Book club: Harry Potter and the Trammel Around J.K. Rowling

A while back, it was already the fourth edition of the DWARSe book club. In the middle of the cold winter, the Frequent Activities Committee had a cosy idea: reading Harry Potter for some relaxation during these long and lonely months. While for many, this book series evokes nostalgic memories of the past, it is also one that has been the subject of much controversy following the author's statements. Hence, J.K. Rowling in particular was also the topic of the evening, alongside discussions about fate and the absence of an enemy in the third book (as well as many issues that were not remotely related to Harry Potter), but also most importantly: can you separate a book from its creator?

The controversy surrounding Rowling began when she reacted negatively on Twitter to the phrase ‘people who menstruate’, because she thought it should be described as ‘women’. Following this comment, she received a huge load of criticism, because with this tweet she excluded people who were born in male bodies but have always felt female and therefore do not menstruate. Many fans responded that trans women are also women. The outcry was renewed when Rowling released her new bestseller ‘Troubled Blood’, under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. The criticism is focused on a specific passage in the book, where a male serial killer pretended to be a woman in order to lure women. This character is reminiscent of an existing conspiracy theory about transgender people, in which men dress up as women in order to get into areas only accessible to women, for example toilets, and were thus able to commit free violence. Critics felt this was a form of vilification of trans people, and therefore the last straw in the debate. Indeed, the controversial tweets and this passage are not the only damaging statements that came from J.K. Rowling. Fans and followers therefore called for the writer to be ‘cancelled’, or to stop buying or reading her books, including the Harry Potter series.

Cancel culture is something that has become increasingly prominent in recent years. It means ‘cancelling’ well-known people who have made socially undesirable statements or displayed behaviour. This again ties in with the ‘Art versus Artist’ debate, aka whether art can be separated from the artist: in this case, the Harry Potter series featuring J.K. Rowling. Shortly after Rowling released her new book, an open letter emerged signed by 153 people, mostly including scientists, thinkers and writers (including J.K. Rowling), speaking out against cancel culture. This could therefore be seen as a call for the separation of book and writer. On the other hand, for many, the passage about the serial killer wearing a wig aroused too much anger to see the Harry Potter series as separate from the writer any more: an argument against the separation, in other words. 

On the whole, it is a discussion that is becoming increasingly difficult. In recent years, especially with the rise of social media, writers, or artists in general, are much more in the spotlight. For instance, they have many followers on their pages, but also join television programmes more often. In this way, it becomes more difficult to distinguish the worldviews they express in the real world from the ones addressed in the artwork. 

Written by Sophie Middelhuis