Why I Don’t Find Jokes That Claim “Actually, X wrote Harry Potter” Funny
In the wake of Joanne Rowling yet again being openly transphobic on Twitter, a common joke is going around, and the layout of the joke is basically just “[Insert name] wrote Harry Potter,” and the names have varied from Nobody to Luna Lovegood to Daniel Radcliffe, etcetera, etcetera. But what a lot of people making these jokes don’t seem to understand is that this bigotry is not new, that Rowling’s bigotry is all throughout her books, and that saying someone else wrote these books means you believe they have these bigoted views too. And I don’t really find that funny.
I understand that you might be wondering, “What bigoted views played a part in the Harry Potter books? I don’t remember anything wrong.” That’s okay! I’ll be happy to outline some of the issues of the books. So, that’s what I’ll be talking about in this post:
English folklore has always been rooted in anti-semetism, their descriptions being based off Jewish stereotypes, and this does not stop with Harry Potter where the goblins are cast as the overprotective bankers of Gringotts, following the stereotype that Jewish people (and Goblins, being based off them) are greedy. This trend also does not stop in the books or original series. Ron Perlman (a Jewish actor) play a half-goblin in the Jewish mafia in the first Fantastic Beasts movie, continuing the questionable and problematic connection between Jewish people and goblins in Harry Potter.
“But the entire series is supposed to be a parallel to the Holocaust, and the muggleborns (who step into the role of the Jewish in this parallel) are the good guys, how can she be anti-semetic?” Let’s turn again to the Fantastic Beasts movies, that she wrote the screenplays of, specifically to the character of Queenie Goldstein. In December of 2014, Joanne revealed that Anthony Goldstein was a Jewish wizard at Hogwarts and from that we can can reasonably conclude that Tina and Queenie were also Jewish. Which wouldn’t have been a questionable decision if not for the fact that a canon Jewish women (Queenie) ended up joining the side of Gellert Grindelwald (who is supposed to be a parallel to Hitler). What the fuck is up with that?
There’s also an issue with house elves and racism but that is a much bigger issue that would require a lot more of my time and research before I would feel comfortable writing about it, plus it deserves a post of it’s own.
Secondly, “canon” gay characters
I don’t mind that there weren’t any gay characters in the books, I really don’t. What I do mind is JK Rowling going in after the fact to say that there were gay characters. It’s unnecesary and honestly, she chooses the worst rep. First of all, she revealed Albus Dumbledore as gay in 2007, a character that manipulates things and people to his own benefit throughout the series and leaves a child in an abusive home, despite undoubtingly having the power to protect him. The second character she reveals as gay though is Gellert Grindelwald, who, as I said before is supposed to parallel Hitler, who was the face of the Holocaust and led to the deaths of hundreds of gay and effeminate men during that time. And the fact that she continues to refuses to show it in canon, despite having a whole new movie series about the rivalry between the two only makes it worse.
Another thing that has gone around in the Harry Potter fandom is the fact (or rumor) that Joanne once said in an interview that she considered making Dean and Seamus gay but that it would “take attention” away from the trio but one, I cannot find this interview anywhere, and two, believing that a background gay couple would have taken attention away from the main characters is not great.
If she wanted gay characters, she should have included them in the texts. Otherwise, I think she needs to stop trying to get brownie points for representation that she didn’t write.
Joanne Rowling released an ebook in September of 2016 where she wrote that werewolves in the books, like Remus, were a metaphor for illnesses that carry a stigma, listing HIV/Aids as an example. This again was a questionable choice, seeing as HIV/Aids is a common problem in the LGBTQ+ community and the other main werewolf in the books, Fenrir Greyback, targeted children which follows the stereotype that gay men are predators.
And finally, these characters
Nagini. While I know that many people believe that this wasn’t actually planned as Joanne said it was, the etymology of her name does trace back to the Naag or Naagin, semi-divine half-human, half-snake creatures from mythology in South Asian cultures, meaning it might have actually been planned. But the problem is not whether it was planned or not, the problem is that Nagini is a woman of color (who is Korean, meaning she is East Asian not South Asian) cursed to live as an animal who spends the last years of her life as the servant of a white man who is equated with Nazis and whose eventual fate is tied to his.
Rita Skeeter. Rita is described as having a heavy jaw, thick fingers, and large and masculine hands, and with Joanne being openly transphobic, it’s not hard to make the connection of where she might have gotten the inspiration for this character from, and the fact that she transforms her body to spy on children brings to mind a certain tweet that Rowling liked a while ago that described trans women as “foxes pretending to be hens to get in the hen house.” The idea that trans people are predators who spy on others is a harmful stereotype and this description and characterization of Rita Skeeter does not help.
Cho Chang. Cho Chang is a Chinese character who has two surnames for a name, meaning there was little thought put into her chracter’s name. Honestly, it’s not that hard to find out whether or not “Cho” is a first name, it’s just one quick search away from not being in the wrong. That and the fact that Cho, along with Sue Li and Padma Patil (some of the only Asian characters in the books), were all placed in Ravenclaw, or “the smart house” just shows how little thought that Rowling gave her canonically poc characters.
Seamus Finnigan. I only recently realized the issues of this character, and it’s likely that most people wouldn’t know why this was a problem, but consider why an English women in the nineties (at the height of The Troubles and the English/Irish conflict) would write the one known Irish character in the books as untrusting of the English (of all of Harry’s friend, Seamus was the one who didn’t believe Harry in book five). Not only that, but in the films (which she was largely involved in) characterized Seamus as clumsy and explosive and a bit of a pyro, which are sterotypical Irish traits, and she didn’t question it at all?
These are just a few of the issues seen in the Harry Potter books and movies and I didn’t even talk about the issues that are less bigotry and more simply problematic, like Viktor Krum’s character, or the theme of forgiving abusive people in your life, or the constant issue of love potions and consent.
There is so much wrong in the books and we can’t just ignore them or transfer them to another person. Joanne Rowling wrote these books and her bigoted beliefs are abundantly clear in them and we all need to accept that. We can love the worldbuilding and the characters and yes, even the story, but we must recongnize the issues in them and we must realize that a bigoted person wrote it. There is no escaping that.
And yes, as everyone who I have expressed this two has brought up, the story does belong to the fans. And we can do whatever we wish with it, but we should never forget where the story began and we shouldn’t try and pretend that it had a different origin. Death of the author, or the idea that anybody’s interpretation of the text is a valid interpretation, and that the author’s interpretation is not the only one that counts, does not mean that the author is literally removed from the text. They still wrote it. And their bias (opinions) are still a huge part of the text. And we can try with all our might to remove their bias from our fanworks but it is still there in the original text. So, yes, the story belongs to fans. But the bias in it belongs to the author and will always be present.
The author of the Harry Potter series is JK Rowling, no matter how bigoted she and her beliefs are. We should never forget that.
