"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!

I liked the contrary voices such as the many who made the Purity Spirals programme

@Childrenofthestones

Can I still listen to R4 since the BBC were outed as the home of so many rampant sex abusers for so long even though others among them knew there was dodgy goings on?🤔

Absolutely spot on. Do you feel able to email the BBC and make this (blindingly obvious) point to them?

Pleasantly surprised here too.

I started listening too this but had to turn off after a few minutes- the odd sound effects, pace and style doesn't make good radio IMO. And it is very me, me, me.

It really worries me that under the name of embracing diversity, as a society some have become so intolerant to others views. It is just plain weird
Absinthefriends - I absolutely agree about Jilly Cooper, I loved her books when I was younger but don't read them in the same way now.

I have recently read the books of a sci-fi author who from her writing I suspect probably TWAW (I don't know for sure). She writes about alien species who are able to change sex.

But I am not hunting her down to ask her about her views. I am waiting with anticipation for the release of her next book.

@AbsintheFriends

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.

Good point

the distress at growing up

Every so often, I fall over Twitter threads where people are talking about how much they are dreading puberty (we’ll skip over if this people are genuine and is so what are they doing on Twitter) But there seem to be some people that talk about puberty as a debilitating illness.

They seem to see adulthood as strange and alien (has anyone else read The Small World of Lewis Stillman?) and now they have a way to stop growing up.

One of the problems I’ve read with puberty drugs is the possible loss of sexual development, but maybe that’s not a bug, it’s a feature because the same group seem to see that sort of thing as icky

Every so often, I fall over Twitter threads where people are talking about how much they are dreading puberty

Given the cess pit that is Twitter, it is concerning prepubescent children are even on there.

One of the problems I’ve read with puberty drugs is the possible loss of sexual development, but maybe that’s not a bug, it’s a feature because the same group seem to see that sort of thing as icky

Children usually find sex icky, that is a good thing, they are supposed to. Children not thinking sex is icky is a red flag.

I can't help thinking that continuing to be obsessed with Harry Potter when you're an adult, and choosing to identify as trans, are perhaps related phenomena.

The childishness of the whole thing was overwhelming.

Can I still pay my licence fee and love the BBC and it’s ethos of public service broadcasting when I know that it’s being dominated by old fashioned sexists and men’s sexual entitlement campaigners..?

" A generation who's critical thinking and scrunity are routinised" . Unbelievable. Very dissapointing, BBC Radio 4 ! In fact BBC in general, where is the balanced coverage of this debate. Where are the actual critical thinkers.

I can't help thinking that continuing to be obsessed with Harry Potter when you're an adult, and choosing to identify as trans, are perhaps related phenomena

I was only half listening, as dh was in the kitchen talking at me about Things, but I think at one point the presenter described her/themself as 'a non binary person who also wants to be a wizard' or something like that (I should listen again...) The second half of that statement goes a long way to explaining the first, in terms of this person's maturity and grasp on reality.

Confession time. I've only read the first Harry Potter and have no plans to continue or return to it.

The Strike series, on the other hand, is an obsessive pleasure, and I can confirm that the most recent book is indeed transphobic because it doesn't manifest in the form of a tedious apologetic lecture focusing on the vital importance of pronouns to mental health. It's simply a rollicking good story that doesn't reference trans anything, and instead involves people being interesting. As I understand it, that will definitely put it in the bracket of transphobic AF, along with men wearing skirts and eyeliner and saying women menstruate.

I can't help thinking that continuing to be obsessed with Harry Potter when you're an adult, and choosing to identify as trans, are perhaps related phenomena.

I suspect the confounding variable is autism.

I like the 'dismay' expressed by the man interviewed and his reference to 'childish' and 'churlish.'

Harry Potter is an entertaining read for kids but hardly something to devote your life to. The fact the presenter is an obsessive fan says something about her maturity to start with. JK Rowling is entitled to her own opinions, regardless of what the people who read her books think!!

I'm not sure that I can. Don't forget unecessary characterisation of women's rights group as t*phobic hate groups for 'balance'.

That got to me.

Have they stopped hounding people that don't pay their licence quite so enthusiatically now? We had a pretty much derelict house being renovated (no floors, walls, dodgy roof etc) and despite me calling them regularly to say that there wasn't even any electricity in the house, let alone BBC I had countless threats of debt collectors etc.

Yes Gibbons, according to the Twitter bio it's they/she.
What?? . It gets more ridiculous by the day 🤯
How can you insist on they whilst simultaneously accepting she?
Am I missing something obvious or is this as dumb and attention seeking as it looks?

@AbsintheFriends

I can't help thinking that continuing to be obsessed with Harry Potter when you're an adult, and choosing to identify as trans, are perhaps related phenomena

I was only half listening, as dh was in the kitchen talking at me about Things, but I think at one point the presenter described her/themself as 'a non binary person who also wants to be a wizard' or something like that (I should listen again...) The second half of that statement goes a long way to explaining the first, in terms of this person's maturity and grasp on reality.

I heard that statement too and laughed out loud. If you want other people to take you seriously you really do need to think hard about how you present yourself. I am pretty sure that Einstein wouldn’t have been so well regarded if he had insisted on wearing full clown makeup and costume.

JKR wrote a series of books aimed at a readership of children. I am pretty sure she didn’t factor in the needs of dysfunctional adult snowflakes feeling sad and unloved because she didn’t think of including a cohort of trans wizards.

It's insulting, from the title alone, and I'm not going to spend a minute listening to the bigotry and drivel it is so proud to herald. Never read a Potter or any book by Rowling and have been a longtime listener to Radio 4 with the radio permanently tuned to it but there's more and more noise in the programmes and less and less I listen to. I tried Times Radio but lasted10 minutes. It sounded like a phone-in / typical 'talk radio' which I dislike. That's hardly a fair trial, I know!

@FloralBunting

Confession time. I've only read the first Harry Potter and have no plans to continue or return to it.

The Strike series, on the other hand, is an obsessive pleasure, and I can confirm that the most recent book is indeed transphobic because it doesn't manifest in the form of a tedious apologetic lecture focusing on the vital importance of pronouns to mental health. It's simply a rollicking good story that doesn't reference trans anything, and instead involves people being interesting. As I understand it, that will definitely put it in the bracket of transphobic AF, along with men wearing skirts and eyeliner and saying women menstruate.

Hard agree. Can't bring myself to read more than the first HP, but am deep in the middle of a Strike obsession. Brilliant books, very entertaining, and perceptive about what it is like to be a woman in a misogynistic world.

However, should JK Rowling swivel 180 degrees and sign up to TWAW, I would still read the books, because I am an adult who recognises that it is possible to exist, interact with and indeed thrive in a world with other beliefs than my own.

I really don't understand why this is so hard.

Well, quite. If I like something, I throw myself into it with enthusiasm, because I'm just that sort of person. But if I were to invest in Strike to the point of jacking in my job to become a private investigator and adopt a Cornish accent, a heavy drinking Doom Bar habit and a bulky overcoat and a limp, I would clearly have lost my grip on normality and I think the private views of Jo Rowling would be the least of my personal dilemmas.

@FloralBunting

Well, quite. If I like something, I throw myself into it with enthusiasm, because I'm just that sort of person. But if I were to invest in Strike to the point of jacking in my job to become a private investigator and adopt a Cornish accent, a heavy drinking Doom Bar habit and a bulky overcoat and a limp, I would clearly have lost my grip on normality and I think the private views of Jo Rowling would be the least of my personal dilemmas.

But if the private views of JRK wouldn't affirm you in your Doom Bar drinking, overcoat wearing, pack-a-day cigarette smoking ways, surely your PI cosplay world would come tumbling down. Don't you know other people, especially famous female authors, exist only to give your universe meaning?

(Not sure about the actual dressing up, but I do quite fancy a Strike-themed pub crawl around Soho.)

@FloralBunting

Well, quite. If I like something, I throw myself into it with enthusiasm, because I'm just that sort of person. But if I were to invest in Strike to the point of jacking in my job to become a private investigator and adopt a Cornish accent, a heavy drinking Doom Bar habit and a bulky overcoat and a limp, I would clearly have lost my grip on normality and I think the private views of Jo Rowling would be the least of my personal dilemmas.

You should totally do this

I also want to see Einstein in a clown outfit. But that’s because I’m not terribly, terribly serious and learned like Aja. Lighten up, Aja! Read the books, do your cosplay and let Jo have her terrible heretic thoughts. It’s all fine.

If JKR didn't agree with me on everything, and actually expressed those views, I would obviously have an existential crisis, because it's not cosplay, it's helped me come to terms with my true identity as a big burly Cornishman. Never mind that I was Assigned Black Country at birth. She is allowed her views, but she should definitely keep them quiet for the sake of those of us who still haven't pulled a supermodel.