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Art v. Artist


Hobbes
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I am just wondering how everyone feels about HP and JK Rowling.  I see a lot of HP fans swearing off the franchise--this post was inspired by an article of a trans tattoo artist offering to do free cover-up HP tattoos.

Although not a HP fan, I do relate as one of my favorite authors, Orson Scott Card, is openly anti-gay marriage.  It is the reason I changed my user name.  I still recommend his books, but I always preface them with Card's statements.  I finished the Three Body Problem trilogy last year and LOVED it.  But the author Liu Cixin, is a Chinese Nationalist and has made comments supporting China in response to its human rights violations (but in his defense, is he really free to say anything otherwise).  Additionally, the females in his books have little personality beyond a basic trope.

How much of this behavior gets a pass because of societal norms?  I am sure 200 years from now we will be heavily judged for our impact on the environment--I try to do my best, but at the end of the day I still drive a car, use a lot of single use products, buy products I know are made by workers in inhumane conditions, etc.  Does Card get more of a pass because all in all, because of his age and his upbringing, his views are more tolerant than most other from that environment whereas Rowling doesn't because of her more liberal upbringing and her having more power and influence?

Just curious where everyone stands on this.

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1 hour ago, Hobbes said:

I am just wondering how everyone feels about HP and JK Rowling.

 

I can’t speak for everyone! I can only speak for myself! I’m the only one who can talk for me, me, precious me. I wrote up something on this subject several years ago, not sure if I posted it or not, in any case here you go:

 

H-h-h-h-hot J.K. Rowling takes :

 

1) She's just jealous! People pretending for their own personal gain to be a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth is HER right! Not theirs! It's the sort of thing one does if one wants to sell one's book for children or if one wants one's work to be judged solely on its own merit! All these trans kids are just ganking Joanne's little trick to be credited as she sees fit! How dare they do something that she's already done twice over!? Boo on them for trying to be happy! That's HERS! Happiness belongs to her alone!

 

2) She stole the Dursleys from Roald Dahl and has also taken his anti-Semitism wholesale as well. Except it's not the early-to-mid 20th century any longer and so open hatred of Jews is no longer fashionable or excusable in polite company. In fact, it's frowned upon in many circles! J.K. Rowling considers herself quite a supporter of us, I'm sure! (Goblins notwithstanding, naturally.) So she had to latch on to a different despised minority to have seething paranoid fantasies over. Thinking that the trans people are lurking in the bathrooms used by little girls to defile them is ridiculous, sure, but so was imagining that the Hebrews have snatched away the Eucharist for themselves and are befouling it in secret or are somehow in simultaneous control of both international finance and the Bolshevik conspiracy.

 

3) Remember that bit in the 5th book where Harry and Dumbledore are trying to find one of the Horcruxes and they're on that little island and there's a cup in a well and Dumbledore drinks its contents and it sends him into spasms of delirious pain and then Harry tries to help him by filling the cup with brackish water from the edge of the island and giving that to Dumbledore but that just hurts Dumbledore more and more and he has to keep doing it, he can't stop? A sort of analogy comes to mind! I'll state it simply : cup = Internet. Water = Mumsnet, Facebook, wherever this poison ferments. Dumbledore = J.K. Rowling. (Something that she admits as being generally true of his role in the series, if memory serves.) Harry = terfs. The semi-analogy breaks down, of course, because Dumbledore is a makebelieve person who died fighting makebelieve evil and J.K. Rowling is a real person who will live in real luxury as long as her hundreds of millions of dollars last her out.

 

[someone pointed out, think it was Elizabeth Sandifer, that technically Rowling has had four (4) male pseudonyms if you incl. Newt Scamander (look at the movies! look at what kind of guy was cast in the role and what that character goes through in the movies!) and Kennilworthy Whisp]

 

I’d also add this is me now in 2023 typing, just to clarify that the vivid descriptions of Harry’s headaches, the ones that he gets re:Voldemort, are so specific and detailed that one can’t help but imagine Joanne Kathleen Rowling experiences similar symptoms (I’m not the only person who’s asserted this, it may have been discussed by her in interviews, it’s certainly something that because of the popularity of the HP franchise has been gone over in the medical literature, I’m pretty sure there’s a mnemonic acronym to identify kinds of migraines which is related to Harry Potter, it may even actually be H.A.R.R.Y. P.O.T.T.E.R.) and that while this is of course much more common for women than for men it’s EVEN MORE COMMON for female-to-male transsexuals to experience these sorts of awful aura migraines (citation needed, uh oh, I’m unsure if I’m actually on solid ground here; as always take everything I say with a grain of salt) and that Joanne Kathleen Rowling has said that part of her reason for being so vocal on this *cough* *spit* “issue”/“question” is that she thinks she would have been pressured into being trans as a youth because of her tomboy nature. What’s my point? I think that a full picture of what sort of person Joanne Kathleen Rowling is should be starting to emerge to anyone paying careful attention here and that while it’s always suspect to assert that the bigot is secretly bigoted against themselves (cf. the dumb dumb half-witticism of talking about how gay homophobic pastors are or whatever) there might be something there. Am I wrong? Maybe. But think about it. Like, for example: Oprah is a billionaire but she’s not, like, a skinny billionaire. Oprah can look like whatever she wants, she can pay people to force her to exercise, to keep food out of her belly. Oprah has talked at great and eloquent length over and over about her struggles with food and dieting and stuff. But there’s obviously some things she values more than being skinny. What things? I don’t know, just going to speculate here : her privacy, her dignity, her sense of self-respect and self-control, her unwillingness to treat her own self as a barnyard animal, whatever. I think that Joanne Kathleen Rowling is kind of the same way but with being trans instead of being skinny. She’d like to be trans! But there’s other things she values way more so this tension is what prompts her to such ludicrous public displays on the subject. Same way Oprah used to go on and on about all sorts of quackery! This might be a bad illustrative example. I don’t know. I’m just spitballing.

 

1 hour ago, Hobbes said:

How much of this behavior gets a pass because of societal norms?

I’m not, like, a judge. I’m not the king!!!!1! I don’t decide who gets passes and who doesn’t. And even if I did, well : Hobbes, if you want to have a username that’s taken from Orson Scott Card I don’t see how this makes any material difference to the world whatsoever! If somebody wants to play their Harry Potter computer game or walk around with their Hufflepuff tattoo I don’t see how this is any worse than, as you point out, any other genuine contributions to real suffering which we all make whenever we interact with the world entire. Is there ethical consumption under capitalism? Was there ethical consumption under feudalism? When caveman Grug licked sap from the bark of a tree was this a no-no? I don’t know. I’m not the mayor!!!!!1

 

1 hour ago, Hobbes said:

Does Card get more of a pass because all in all, because of his age and his upbringing, his views are more tolerant than most other from that environment whereas Rowling doesn't because of her more liberal upbringing and her having more power and influence?

 

I guess I’d be more inclined to give him a pass (again, what does this mean!?1? I’m not in charge!!!11!) because he’s probably going to die soon and go live the life eternal on Planet Kobol or wherever.

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I certainly wouldn't begrudge anyone who chooses to draw a line in the sand in regards to having an ethical standard, whereby if an artist crosses that established line, the individual chooses not to buy or consume said artists output.

Generally speaking, I think all art is valid irrespective of the artists views/actions/speech no matter how abhorrent. It's either all ok, or none of it is ok. Some of the best musicians, writers, filmmakers and artists have either said, done, or hold abhorrent beliefs/actions. But their artistic output is still seminal and essential. 

I don't think any art should be supressed, cancelled or censored in any official capacity. Either it's all okay or none of it is okay.

Art and the questionable ethics around the individuals and groups who make art has to be out there in the open for people to dialogue about, and proven ridiculous by scrutiny and exposure for it's ridiculousness. Not shoved away like it never existed.

In regards to the new Harry potter game and JK Rowling...well....all I'll say is the people intending to hurt JK Rowling's purse buy boycotting this game are doing literally nothing to affect her income. She already made her money licensing the franchise out to the developer who is making the game. Boycotting the game only serves to damage the careers and income of the hundreds of developers who worked on it. There is no moral soap box to be proud of in this particular instance. But, if you find Rowling's views abhorrent and don't want to consume her stuff.. fine that's your call to make. Just don't judge people who want to get enjoyment from her creations.

Its a funny old world. If you really went looking I think people would find nearly every peice or art/media we consume has had the input of someone that people somewhere would find morally repugnant or to at least held a view apposed to ourselves. It's a headache I can't particularly be bothered giving myself. 

I try not to listen to music made by Nazis. It's challenging in the metal world, but Ukrainian black metal is generally really fucking good. So you know.. whatever. 

Shitty people can still make wonderful art and I think wonderful art deserves to be experienced. But if you've got a line in the sand, that's ok too. Just don't expect others to care about that line.

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Whoa, I gotta look into that Roald Dahl anti Semitism. I hadn't realized that and I studied some of his writing critically in high school but well that was high school.

I tend to separate the writer from the fiction or art from the artist. I've had this argument many times in my circle of friends because my school focuses on literature and writing and so we study a bit of this in the middle school grades of my school. My argument is it's all subjective. I've said and done stuff when I was younger that makes me cringe when I try to sleep at night. Just rude stuff that was unthoughtful and careless. From a certain point of view it's bad and we can "Cancel" culture it but honestly Rowling made her money and she's not a homeless hobo women any more so what does she care if you want to cover your Harry Potter tattoo?  It's just you assuaging feelings you hold against someone else's to make yourself feel better as a person. Books and art are escapism but they're also meant to educate and make you think about things.

My friend Chris though has stronger opinions. He feels we should be more aware of who we chose to read and their stance on things and make choices that are responsible to our own soul and being.

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oh yeah forgot to make the following point too, found in it my notes from sometime around July ‘22:

 

Probably another wrinkle in the J.K. Rowling thing is that she was a primary beneficiary of a massive and extended experience of child labour with all its attendant consequences. The movies! Like, didn’t at least one of those kids — not any of the main ones, obv., but somebody with a name in the books and a presence in people’s fan fiction — die at a tragically young age? I’m not saying that’s the only thing. Children, movie sets, the entertainment industry in general, it’s a nightmare. You can see all of her concern about the children and the pressure the children are being put under to transition as just an act of displacement for what she did, what she profited from. She has to think of herself as more responsible than parents, than doctors, than anybody ever because if she didn’t then guilt and shame over the movies (which she has maybe been confronted with if there’s, like, anything going on with the big stars below the surface or just anything happened to anyone that the larger public is unaware of) would hurt her. She can’t allow herself to feel that pain so instead she’s gotta dish it out to everyone else!

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  • 2 weeks later...

cracking myself up now @ the idea of a guy who loves Scott Adams — agrees w/him about the power of affirmation technique, agrees w/him that the best thing for white people is to get the hell away from black people, agrees w/all his hard right political viewpoints, agrees w/him about everything involving women — but can’t stand Dilbert. Thinks it’s dreck! Thinks it’s painfully unfunny! Thinks it’s badly drawn! Separating the art from the artist, indeed. I feel bad for this poor imaginary guy!!!1!

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I think when the print paper was killed due to social media and other reasons I essentially stopped reading Dilbert. His popularity with incels made me take a few of his comics I cut out of the Express News off my refrigerator. But I never knew the reason for his incel love until maybe this year and was like YIKES. Secret weirdness.

I like my celebrities like Dave Grohl who buys a bunch of meat and bbqs it and starts serving people food that were affected by storms in some west coast city that's escaping my brain right now because I have to teach new math in 10 minutes and I only know it the OLD way.

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He had some highlights.

Soooooo I have a funny art vs artist story to tell.

A friend of mine recently got a grant from the city to make art. He made it about the current state of things. So he cut up flags and made them into cortisone molecules, and stole like 1000 TikTok videos from online and melded them together of people doing strange things like using the teeth whitening filter or some other weirdness he projected onto a screen with a brain cut out. He also took that iconic flag "come and take it" and in white he did the co and take it and highlighted the ME in it. Or a giant gazing ball dopemine molecule in a dark room with fox news and a constant noise machine projected on it so it was like a weird disco ball.

Anyways some lady came in and made a HUGE scene about how anti-american my friend was and tried to take it down because it was promoted on the city's website and she was Margorie Greene Taylor batshit crazy.

And funnily all the other art goers were like "it's performance art" for her freak out and Chris as like I don't know that lady stop it. 

Anyways my friend had to find a studio space to display it in and the only one he could get is unmonitored so now the best art show ever has to be locked up from nuts destroying it and appointments have to be made to get in to see it. So basically only art school kids who's teacher wants them to come and see it and makes and appointment will get in.

Here's a link to his instagram promoting the show and some snapshots.

https://www.instagram.com/chrissauterstudio/?hl=en

And we had this great discussion afterwards talking about how Artists are perceived as and seen as opposed to the world filter where we get a kind of jolt from just seeing and doing affirming things in our peer groups. 

I dunno it's hard to explain because I need more coffee. HA

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I only scrolled down a little while on that there Instagram link before the page froze up and demanded my phone number, username, or email. It told me I had to use the Instagram app to continue! Couldn’t really get a good sense of what’s what from all that I saw up until that point — I liked the little ant! good on your friend for getting the San Antonio Dept. of Arts & Culture to fund this! — but I assume the stuff I didn’t manage to see was. even. better!!!!!1!

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