"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 haven't written Who stuff for an age. Chibnall killed me stone dead, sadly. It'll be a while before I return to it. But Strike is fun, and tbf, as I've decided to start reading the actual books from the beginning again, Rowling is an absolute gift for it. It's so bloody obvious even at the beginning, when you know where things are going, that she has plans, and fanfic is mainly about filling in juicy gaps. (Did I mention I'm a big fan...?)

Gibbons, yes, no sparkly vampires, just an awful abusive sub/dom kink thing written by a someone with a limited store of words for penis who thinks it's sexy to be stalked.

There is real person fanfic??? - that sounds utterly horrifying & in combination with the even more horrifying AI generated famous person porn stuff urgh

The most horrifying category I ever stumbled upon on AO3 was real person radio 3 Proms presenter smut!

I mean, if every a fandom category screamed "urgent mental health intervention RIGHT NOW!" that has to be it.

CHAPTER 58!!!!!!!

And Donkeys are never going to be the same.

I'll stop now.

Indeed Gibbons.

James did a full-length non-magic Alternate Universe fanfic of Twilight, which means she situated the characters in fictionalised reality and tried to imagine how interactions would play out between them without the supernatural dimension. So no vampires.

It went well, so she changed the character names and it got published.

When it first came out, I even looked at it, unaware of this (because I don't do Twilight, dahling) and commented "but this reads like fanfic smut! You can read that anywhere".

Turns out lots of women didn't know that dubious literary erotica was a keyboard click away.

:) at the earlier surprise at mpreg. I never liked mpreg, but at least mpreg kept itself to the obviously silly scenario of normal male character getting pregnant (which of course doesn't work as a set-up, because if males got pregnant, patriarchy as a system as we know it wouldn't work as it does).

But then, a/b/o vel omegaverse. If this hasn't hit your corner, it's an alternate universe scenario where the main division is alpha/omega/(maybe beta), often with strict 'gender' roles and biological impulses - basically female oppression, but as experienced by (some) men and justified. Distasteful. That one originated in Supernatural, I believe.

For the transing characters, from male characters it's the shorter, 'less masculine' types, for the female characters it's the ones who don't adhere to female stereotypes. I saw recently Cersei Lannister transed - she has such rage canonically against the shrinking down of her world in childhood and then the constant blocks she encounters trying to get some power for herself. It's both infuriating and deeply saddening. We see the same playing out in media as well (Coach Beiste in Glee, that one with the short hair in the new Sabrina). But in fandom, I see this more and more - and also increasingly BDSM.

@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?🤔

They are making themselves quite quite ridiculous.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

And here:

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

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.

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.

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.

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

It's an odd fit for R4, yes.

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

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.

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...)

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...

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.

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

@TheChampagneGalop

a Netflix movie based on a RPF featuring Harry Styles and other members of One Direction. There is a what?!

This is 100% tied into all this bullshit - there's a whole generation who seem to have no concept of the dividing line between private and appropriate to share.
It's the anything goes on the internet mentality. Except the internet is a part of everyone's ordinary life now.

I think this brings up many interesting things: Internet's influence, fandoms, lack of socialisation/lack of being grounded in reality, feeling of ownership towards other's published work and alternative identities. Perhaps a topic for a different thread?

It's not just the internet though.

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.