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It's been 20 years
Apr. 6th, 2022 09:05 pmI've always been a proponent of firm divide between fandom and creators, and by extension, between creation and the creator. It was instinctive, mostly because I find the idea of creators commenting on fanworks in public invokes in me very strong embarrassment, both first- and second-hand (and it kinda ties in with the reasons I don't vibe with RPF).
And in many ways, this is a very comfortable seat to be sitting in! The author is dead, my city now. If the actor playing my fave says something stupid, I don't have to care about it. I was into MCU, I was into Sherlock, I was on Tumblr in 2012, I am familiar with the ways that creators, actors, writers can fuck over fandom and be fucked over by fandom. It is very freeing to Not Care.
But sometimes even shooting the author at point-blank range is not enough.
This is about JKR and Harry Potter series, actually.
In last weeks I've heard some echoes about the new HP game, the one where the plot is apparently that you're stopping goblins from taking overwhite wizarding world and kidnapping white wizarding children, or something like that. Frankly, I don't want to go looking for more details to make myself angrier, the gist is that it was made by racist people, it's bad, and you know a person crossed some kind of moral horizon if a literal war criminal (Putin) invokes your name to prop up his propaganda!
Looking back, it's kinda bewildering how she ended up where she's at if you weren't paying attention. There was a post on Tumblr - which sadly I can't find now - that summed up how it happened, how she started more liberal-aligned, through her clumsy attempts at retroactively making series more inclusive ("Dumbledore is gay but it's not plot relevant") and then how she descended into being a TERF.
Consequently, we - as in fandom - are having some very relevant discussion on how to deal with that. Harry Potter is too big, and JKR is too involved with her creation to ignore the issue. She's still making money from it. She has a Twitter, she has a platform, she is having real world impact. Which is why I'm writing this, even though I haven't actively participated in HP fandom for years at this point. It's making me uncomfortable (which is good) and it makes me re-evaluate my connection to and attitude toward her works.
HP was my gateway to the fandom. I was a young teen and the religious media in my country were decrying the series as morally degenerate and when I started to read it I indeed went "morally bankrupt" at speed of light in exactly the way these media predicted. It took me barely three months to go from reading these books to reading gay fanfiction! When you're raised catholic in almost entirely catholic country, such journey is a thrill and a revelation. HP fandom was so big and vast that a precocious tween with unmonitored internet access could get exposed to very different world-views and end up really expanding their horizons. I cannot help but look fondly back to that part of my fandom experience, and I cannot help but remember fondly the communities, the fanworks, the batshit crazy wank.
The last time I let JKR make money off me was when I paid for tickets to the first Fantastic Beasts movie, I think. The experience was ok in so-so way, a bit underwhelming, so that along with whatever glimpses of JKR twitter reached my carefully maintained Tumblr dash, it just so happened that I didn't get drawn back into HP. Her media presence corrupted the franchise like harmful radiation, and I'm not inclined to touch it any more. I don't feel quite the same aversion when I go through my folder full of saved fanfics from back when I was into HP, and I'm not removing my HP fic bookmarks, or anything like that. I still believe that the author doesn't and shouldn't intersect with the fandom.
But there is a certain MZB-eqsue effect (MZB - Marion Zimmer Bradley, the author of and the reason why you probably didn't read "Mists of Avalon"). Even if I hadn't moved onto different fandoms by now, I would be distinctly unenthused about HP by now. HP fic, these derivative works, I'll probably still enjoy, but the source material?... Ah, I guess there's a pang of regret originating from my nostalgia, but I'm fine if it fades into obscurity and becomes largely irrelevant.
We can shoot the author, we can proclaim the author dead; however, the corpse is still stinking up the place. Dear JKR, if only you weren't such a piece of shit! Then we wouldn't have to throw you out along with your stuff in order to air it all out.
And in many ways, this is a very comfortable seat to be sitting in! The author is dead, my city now. If the actor playing my fave says something stupid, I don't have to care about it. I was into MCU, I was into Sherlock, I was on Tumblr in 2012, I am familiar with the ways that creators, actors, writers can fuck over fandom and be fucked over by fandom. It is very freeing to Not Care.
But sometimes even shooting the author at point-blank range is not enough.
This is about JKR and Harry Potter series, actually.
In last weeks I've heard some echoes about the new HP game, the one where the plot is apparently that you're stopping goblins from taking over
Looking back, it's kinda bewildering how she ended up where she's at if you weren't paying attention. There was a post on Tumblr - which sadly I can't find now - that summed up how it happened, how she started more liberal-aligned, through her clumsy attempts at retroactively making series more inclusive ("Dumbledore is gay but it's not plot relevant") and then how she descended into being a TERF.
Consequently, we - as in fandom - are having some very relevant discussion on how to deal with that. Harry Potter is too big, and JKR is too involved with her creation to ignore the issue. She's still making money from it. She has a Twitter, she has a platform, she is having real world impact. Which is why I'm writing this, even though I haven't actively participated in HP fandom for years at this point. It's making me uncomfortable (which is good) and it makes me re-evaluate my connection to and attitude toward her works.
HP was my gateway to the fandom. I was a young teen and the religious media in my country were decrying the series as morally degenerate and when I started to read it I indeed went "morally bankrupt" at speed of light in exactly the way these media predicted. It took me barely three months to go from reading these books to reading gay fanfiction! When you're raised catholic in almost entirely catholic country, such journey is a thrill and a revelation. HP fandom was so big and vast that a precocious tween with unmonitored internet access could get exposed to very different world-views and end up really expanding their horizons. I cannot help but look fondly back to that part of my fandom experience, and I cannot help but remember fondly the communities, the fanworks, the batshit crazy wank.
The last time I let JKR make money off me was when I paid for tickets to the first Fantastic Beasts movie, I think. The experience was ok in so-so way, a bit underwhelming, so that along with whatever glimpses of JKR twitter reached my carefully maintained Tumblr dash, it just so happened that I didn't get drawn back into HP. Her media presence corrupted the franchise like harmful radiation, and I'm not inclined to touch it any more. I don't feel quite the same aversion when I go through my folder full of saved fanfics from back when I was into HP, and I'm not removing my HP fic bookmarks, or anything like that. I still believe that the author doesn't and shouldn't intersect with the fandom.
But there is a certain MZB-eqsue effect (MZB - Marion Zimmer Bradley, the author of and the reason why you probably didn't read "Mists of Avalon"). Even if I hadn't moved onto different fandoms by now, I would be distinctly unenthused about HP by now. HP fic, these derivative works, I'll probably still enjoy, but the source material?... Ah, I guess there's a pang of regret originating from my nostalgia, but I'm fine if it fades into obscurity and becomes largely irrelevant.
We can shoot the author, we can proclaim the author dead; however, the corpse is still stinking up the place. Dear JKR, if only you weren't such a piece of shit! Then we wouldn't have to throw you out along with your stuff in order to air it all out.
