Well, hello Emma Watson

[crumpet]

www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-15130209/Harry-Potter-Emma-Watson-treasures-J-K-Rowling-trans-rights.html

Yeah I mean this is the underlying point isn’t it, you don’t like trans people and you’d like to confine their existence to as small a period of history as possible. Denying people a history is a very effective tool of oppression, so well done there.

No that's not the point. We don't like misogynists erasing womens history and identity the way you do. You don't feminists. We get it. Denying our history and our sex-based oppression is a tool of the misogynist bigot, just as claiming the oppressed is now the oppressor.

*You don't like feminists, that should read.

100%correct, @NeonFish!

@JNicholson - I do not like male born individuals thinking they have the right to be in spaces where women and girls are undressing, or to get naked in front of those women and girls. I don’t like male born rapists identifying as women and getting locked in prison cells with women, and then going on to attack them. I don’t like male born individuals, who have been through male puberty with all the physical advantages that gives them, colonising women’s sports and basically cheating their way to victory. I don’t like children being given binders and puberty blockers, making them life long dependants on medicine and surgery. I don’t like women’s words being erased and replaced with cervix-haver, uterus-haver, chest-feeder - by people who the tell us WE are obsessed with people’s organs/genitals. I don’t like the things women have fought for being stolen by men. I don’t like violent men threatening women with rape, assault and death simply for stating that human beings cannot change sex.

Not sure about HBC but I am pretty sure that Fiennes came out in support of JKR.

Yes, he did.

www.theguardian.com/film/2022/oct/25/ralph-fiennes-defends-jk-rowling

I wish that one of these days, Critical Drinker would get off the fence and tell us what he really thinks

Some men would happily shag a tree stump, so even if his daydreams were true, it's hardly some great flex.

But who could willingly believe someone who already blatantly lies about the most foundational part of his identity? He's the boy who cries wolf and should therefore be paid no attention.

Oh my!!

This reminds me of the things that I learn off MN. Like the blokes who stick their dicks in manhole covers or anything with a hole big enough on the road or the street.

I never knew the depravity that existed. And I really feel I didn’t need to know this.

Think Grint’s comments were spot on and perfectly reasonable, especially given the pressure he was under (and probably fear of backlash).

Unfortunately, every day on the porn-driven Internet is a lesson in male depravity! We all know a bit too much about the male psyche nowadays, but they would bang on about it so much 🙄

Is this in the context of trans? Or just random blokes?

Reminds me of an article I read the other day which showed this X post as an example of manosphere misogyny.

You could very easily reverse the sentiment, frankly ...🤔

Sorry, I see I forgot to link :

Random bloke. But a bloke just the same.

To clarify, Amouranth is some Twitch gamer who dresses as revealingly as possible to attract viewers. Unsure why the behaviour of this minority of idiots means we should all be under lock & key a la Saudi Arabia, but X is hardly a haven of sanity.

Sadly too many of those types...

The boys are all spot on here, I think.

I have no idea who these guys are but it all seems generally reasonable.

It is a little frustrating given they presumably have women in their lives that they think women's having equal human rights and child safeguarding is an issue people 'don't need to have an opinion on'. However, not as if this is news that many men see it this way. I wonder if any of them are Dads to daughters?

And I'd much rather men didn't have an opinion and didn't get involved than were on the side of destroying women's rights, so I suppose there is that.

Though to be clear not thinking about women's rights should not be an option if they're head of HR for a company including women (Andrew Letton at Leonardo).

I think their point is, and I agree strongly on this, it's not necessary for actors or other entertainers to express an opinion on every issue. Many actors have a bad case of Mark Ruffalo Syndrome, where you follow his social media because he's likeable in films, then you get to hear his banal Current Thing opinions on everything.

It would be nice to have male actors explicitly support women, but since there's only one acceptable opinion on this in the entertainment industry, Tom Felton's dodge of "it's not my place to have an opinion on this" is about as good as we'll get. Public opinion will have to shift a little more before an actor who wants to work in Hollywood feels able to say "I agree with JKR".

Thanks for the link to the Drinker's Chasers. I've watched it and it's left me feeling that EW seems directionless and lonely. Also that the JKR word salad was intended for everyone except JKR. It must have been a shock for her when JKR responded, especially like that. Not particularly new observations.

JKR is in a unique situation, in that she is uncancellable. Tom Felton, though very well off, clearly would still like to work. We all know that wouldn’t be possible for him if he had expressed support for JKR’s opinion, rather than diplomatically refusing to tear her down. More importantly though, he most likely wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of death/torture/rape threats against him and his family. Same goes for the YouTubers above in their dodge. They laugh at EW for backtracking, while stating they themselves do not agree with JKR. Why would anyone expose themselves to the online hatred?
Thank God for Jo. Her bravery in speaking out despite the terrifying threats she has been subjected to leaves me in awe of her, even more than I am in awe of her talent as a writer. I myself am barely able to discuss this with my own family for fear of being labelled a bigot. My daughter thinks I am a relic of a bygone era, much as I viewed my grandparents’ questionable beliefs as a teenager. And this when I cannot yet bring myself to tell her my full and true views on the subject.
It’s hard to believe this is real—but for JKR this is actual lived experience. The insanity of the world. Publicly stating biological facts means you risk threat of extreme violence. Thank you, Jo, for saying what very few had the courage to say without the backing of a supreme court ruling, and some not even then(I include myself in this).
I have read many pp say ‘the tide is turning’. I really hope it is.
I hope Emma Watson takes time to reflect on Jo’s response, and it helps her to realise exactly what she has done.

There's a really good point that Disparu makes, which I hadn't picked up on from the podcast because... well, who's got time to listen to two and a half hours of Emma's word salad...

And it's where she said she was sad because she thought she was going to make friends in acting, and everyone else was there to work and weren't her friends. It just underlined that while she enjoyed acting, for all the actors she was working with it was a job, and for her it was a hobby.

It's a bit like why Laurie Penny is not well liked by journalists. Laurie isn't the only person to go into journalism from a privileged background, but it's just a bit too obvious that she's the girl from Common People.

She said that? It is unusual to have an experience like that, though, and not make friends in the process. Didn't the Fellowship of the Ring actors all get tattoos to mark the experience? The cast of Friends famously got on brilliantly. I know it's not always the case (like Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker) but it is unusual to spend over ten formative years making 8 blockbuster films and leave not having made friends.

I'd feel like something is going on there. Not necessarily Watson's fault (she was a child for most of it), but... something.

I think she said that she did become close to the people who worked on HP, and was disappointed when that didn't happen on other sets.

Agree, I've also always had the impression Tom Felton thinks he shouldn't have to have a public view on this, that he's not particularly impressed with being asked so much.

But I actually think that's an argument worth making in itself. I am an actor, I have no expertise on this particular issue, I don't think any view I might express is valuable enough to justify the amount of oxygen it would inevitably take up. For many more issues than this one.

I agree that EW has seemed pretty adrift socially and emotionally for her whole adult life. Being ‘self partnered’ indicates that she cannot get into or maintain a relationship, so she is likely to be quite isolated. I suspect she cannot find somebody who is exactly right - it must be genuinely difficult to find people not affected by the degree of both wealth and recognition she has, particularly when she seems spectacularly unaware of them herself.

So she would be totally primed for ‘activism’ because of all the lovely positive feedback it would have meant. That kind of feedback - adulation - is something very few people experience, and I can see how it would go to her head, particularly given her apparent ineptitude with managing the fallout of early fame and wealth (= inability to make friends).

So I do feel a bit sorry for her, but it is something she needs to learn about having friends - you cannot publicly shit on them, particularly when that means throwing them to the wolves, and expect them to want to be friends with you.

The stupidity of choosing to do that to a friend without even engaging with that friend’s (rational) ideas also limits my sympathy.