacks on women's right to an abortion are appalling. I agree with some of these views, but not others. But what is noticeable is that there seems to be only one acceptable set of views, and that if members of the group do hold opposing views, they do not feel comfortable expressing them. I like being in the group so I hold my tongue when others are expressing political views I disagree with, notably anything trans related.
There's a subset of the group who are huge, huge Harry Potter fans. They are all up to their necks in merchandise, they dress their kids up in Harry Potter themed costumes for photoshoots, they're all just way, way more into Harry Potter than anyone I have ever met in the UK, and yet by common consensus they do not discuss JK Rowling because they're all so disappointed in her.
When I asked the group whether any of them had read the Cormoran Strike series it felt a little awkward, and then one of them mentioned JK Rowling being controversial. So I kind of pleaded ignorance and said I didn't think JK Rowling was as controversial a figure in the UK as she is in the US. I was told that the entire group agreed that she has some "pretty bad takes" and that they don't like to talk about her. But the person who told me that also indicated that she personally enjoys the Cormoran Strike books, and I started discussing those with her in a separate chat. She didn't know there was a new book out and I'm hoping we'll be able to talk about it once she has read it. Ironically, I think that even though she was the one who shut down the discussion about JK Rowling in the main group, she's probably the one who is most receptive to alternative points of view. In our own chat she agreed that Troubled Blood is not a transphobic book, she didn't get what all the fuss was about, and it was probably her favourite in the series so far.
On the one hand, I find it absolutely incredible that people can still be obsessed with Harry Potter to the point that, in their 30s, their love for Harry Potter still forms a part of their own personal identity, and simultaneously hate JK Rowling and want to distance her as much as possible from her own creation. There are so many other books in the world. Why not move on from Harry Potter altogether?
On the other hand, I am personally experiencing a similar conflict when it comes to other authors and artists whose work I enjoy, but whose views on women's rights I find disappointing.
The two that immediately spring to mind for me are Margaret Atwood and Philip Pullman.
There's no way that Margaret Atwood doesn't know what a woman is. She wrote the Handmaid's Tale, for crying out loud. A dystopian novel focused around the exploitation of women for their reproductive labour. She knows. There's no way she doesn't know. And she actually, a while ago, made some mild comments about not being allowed to say "woman" anymore, which were immediately seized upon by trans activists. She saw the mob approaching with their pitchforks and immediately recanted.
To a certain extent, I get it. She's an old woman. She doesn't want to have this fight. She has a very lucrative contract with Hulu, she's enjoying far more fame and fortune in her old age than most feminist writers can aspire to, and she probably won't live long enough to find out whether "trans women are women" really was the right side of history or not. But it's still disappointing.
Then there's Philip Pullman. Ugh. What an arsehole.
He wrote one series condemning organised religion, magical thinking and macabre experiments performed on pubescent children, and another series focused around a gender non-conforming woman living in an era when the odds were stacked against women even more than they are now. How can the man who created Sally Lockhart believe that trans women are women? If Sally Lockhart were a real person she would be a card carrying TERF, there is no doubt about it.
But Philip? No, he asks these leading questions on Twitter, the faux innocent, "Explain the gender critical position to me." He lets thousands of women patiently describe their experiences and outline their concerns to me. And then hours later he makes some sanctimonious jibe about how he "can't abide bigotry".
So whilst, on the one hand, I don't get how "liberal feminist" Potterheads can continue to be obsessed with Harry Potter whilst condemning JK Rowling, and on the other hand I would like to continue to enjoy the Sally Lockhart series whilst trying to forget that that odious wanker Philip Pullman ever had anything to do with them.
Can anyone else relate?