What is it with The Guardian??

[Theeyeballsinthesky]

I mean I know it’s a bit of a rhetorical question but ffs the interviewer really pushes Tom Burke on JKR who to his credit handles it well but they really really hate her don’t they? https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/may/17/i-did-a-lot-of-yelling-tom-burke-on-socks-controversy-and-mad-max

There seems to be a need in left-radical circles to have figures of hate - which is very counter intuitive to the ideals of love, tolerance, inclusivity and acceptance that they espouse.

Like the Irish entrant in Eurovision this year, Bambi Thug, whose act was predicated on darkness, the devil and witchcraft and who spent all her time expressing hostility towards the much younger Israeli entrant. She made such a scene - issuing demands, accusations, swearing - who then announced at the end of her performance that she was " all about love and not hate".

Tom Burke, when pressed in that interview, was said to have looked quite surprised at the strength of feelling in his own words ( "pulling up the drawbridge") - but rather than that surprise being from an awareness of his own compromise ( as suggested by the interviewer) I suspect it was more to do with the fact that he had found himself positively defending JK Rowling - thus actually expressing a very firm 'non neutral' view, in fact.

I get the impression that the guardian must do a 2 minute hate with a picture of JRK every morning

odd isn’t it how this love and tolerance can only be expressed through hatred

When I read that, I was struck by the main difference between those ‘associates’ of JKR who throw her to the wolves and those who refuse to. The latter just appear so much more like grown ups who exist in the real world.

Christ, what an utterly moronic line of questioning. Anyone reading that, who is unfamiliar with the subject, is thinking why is this interviewer going on and on about this - with Tom Burke gently batting it away each time - RG sounds like a fool. No wonder Tom Burke eventually stops it in the end by bringing up the ‘drawbridge’.

There’s a flicker of surprise on his face, which suggests the phrase sounded more reasonable in his head than it did on his lips
I imagine the ‘surprise’ was that he’d had to be so blunt to get you to finally shut up about it RG.

War is peace.

Tom is credited at the end of Troubled Blood with assisting JKR with some research (unless there's another Tom Burke) so it looks like they are friends.
The media need to accept the fact that most people in Britain support her and that slagging her off is tired and lazy journalism. Though it does appear as if Israel and Jewish people are the new hate figures that have replaced JKR. Don't see much hate for Hamas in the "fashionable" press.

Compare this interview to Hadley Freeman's with Margaret Atwood, where she pressed Atwood on her TWAW stance and compared it to The Handmaid's Tale and its core idea that women are oppressed in trad religions for their reproductive capability.

It was an entirely relevant line of questioning as it referenced Atwood's seeming change of position from her best known work over the decades since she'd written it, but Twitter was full of beardy woke bros bitching about Freeman "forcing" the topic in as though it was irrelevant to the interview.

A blazing lack of self awareness is a feature, not a bug, of being a Rowling-hating TRA.

"But what if Nigel Farage wrote a script??"

I'm glad he pointed out the what if/what aboutery as he did.

RebelliousCow
Like the Irish entrant in Eurovision this year, Bambi Thug, whose act was predicated on darkness, the devil and witchcraft and who spent all her time expressing hostility towards the much younger Israeli entrant. She made such a scene - issuing demands, accusations, swearing - who then announced at the end of her performance that she was " all about love and not hate".

God this is so true - I cringed so much at this person's desperate attention seeking nonsense, and the obvious incongruence between preaching love and peace and then demonising anyone you don't agree with. It's all bollocks!

It reminds me of something I heard recently, which goes was - there's a certain type of progressive leftist who would happily beat someone into submission with a sign that says 'be kind'.

"imagine Nigel Farage has written a string of thrillers, which Netflix is turning into a six-parter"

"Imagine Hannibal Lecter is appearing in Bake Off"

"Imagine Stalin is cast as Dr Who"

"Imagine the BBC is controlled by the spirit of Mephistopheles using a ouija board"

I'm cringing for him. RG would sound more intelligent if he asked 'if you were a biscuit, what type of biscuit would you be?'

Maybe this journo could ask Mark Williams why he's OK starring in a series based on a G. K. Chesterton character.

But that would require knowing something you can't get from Twitter.

Lazy journalism. Bits of that read like a copy paste from Wikipedia with some random 'how can you work with her?!' questions. No wonder the guy looked suspicious when asked about socks.

Very disappointed at what the Guardian has become, I used to buy it but the last straw for me was the full page arbitrary for Peter Sutcliffe. Also a more recent article that middle aged women shouldn’t have long hair. Their TWAW stance has been a kind of gateway drug to progressive misogyny that they either can’t see or don’t care about.

They are so upset that despite their bestest, bestest efforts, everyone else in the world still really likes JKRs work and doesn’t pay any attention to their name-calling nonsense.

It has very much gone down the pan. I suspect the editorial team has taken a big hit (some of those 'experience' articles are so ridiculous they should be in the Framley Examiner) and it seems to have disappeared up its own arse. Such a shame.

I read this today and fumed. Almost a third of the interview is basically trying to get TB to say something nasty about JKR. I agree with everyone's read on why he looked 'surprised' and why he (very classily) brought the subject to a close.
The coda where he says 'I do wrestle with all these things'; I think he just got retrospectively worried about seeming flippant. The 'journalist' though seems to imply that it means TB does actually hate JKR, just a bit, and has probably taken that as a victory.

The whole thing has more than a whiff of McCarthyism about it.

Anyone would think he was being asked to justify dancing with the devil incarnate. This relentless demonisation of a beloved children’s author and women’s rights campaigner never fails to amaze me. Grow the heck up Guardian, and maybe think about what constitutes an actual villain. JKR is a lion-hearted philanthropist who believes in the reality of biological sex, like most people on earth.

“I sleep well at night.” As he should! He is not in bed with a villain, no matter what the Guardian thinks. No flagellation necessary.

Pathetic journalism.

The devil indeed. The other thing it is redolent of is the Salem witch trials (and whatever Arthur Miller said afterwards, The Crucible can certainly be read as a play about McCarthyism as well as 17th-century New England).

Middle age women shouldn't have long hair, unless they're TW like Debbie Hayton, in which case it can be virtually down to their waist. And women over 50 should not wear pink leather coats, fishnets and stilettos - unless they go by the name of Eddie.

The Times Rich List came out today - and apparently JK's wealth has risen by £70 million over the last year - making her almost a billionaire.

Very funny. The old comeback "If my auntie had hairs on her chest she'd be my uncle" seems particularly apposite here.

The Times Rich List came out today - and apparently JK's wealth has risen by £70 million over the last year - making her almost a billionaire.

She'll probably go and ruin the guardian narrative by paying all her taxes and donating large chunks to charities again.

There seems to be a need in left-radical circles to have figures of hate - which is very counter intuitive to the ideals of love, tolerance, inclusivity and acceptance that they espouse.

You don't strike me as naive but surely no-one thinks they genuinely espouse anything of the sort?

“Pulling up of the conversational drawbridge” er no, you asked, he answered. If you are a journo conducting what is essentially a very general interview ,in this case a more or less promotional puff for an actors new film, and your subject has answered a question you move on to your next topic, apparently socks in this article.

If you were a journo conducting a very subject specific interview, then you would be justified in pushing harder, but this clearly wasn’t the case in this instance.