And The Moral of That Is...

[angua9]

'How fond she is of finding morals in things!' Alice thought to herself.

I have been watching with a great deal of interest the various responses -- and responses to the responses, and responses to the responses to the responses -- to J.K. Rowling's rant in which she stated that she hopes her daughters grow up to not "give a gust of stinking

Comments

[peachespig]

And also -- I can't get around this, because it's too obviously true -- because sometimes this prejudice exists in the reader and causes him or her to see things in the books that it's not clear the author ever intended to put there.

Yup. The awful thing about prejudices is that we all know them, we've got them stored in our heads, and even if we don't actively think we believe them, they can creep into our perception when we're not paying attention. The sense I am getting from some people is that it's the author's duty to actively and explicitly describe a character in a positive, non-stereotyping light so as to counteract the negative picture we may otherwise allow to creep in of our own accord. That is, she's failing if she simply calls Slughorn very fat and then goes on to describe his colorful personality, because such a neutral statement leaves room for us readers to "fill in the blanks" with our assumptions that "fat" is meant negatively.

That is to say, I think they'd only be satisfied if she was so explicitly positive about his weight that we were left with no mental room to think anything about him but sunshine and daisies. Of course, in that case they'd probably hate his character as dull and pastede on and savage her for that.

Which brings me to my other point: with many of these people, JKR simply cannot win. Her hypocrisy and villainy were fixed in their minds before word one of her rant was read, and the only question was which contradiction they would catch her in. An issue like female body image is sufficiently complicated that someone looking to find fault with a discussion of it will always be able to do so, and that's just what they've done. Not every single critic of hers, of course - but many of them, yes. Whether they're furious at her about Ginny, aggrieved over the Slytherins, or just engaging in that casual schadenfreude of bringing down someone famous - Jo was going to be wrong no matter what.

[quivo]

Right on - you can't win with stuff like descriptions of people. I mean, I know I go out of my way once in a while to use ones that aren't common i.e. make sure the heroes and villains in my fics have an equal share of beauty/ugly spread among them. Of course, there come times when someone being the way they are is a major plot point (or just common sense), so I just shrug and write them how I want, despite whatever (usually very little, as hardly anyone reads my stuff XD) outcry there is. Being a writer is all about writing what you want to write, and though there are times when it includes writing in one's prejudices and everything else, it doesn't mean writers should be censored or stopped from writing what they want.

[angua9]

Oh, very well said!

Also, if she's ever used a prejudice, as with Harry's feelings about Dudley, that absolutely defines her views about that quality and somehow colors her descriptions of every other character in the series. Just like one or two casual remarks about "what women are like" is an "Aha, gotcha!" that clearly reveals her deep cesspools of female self-hatred and stereotyping. We know these things!