Lindsay Ellis on JK Rowling's Transphobia

[theoverlymean]

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YouTube video essayist / pop culture critic Lindsay Ellis breaks down

Comments

[m_pendulum]

I don't regret getting into Harry Potter, but it will always infuriate me that whenever BIPOC fans would bring up the failings of the series we would be silenced. The books have always had issues, but because there was a general "racism is bad" vibe nuance and close reading from a Black or Brown perspective was not encouraged.

Now, it is hard to read the books without seeing all the things Rowling feels pile up together, but it would have been slightly less of a blow if people took it seriously when the bells started ringing something was sus.

[pseudonygma]

I can't speak for anyone else but even though Cho Chang's name made me do a double-take, I was so delighted to see an Asian character at all that I convinced myself to turn a blind eye to it. At that point, I have never seen any contemporary or western fantasy books with Asians so the fact that she wrote one in at all was a delight. I guess it was easier to excuse the laziness of Cho Chang's name because it's easier to assume she didn't know any Asians to ask for name suggestions. But now that I'm older, I know she could've easily name her Annette Chang or Lindsay Cho; Rowling didn't need to give this character an "exotic" name just because she's Asian.

There's something to be said about being so desperate for representation as child that any representation is good representation.

[meetviolent]

Same. Also being young when I read the series, I had the thought, surely if this was a bad thing it wouldn’t have been published.

I had that thought about a lot of things I consumed when I was younger.

[sillycucumber2]

Remember Dean Thomas has a beautiful and intriguing back story that she threw away just because she didn't have room.

[quirkyblah38]

remember Theodore Nott, one of her 'favourite less known characters' was sent to Azkaban for kowtowing to the Malfoys, something she once said was something he would never do.

[ellyrianna]

I went to a journalism camp thing when I was 16 in 2007 or something like that and we did a little workshop on the problem of race in Harry Potter and it was eye opening to me. It talked about how much description JKR would give the non-BIPOC characters' descriptions but how she'd just say like a "a tall black boy" for someone like Blaise Zabini. That was a big heads up about my own privilege.