Hadley Freeman Article About Graham LInehan

[Igneococcus]

Not actually read it yet but here for anybody who'd like to read:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/6f23ce7c-596a-11ee-a62b-d21c2c8f0b9b?shareToken=3adab3e87e06a1d37788d0b2482f02b6

I don't see it as nasty. More as sad. Sad that Graham's commitment has cost him so much.

Yep. And with concern for him.

Of course JKR continued to get paid to write novels, screenplays, lucrative HP merchandise / royalties etc

Had she been totally cancelled and without income or any interest in her doing anything else at all as Glinner has been maybe she'd have become similarly obsessed. That's the only way he gets income now, right?

Ridiculous comparison of apples and oranges.

I disagree with this. He's made cogent arguments and I have a lot of respect for him.

But, in Ireland, he's generally regarded as being a bit unhinged and cracked - due to the wild & hyperbolic nature of his language & discourse at times.

I'm strongly GC. But a lot of 'mainstream' Irish dialogue on the topic is far from understanding the issues, in the way that has become more evident in the UK, say.

I know John Boyne, bravely, apologised recently. However, GL's attacks on him at the time were deeply unfair, I felt.

he comes across as unhealthily preoccupied and quick to anger. I get it, this whole thing is enraging, and it's not about "optics" or anything like that, his constant tweeting just comes across as a bit crazy

Yes. His tweets actually put me off rather than confirmed my feelings. I had to stop reading him in order to get my own feelings rationalised.
There's something uncomfortable about his investment/obsession with the subject.

Agree with this. The reason why questions started being asked, people slowly were able to speak up, and things maybe maybe are starting to change, is precisely because Graham was so relentless. Because he was angry, passionate, noisy and absolutely relentless. Polite and part time does not historically make change happen.
I love Hadley but I think she missed the point here.

Hmm if you're concerned about someone is writing an article about that concern in a major newspaper for everyone to see the best move?

E.g.if you're concerned someone is drinking too much, would writing an article in the times be the best way to express that "concern" and would it be likely to improve that person's well-being or more likely to exacerbate existing problems?

We’ll have to agree to disagree then because I didn’t read it as nasty, calling out or shaming him.

Graham may of course feel entirely different and that is his privilege as the subject of the piece who knows the author. But I do think that his prickly response does actually prove Hadley’s point, ironically enough.

There's something uncomfortable about his investment/obsession with the subject.

It's become a circular issue too - the more active he has been, the more his work & personal support has declined. Then he becomes ever more focused on this cause, and it's deeply important to him.

I agree with his points, of course I do. But some of his language and attacks have been really intemperate, in a way that eg JKR has not been.

We’ll have to agree to disagree then because I didn’t read it as nasty, calling out or shaming him.

Agreed. I also felt it was self-reflective, that HF could have seen herself going this direction too, but for the counsel of her friend.

I think people are confusing cause and effect. No one was willing to pay Glinner to do anything other than fight GI.

No-one will pay him to write comedy or mysteries - same is not true of JKR.

He's been forced to double down because he doesn't have another option unlike Hadley or JKR.

Regardless, writing that someone is regarded with 'distaste' is really cruel, and not the act of someone showing concern.

She's a writer - she's deliberately written that this man is distasteful.

No. She didn't say that he's distasteful. She said that he's viewed with distaste. The former means that she finds him distasteful. She's not said that. She's said the latter that - she's concerned that he's viewed with distaste by others

She aligns herself with those viewing him with distaste.

You know what, right? This article has made me cry. Not because it's horrible, or odd, or anything- just because it hits the nail on the head about - well, how bloody careful we have to be not to lose our minds to this madness.
Had an awful conversation earlier. Me, two men; one (A) that I've known for a bit: one (B) that I'd only just met.
Poor A has got a son who, following lots of really dreadful angst, now identifies as a "they" and is in a relationship with a "trans boy"; he's also autistic. A inadvertently referred to him as "he" and said "I messed up!" I could stay silent no longer and said, "But you didn't."
Well, you can write the rest of the script. A, bless him, is just a worried dad who wants the best for his kid; B is a proper gender zealot who says that gender affirming care is what is needed, threatens people's kids' suicide if this doesn't happen, and says female-only sports don't need to be female-only if the male competitors have been put on puberty blockers early enough. I'm a mum, obvs. The idea of doctoring healthy kids' bodies really, really upsets me. I said so and B threw some more suicide threats at me and then stormed off.
So here I am, late on a Saturday night, feeling like I've disgraced myself for not keeping quiet. And feeling that tingly, heart-racing, fight-or-flight feeling that all mammals get when their dander's up. And knowing that such a thing is perilous, that that rage could, if you let it, consume your life and your family and your friendships...but to bat it away completely is to implicitly acquiesce in the madness that is being enforced upon us. Poor Graham! I don't know that he'll ever find peace. I don't know that I will, either, even though I'm normally too much of a coward to stick my neck out.

Either way, not what you'd write if 'concerned'.

I also think it's naive for anyone to think his activism is PURELY motivated by concern for women - I think he is as motivated (if not more so) in wanting to be vindicated and to restore his tarnished reputation

You've seen what has happened to him and you still blame him for wanting to restore his tarnished reputation?

Imho, it's saying that Linehan is so isolated, effectively self-isolated, that noone else would ever choose to tread that path, even those 200% with him. He's self-harmed. I don't think that Hadley thinks he's wrong on anything factually, just feels his tactics have so rebounded on him.

I may be wide of the mark but he does read a bit autistic to me. I get him, I don't get all the arguing and bitching between so called feminists tbh does my nut in. It's all sophistry.

Him and kjk have done more for the cause than most.

The defenses against this movement require straight words, delivered without waffle. Most of the world is against feminism, nevermind radical feminism. People like Jane Claire Jones are not going to convince anyone, even people nominally on her side. Such as me, I listened to her several times and she lost me half way.

Right... she's Jewish, so she must have done it for money? Nice 🙄

He's one of the most selfless people I think I've ever been aware of. To know what a comedy hero he is, how he's been so isolated, and how principled and uncensored he's been, to his total detriment personally, is mind boggling.

If there is ever a proper break in this tide, and a genuine societal reckoning, Linehan's name will be the most prominent alongside JKR.

But as things stand, he's in his own personal Hell.

@BlurredEdges

Why are you bringing Hadley's race or religion into this? We all do things for money in that we all have to make a living, the question is whether she overstepped a line. I can't read the article so I have no personal opinion, but I find your comment really quite anti-semitic.

It was the summer of 2018, I’d been writing about gender ideology for four years and I noticed on my phone that I had received a message from Graham Linehan. Only two or three years earlier, I’d have been mystified as to why this god of comedy — the man behind Father Ted, for God’s sake — was contacting me.

its not a good piece, it comes across as quite bitter that Graham has done more to raise awareness about the dangers of trans ideology than HF ever has.

(trans ideology = big pharma, big tech, making a lifetime of profits from mentally ill and vulnerable people including children).

so in the very first para HF takes pains to point out she’d been in this fight for 4 years already. Weirdly kind of implying that Graham was late to the party.

She's allowed to have her limits on this, actually. If you haven't had multiple memers of your family murdered by the Nazis due to their ethnicity, you might not get why comparing everything to the Nazis is unhelpful?

That said, I found the article disappointing as it did read as slightly critical of Graham, in the last paragraph, and I generally feel that there are quite enough attacks on those fighting for women's rights without us bickering between ourselves publicly? Either that, or Hadley wrote badly. But she's usually an excellent writer, so that seems less likely. Unless an editor edited the ending? (it did kind of weirdly tail off?). But suspect that's me clutching at straws, as I like both of them, and would like to be able to support both of them, and them to support each other.

I'm sure that both of what they do in the public eye must be immensely difficult.

Some people are very dogged and single minded when they become involved in a cause and social media makes that very easy to do.

The article doesn't go as far back as to mention the the Twitter GamerGate war years when Graham was similarly deep into activism - the only difference being he was on Twitter's Right Side of History with that one.

A lot of people who criticise him now probably didn't care about his frequency of tweeting when they agreed with him.

I can well imagine the last five years or so have driven him to the brink of sanity and probably into saying things that seem from the outside to be impulsive and ill advised.

It has been uncomfortable sometimes to watch him challenge people for being cowards and sell outs but he's mostly not wrong about those people. It's often the way the message is delivered people don't like (see also KJK).

I think the question to really ponder is how any of us have retained any semblance of sanity? Why hasn't Hadley also completely lost the plot? Arguably we all should have - we should all probably be ranting and raving in the streets because that's how batshit and ludicrous this all is.

The speed and breadth of capture in our governments and orgs worldwide into legislating a pseudo religious stance that basically boils down to men are women, actual women don't exist and sterilising kids is progressive has been utterly, bone chillingly insane.

People worry about a dystopian future but we've actually been living one for at least a decade now. Try and imagine yourself of 10-15 years ago being told that in the not so distant future the Leader of the Labour party will endorse the idea that some women have penises or that the US President thinks it's evil not to give children sex change drugs and surgery.

Very well said @OvaHere