Some of this just feels like people grasping at anything that could in any way be perceived as negative to jump on Rowling for, whether it has any basis in reality or not.
Transgender rights discussion
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
I responded to complaints that a character had a Chinese and Korean name. So I have to assume the point was that it should be either purely Korean or purely Chinese? And thus mixed ethnicity characters are problematic? I don't think anyone means anything racist by it, but I think some people are caught up in looking for reasons to be offended they lose sight of the bigger picture.
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I don't think she did stuff intentionally but I think it's also your job as a writer to make sure things are accurate and it's a problem when you use lazy stereotypes consistently or give a chinese character two korean surnames. Simple research would solve this.
Remove the time constraint and Redcafe is still nowhere to be seen, yet here we are talking about it. Which 95-05 foras and message boards would you expect to show up on a 2023 duckduckgo search?
Well, of course that's what it is.
She's been declared as being on the other team in the culture wars, so if you can come up with some new and interesting ways to be offended, you can get some good gotcha points on her.
Ok but I'm sure you could say the same about literally thousands of writers. What's the big deal?
You wrote: "People have been talking about these things since the books came out.", not Redcafe specifically. And if I do remove the time constraint plenty of articles about antisemitism show up. Hence my point of hindsight.
Also: here's an original hate thread on Harry Potter from our very own Redcafe:
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/harry-potter-is-gash.161403/
Because it's just a made up name of a character of Asian descent which isn't a particularly good look for a white writer? Because it exemplifies laziness and reverts to stereotypes of names of people from that region? It's objectively a wrong name. If there are writers doing the same then call them out because it's lazy and poor. It's commonly thought that 'Cho Chang' is a Chinese character but even that is dubious because of the name being so unfortunately wrong and I think that is a problem. It's difficult to identify with a character that has such a confused heritage/origin because well, there isn't really one due to the made up name. In regards to the overall point then as @phelans shorts says it all adds up. One or two things you can perhaps forgive the laziness but when it becomes 2 or 3 every single book then it's clearly an issue.
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As a banker I am offended at this unfounded association with goblins.
It’s more straws and camels backs. If there’s one of these things it’s not good, but oh well. Two, ok, you need to do better. Three and it starts to get real difficult to defend.
Add that and her now known horrible opinions on certain sections of the population and it paints a picture that isn’t complimentary of her. It’s all context.
Would any of this matter if you didn't know anything about her opinion on trans (which you don't agree with clearly)? Or would many people care about it?
No, not Redcafe specifically, but we are here now on Redcafe talking about it and places like this won't show on searches. I said that people have been talking about it since the books came out, which they have, but because it's ordinary people duckduckgo won't notice. Jon Stewart and Pete Davidson will show on those searches, random people won't.
Here's a 2011 article, predating Rowling's heel turn by about a decade: https://www.jta.org/2011/08/26/ny/is-harry-potter-anti-semitic
The Rabbi concludes that the depiction isn't antisemitic, just like tons of people today conclude, but he didn't invent the question. He was asked. He also references another article about the same topic, because it was and has always been a thing.
If you like you can do a similarly restrictive search about Harry Potter and nazism, where you'll find few relevant hits. That doesn't change the fact that Voldemort and the death eaters are obviously inspired by Hitler and the nazis, and that this has been acknowleged since the books came out as well. This was something we talked about in like 6th grade at school, but DuckDuckGo doesn't seem to register that.
Cho Chang is alliterative same as Pansy Parkinson or Luna Lovegood.
No doubting that literally no more thought went into her name beyond that. And why should it have?
No doubting that literally no more thought went into her name beyond that. And why should it have?
Sure, somewhere on the internet there's always someone, who talks about something. But you can't find that for a reason, because barely anyone cared. Now, 20 years later, it's a topic? Why? What has changed? The books have been there for 20 years. They haven't changed. It's the opinion that people hold of the author that changed, for statements, however offensive they may have been, totally unrelated to the content of the books.
Also the article you've linked literally starts with: "When I saw the latest Harry potter film", not book.
And for what it's worth, when I change the search to "harry potter nazi" with the same time parameters, the first hit is an article that starts with:
"JK ROWLING made the "chilling" discovery that villains in her books used the same twisted logic as the Nazis when she visited a Holocaust museum, the author has revealed".
Well yes it clearly would. As has been mentioned these criticisms have been there for a long time.
It makes no sense as a name. Yes, names can be made up but when you are creating characters from cultures and backgrounds where the names matter and have meaning and definition to that culture, it becomes a problem.
Yes, the film. In 2011. So it can't have been because of the trans stuff, and the person writing in didn't solely focus on visual cues.
That article you mention is from seven years after the first book came out, which means that it's seven years after people noticed the obvious parallells to nazism. The reason you find that article is because Rowling herself talked about it.
There are several reasons why people might talk more about it now than before. Obviously Rowling is more controversial now than ever before, so she's talked about more as a person rather than just a writer. Also the world is more online now, and thanks to things like social media things that normal people talk about will easier reach out. Also people are more aware about stereotypes than they used to be, and more people care than before. The Lord of the Rings came out 70 years ago, and now suddenly people are talking antisemitism? Why? What has changed? Not the books, that's for sure.
This is not an attempt at a gotcha or anything, but who actually did that? Who called it deliberate antisemitism? Are you talking about people in this thread, or reactions you have seen elsewhere on the internet? I originally brought up the movie goblins as having too many classical antisemitic tropes, both physical and behavioral, but never called J.K. Rowling an antisemite.
Names have meanings and definitions in every culture, nothing special about Chinese or Korean names. There's no problem at all with it, doesn't have to make sense or be culturally accurate.
Basically the same as creating a Scottish character and calling them MacDougall MacKenzie.
It does make sense
Are you referring to the interviewer, who began the piece with " When I saw the latest Harry potter film" or the interviewee, who responded with "Whoa there! Calling Harry Potter anti-Semitic is downright sacrilegious." and "If every grotesque, undersized, shriveled fictitious being were assumed to be a Jew, that would also mean that Yoda, Jewish would be, and E.T. would stop in at shul before phoning home.".
You think people complaining, because some Asian supporting character's first name is technically a last name or the author may have committed the sin of pairing a Korean name with a Chinese name is a normal concern for stereotypes? Have you watched any Hollywood movie or TV show ever? Very few will hold up to that level of scrutiny.
And ignoring the notion that 70 years ago is comparable with 20 years ago: I wouldn't have posted if all people was saying was that the goblins in the movies are pretty close to antisemitic caricatures or stereotypes, they clearly are. But neither would I necessarily blame an author for what the art department of a film adaption produces, nor does the hunt for reasons to be offended end there.
That’s the thing, right? I’m sure kids of Chinese or Korean descent felt similar emotions reading about a character who was similarly relatable. Even if clumsily named. That’s why inclusivity matters. And it was rare enough in that era, especially in books of that genre.
All of which makes it incredibly mean-spirited (and, obviously incorrect) to try and spin these less than perfect efforts at inclusivity into the author being a racist bigot. It couldn’t be more obvious what’s going on here and it’s got very little to do with her opinion on people with a different ethnicity to herself.
I see what you did there.
If you're trying to add inclusivity then you should do it correctly otherwise it doesn't come across well and has the opposite effect.
There is no interviewer or interviewee, a columnist is answering a question from a reader. And I'm referring to the person who saw the depiction as antisemitic, so the reader.
I think you'll find that people tend to point out stereotypes in Hollywood movies and in TV shows, yes. A lot of them don't have a Rowling defense force, and without the objections there's not much to talk about. This thread would be dead pages ago if people weren't denying the Jewish stereotypes.
Nah, it really doesn’t. Definitely not in this instance. There’s no way that one clumsily named character somehow has the opposite effect to inclusivity. But more to the point, it sure as shit isn’t racist or bigoted.
she named a Chinese kid cho chang? 
It's not necessarily bigoted on its own, no, but we already know that Rowling is somewhat bigoted and ignorant. It's another possible small piece of the puzzle, and I don't quite understand why some people are being so gung-ho about defending her every move.
Nobody should agree with it, it's abhorrent if you actually look into what she's saying and who she associates herself with.
What era, and what genre? Fantasy books released around 2000? It really wasn't rare, and certainly not rare enough to give anyone credit just for including a minor character of a different ethnicity or background.
It would also be dead if people weren’t pretending that Rowling a) created this particular Jewish stereotype or b) ensured that it appeared in a movie based on her book. Neither of which actually happened. Obviously.
Fantasy books released ever. And there’s been three characters mentioned in the last couple of pages of this thread. I’m sure there’s more overall. I haven’t read the book.
she named a Chinese kid cho chang?
The really funny bit is when people claim this makes her a racist bigot.
You say you haven't read Harry Potter (I haven't either, just watched the films), but have you read much fantasy other than that? Because I have, and I did when Harry Potter was being released back in the day, and I don't think it's anything special. She's not particularly bad about it, like some fantasy writers were, but I don't think she deserves any particular credit either.
The thread would probably also be dead if you took a rest Pogue
I think this is the most repetitive I've seen of you.
Though this is probably just because I use the cafe in short binges. Those 120k posts must have come out of somewhere
I think this is the most repetitive I've seen of you.
Though this is probably just because I use the cafe in short binges. Those 120k posts must have come out of somewhere
I haven't read it, but from what I've seen she used a lot of anti-transgender tropes in a recent book. Given we know what kind of person she is and apparently her personal opinions bleed into her writing, I don't think it's far fetched at all to analyze her books taking this into account.
Just visit any positive thread about arsenal.
The thread would probably also be dead if you took a rest Pogue
I think this is the most repetitive I've seen of you.
Though this is probably just because I use the cafe in short binges. Those 120k posts must have come out of somewhere
Fair point. I don’t even like J.K. Rowling. I’ve only read one of her books and she seems like a bit of a dick. I’m just way too argumentative. Combination of that and the death of nuance on social media being one of my pet hates. Just winds me up the way everyone we disagree with has to be so completely one dimensional. I’ll take a break from the thread now. Like you say, I may have made my point enough times by now!