"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!

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

I am, however, totally up for this. As a wink to cosplay, we could all wear green dresses or overcoats. That'd work.

@FloralBunting

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

I am, however, totally up for this. As a wink to cosplay, we could all wear green dresses or overcoats. That'd work.

I am also up for this particulary if it involves telling people I remember when this was all pubs and saying "what are you looking at beardy?"

seriously though! as far as I'm aware reading HP, Strike or any JKR work is not required by law. People do not have to read her books or watch any films or TV series based on her work.

it's a bit like having a real life version of the internet flounce. you dont want to read the books? fine but there's no need to have some massive flounce where you tell people that no you are definitely not reading the books ever again, listing all the reasons why you're not and then returning to tell us repeatedly that you NOT reading the books when 99% of people couldnt give a stuff

I'm imagining a world where people make announcements in newspapers that they are no longer reading an author because of the author's views, in the manner of births, deaths and marriages.

David Sirloin, (they/them), Cambridge alumni, regrets to announce that due to the unacceptable public expression of the author JK Rowling, they will no longer be reading the Strike series. Family flowers only please. Donations can be made to [email protected]

I do wonder who commissioned this.

I would go on a Strike-themed pub crawl in a heartbeat! I would go dressed like Robin in my dreams

@FloralBunting

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

I am, however, totally up for this. As a wink to cosplay, we could all wear green dresses or overcoats. That'd work.

Or green dresses under overcoats. Let's do it

@StillStriving

I would go on a Strike-themed pub crawl in a heartbeat! I would go dressed like Robin in my dreams

I’m in too but am definitely better suited to playing Strike Actually I could do a better Barclay...

The disavowing the creator thing is so weird. I love Narnia, all my kids love Narnia, we all check the backs of wardrobes AND we all think CS Lewis rather over projected his Christian beliefs into his writing & find his use of violence as a solution to every issue both weird & hilarious etc (Not to mention the actual plot holes.) Meh

I am so pissed off that my license fee is being used to pursue a personal agenda based witchunt of the most popular children’s author ever. All because she said women exist and that matters

Yes it's shameful Hermione
And why enable people who are so stuck in their "fandom" world? I find it hard to express, but this makes me think of how negative internet fandom obsessions can be, how these people seem stuck in that instead of growing up.

Thinking of all the writers I'll have to cancel for their opinions and behaviour:

• Roald Dahl for being an anti-Semite.
• Charles Dickens for the way he treated his wife.
• Neil Gaiman for breaking quarantine to go on holidays to Skye.
• Margaret Atwood for misrepresenting the views of gc feminists.

@JuliaJohnston

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?

As the BBC likes to remind children in their pronouns article on bitesize which is the education section of their website, pronouns are fluid. Someone might be she one day, they the next and zie the day after. So you have to keep checking.

Remember kids, if you're not centring the person with ever shifting pronouns at all times, you'll make them sad and we all know that us LITERAL violence.

Thinking about this a bit more - the point of cancelling someone is performative. It's a demonstration of your personal righteousness. It would make no sense to do this without announcing what you were doing, because there would be no performative element. And the performance will have the most impact, and least consequences for you, if you paint it as a great struggle to separate art from artist, because the chances are you will still get to enjoy the art you like, but with an extra sheen of righteous suffering because you will always know (and therefore always have to say, to display your credentials) that the author is very bad, but you are the bigger person.

The vocal ‘cancellers‘ do realise that the crocodile will turn around and eat them sooner or later don’t they?

@FloralBunting you put it so well!

I am so glad I clicked on this thread. I didn't realise that it was hosted by fanfiction Aja.

Aja's managed to turn I am so glad I clicked on this thread. I didn't realise that it was hosted by fanfiction Aja. I will listen to this on catchup just to roll on the floor laughing.

Aja's managed to turn the move she already made years back from H/D shipping to writing real-person fanfiction (which is an incredibly creepy field) into an ethical position and to get on R4 for it?

Bloody. Hell.

Not sure what happened there, but you can probably work out the gist.

Can I still listen to R4 since the BBC were outed as the home of so many rampant sex abusers for so long

And given the blatant misogyny evidence here and lack of due regard to safeguarding children in much of their output frankly I see no evidence they've changed their ways.

Which is why I will never again pay my TV license because I'm not paying for nonces.

PotholeParadies The wiki link that was posted earlier was very educational. It linked to Aja's portfolio. bookshop.carbonmade.com/about
moderated "Shipping the Velvet: Slash Fandom, Convergence, and Why You Should Care About Harry Potter Mpreg"
Mpreg, for those fortunate enough not to know, is "male pregnancy". So male pregnancy in Harry Potter fanfiction. Why BBC. Like 2020 couldn't get crazier.

Mpreg, for those fortunate enough not to know, is "male pregnancy". So male pregnancy in Harry Potter fanfiction

Yes, I had been hitherto in blissful ignorance that this was a thing. Crikey.

In Aja’s (pronounced “Asia”, people) page linked by champagne, Aja uses she pronouns- hasn’t they misgendered theysself there? Why bother to instruct people to do something you’re not that bothered about doing yourself? She’s clearly Ok with she, so referring to they can only possibly be a signal about how other people are to think about Aja’s inner life. I find all this quite baffling, and it makes me come over quite boomerish and start muttering about young uns needing a bit more fresh air and better hobbies.

@NCone

Interesting that the BBC think to ask this question when they can still celebrate the athletic achievements of Oscar Pistorius, before he found himself at the centre of some unfortunate legal bother.

JKR supported women and is reviled. BBC celebrates Pistorius, who has KILLED A WOMAN.

BBC can fuck right off.

Yep. I actually stopped watching live TV and listening to the BBC 4 years ago.

I felt really guilty about it for a while...that I wasn't contributing to their funds... BUT NO MORE!

(obviously planet Earth I had to buy on DVD.. because it was awesome)

@StillStriving

I would go on a Strike-themed pub crawl in a heartbeat! I would go dressed like Robin in my dreams

ooo me too!

I would love a Strike themed pub crawl. I think I'd be better off dressing as Strike than as Robin though!

Can't even be bothered unpacking the lunacy of Aja's drivel. Agreeing with the fresh air and hobbies comment (and I'm a millennial).

one day when the pandemic is over.....

commiserations to MN who were fanfic virgins but have now discovered mpreg is a thing.....

and yes Floral is it all about performance! I wonder if there is something about people who have grown up essentially on line that unless is something is 'seen' to be done by their followers, that it doesnt count?

This has popped up today on the R4 ‘Seriously’ podcast feed. Don’t think I can face it.