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

[terryleather]

Just noticed this is in the schedule for tomorrow morning at 11am.

Journalist and fan Aja Romano examines their decision to close the books on the boy wizard and hears different viewpoints toward Harry Potter and contemporary readership.

Aja Romano has been a Harry Potter fan for many years, but after personally disagreeing with statements by their author JK Rowling regarding gender identity, they are considering closing the books for good.

Across the world, millions continue to embrace the Wizarding World in all its forms and JK Rowling has received a lot of support for speaking out on an important issue in a personal way.

With this in mind Aja assesses the different factors at play in their choice, speaking to cultural experts, academics and fans and considering influences such as social media, trends in fan communities, "cancelling" , literary theory and more. With contributions from critic Sam Leith, writer Gavin Haynes , journalist Sarah Shaffi, Dr Ika Willis and fans Jackson Bird and Patricio Tarantino.

Don't think I can bear to listen as I strongly suspect it will give me the BBC radge, but I reckon some of you are made of sterner stuff than I am!

Someone who was born male but identifies as female is hurt that JKR said women deserve their own spaces.

Why the bbc is giving airtime to this person is beyond me. Social media and self publishing has a lot to answer for.

@Quillink

" Can I Still Read Harry Potter?" How old is this person? Eight?

Well exactly. You can still read children's stories as an adult but perhaps engagement with the adult world might serve you better in terms of your own development as a well rounded human being.

What happened to people?

I'm pretty sure JKR/her essay is transphobic because she acknowledges that women are a sex class who need their own language in relation to their sex. Even her tweet in response to 'people with cervixes' or whatever is transphobic on the same ground - the argument that woman relates to sex, not to gender. That's it.

This is the BBC who think it's ok to have Boy George - convicted of falsely imprisoning and attacking someone while on drugs - on the payroll for a prime time family show?

and Stonewall, Pink News etc care more about a wealthy gay man than his victim

instead of reading Harry Potter, how about actually reading JK's essay constructing arguments against her points rather than just condemning her as the devil.

I also feel that the BBC are dragging this out iyswim. Why is this person being given a programme to talk about it again?

Gosh I dimly remember Aja (if that is her on the wiki) from way back when I poked around on Harry Potter online fansites. She was internet-famous for writing a massive Harry Potter fanfiction saga; and then she dropped it and moved onto writing fanfiction for anime and a few other things besides. I cannot for the life of me understand how someone who builds their entire social life on being a kind of literary parasite, playing around in other people's fictional worlds, gets to stand in judgement of those authors.

Mind you it doesn't surprise me hugely, as the mega-fans always seemed to be hugely judgmental and critical of the (paid) author, usually when the creator failed to deliver the romantic plotlines that the fans were hoping for. It's such a weird dynamic of dependence and judgement.

Sounds like she's already read the books, so it's really too late for Aja anyway

Perhaps she could erase any recollection of the contents by doing a Memory Charm on herself.

I remember Aja being a pain in the arse and knee deep in drama back in the heady old days of Livejournal. I thought most people had grown up since then. She clearly hasn't.

I know nothing about Aja Romano whatsoever. Apparently their pronouns are they/her, yet people are calling them "she", and another person talks about someone born male

This is what infuriates me about the whole trans ideology. That I still take pronouns to relate to someone's sex, and even on a feminist chat space I have to question if those pronouns are truthful or not.

@SmallYappyTypeDog

I remember Aja being a pain in the arse and knee deep in drama back in the heady old days of Livejournal. I thought most people had grown up since then. She clearly hasn't.

TBF, someone who feels the need to ask if they can read children's books as an adult seems mired in childhood.

You know (and I say this as someone who loves and writes fanfiction - though not HP, as having as it were watched the characters from their childhood that just feels creepy), I kind of yearn for the days when fanfic was a dirty secret, something you were way too embarrassed to admit to, bit like a female equivalent of trainspotting.

At least a healthy dose of embarrassment used to prevent people making complete tits of themselves on national radio.

I used to be a regular listener of Today and PM, occasionally women’s hour. Now gardeners world is about all I can cope with. Their ‘flagship’ news programs are turned straight off. They used to have a huge respected reputation for being unbiased - that has well and truly flown out the window. Their reports can now be so blatantly biased that they would fit neatly into 1984.

If the tv license were removed and they were expected to stand on their own feet, I suspect they would sink without a trace unless they make some pretty major changes in approach. And by that I don’t mean spending £100 million on increasing representation of already over-represented minorities.

What a nonsense.

I count two trans identified people, two women and three men being asked to opine - by Aja’s lights that’s four men, two women, one non binary person. Not sure that’s very balanced. Is Sam Leith gender critical? (Assume this is the Sam that writes for the Speccie- can’t remember if I’ve seen anything by him).

Given that JK’s opinion is about feminism and women, where is the gender critical feminist voice? Or would that be too much for Aja to cope with? Why are there double the amount of men than women?

I thought I should listen in the cause of research. So far it's doing a very good job in showing how eminently sane and reasoned JKR is.

Not sure I'll be able to make it to the end if the whining about 'safe spaces' carries on, though.

Very tempted to throw my radio out of the window ...

'Wah wah wah, I just can't cope that an author has opinions I don't like, CANCEL THEM,' basically.

Toddler tantrums.

Interesting that the knitting purity spiral's being mentioned now.

Media Commentator. I’m self IDing as that now, coz I watch,read and listen to it. Soooo well qual’d me.

Utter Bilge.

It's so self-aggrandising and narcissistic. Who the fuck cares whether a random person continues to read Harry Potter into adulthood?

I grew up on Jilly Cooper novels. I absolutely LOVED them and read them over and over and over, long into adulthood. They were my joyful comfort reads... until recently, when the rampant sexism became too conspicuous for me to ignore, and I found I no longer felt the same way about the books.

Am I demanding that Jilly Cooper is now cancelled? Her books should be removed from bookshelves and shops the world over? I am trashing her character and demanding she apologise, and trawling social media to attack people who still enjoy her novels?

Nope.

I was going to accuse her of semiotic overload,but she’s not that intelligent.

I have lost count of how many times I have shouted "GROW THE FUCK UP" at the radio. What bilge. This young woman probably ought to take a good long break from the Interweb.

Well, I was very pleasantly surprised.

It gave insights into why fans become obsessive, the books being key to fans "finding their identity" and feeling such a connection they feel they own the world and can put up with Rowling so long as she doesn't get in the way of that but when she did their reaction was hugely disproportionate.

I liked the contrary voices such as the many who made the Purity Spirals programme and Sam Leith who was reasonably straightforward and mildly exasperated in the need of fans to grow up.

What came across most is that for many this is about the distress at growing up, which is interesting in terms of trans being associated with young people, and especially girls, wanting to not undergo the changes that puberty brings.