Transgender rights discussion

nimic said:
Are you being deliberately obtuse? Who are you arguing with here? It can't be Mike Smalling.
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I’m not being obtuse at all. I’m actually trying really hard to see if there’s even the tiniest bit of justification for her being antisemitisc. Because it all seems ludicrously flimsy and part of the standard social-media fuelled craze for making sure that “the enemy” is completely one dimensional and rotten to the core.

There’s two decisions that seem to be the basis of all of this. First of all, her choice to use goblins as bankers in her book. And that’s only possibly antisemitic if we all accept that bankers=Jews and painting bankers in a negative light (by choosing nasty little monsters to portray them) is somehow hating on Jews (as opposed to hating on, you know, bankers). Which is madness, obviously.

The other “choice” is the physical representation of the goblins in the film. Now even if we assume the person who wrote the book on which a film is based has some sort of say on hair and makeup, is it really an antisemitic decision to allow the film-maker to portray goblins in exactly the way that goblins are always depicted in print and on film?

Surely to feck we need something a little more substantial to label someone as an antisemite?
 
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berbatrick said:
The thought process might be similar to the "thought process" that led her to give the only East Asian character a nonsensical name, "Cho Chang". In other words, not much thought at all, just coasting on vibes/feelings.
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Or calling the only black character Shacklebolt. Or having an Irish character called Seamus Finnigan who keeps blowing things up and tries to turn water into alcohol the first(probably) time we see him.

Harry is literally a shallow slave-owner who wants to become a (wizard)cop!

 
Cascarino said:
It’s rarely as explicit as that though. Obviously it’d be a very different ball game if the goblins took a break from their banking to celebrate Hanukkah in one book. Like sometimes things have to be implicitly understood, otherwise you’ll sit there and argue Animal Farm is just about talking animals and Stalin has nothing to do with it.

This isn’t to say I think the work is antisemitic in nature, but those tropes were to characterise the goblins. The same way that I don’t think she set out to discriminate against the Irish, but having the one wizard who creates explosions be Irish was pretty clumsy
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Well yeah, that would be antisemitic. But they didn’t do that. So what is the basis for the antisemitism in depicting bankers as goblins? Would orcs be ok? Or Trolls? Or have we already decided that goblins and Jews are basically interchangeable before Rowling made that choice in her book!? Because that really is antisemitic.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I’m not being obtuse at all. I’m actually trying really hard to see if there’s even the tiniest bit of justification for her being antisemitisc. Because it all seems ludicrously flimsy and part of the standard social-media fuelled craze for making sure that “the enemy” is completely one dimensional and rotten to the core.

There’s two decisions that seem to be the basis of all of this. First of all, her choice to use goblins as bankers in her book. And that’s only possibly antisemitic if we all accept that bankers=Jews and painting bankers in a negative light (by choosing nasty little monsters to portray them) is somehow hating on Jews. Which is madness, obviously.

The other “choice” is the physical representation of the goblins in the film. Now even if we assume the person who wrote the book on which a film is based has some sort of say on hair and makeup, is it really an antisemitic decision to allow the film-maker to portray goblins in exactly the way that goblins are always depicted in print and on film?

Surely to feck we need something a little more substantial to label someone as an antisemite?
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Well said. It’s a huge stretch to say she’s antisemitic based on the movies or her books. The other thing is - Dobby and Kreacher (the house elves) also have exaggerated features - quite similar to the goblin depiction. It’s a fantasy movie with humanoid beings - they’re obviously going to have exaggerated features such as bigger noses, ears, different body heights etc etc. It has nothing to do with Judaism.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Well yeah, that would be antisemitic. But they didn’t do that. So what is the basis for the antisemitism in depicting bankers as goblins? Would orcs be ok? Or Trolls? Or have we already decided that goblins and Jews are basically interchangeable before Rowling made that choice in her book!? Because that really is antisemitic.
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I guess we found the real racism all along
 
berbatrick said:
The thought process might be similar to the "thought process" that led her to give the only East Asian character a nonsensical name, "Cho Chang". In other words, not much thought at all, just coasting on vibes/feelings.
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Yeah.. the author of a children's book used "descriptive" names, to hammer home a degree diversity to her readers and she likes to use alliterations. What a monster.

Seriously.. criticism for her positions on trans people seems appropriate, but the way people dig through her books to over-analyze every little thing with maximum hindsight is cringe.
 
maniak said:
One of the weirdest things for me watching the films as a young lad. Everyone going around being ok with slavery, even the heroes.
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In the books Hermione stands up to it and creates S.P.E.W and is roundly mocked by everyone for it.
 
do.ob said:
Yeah.. the author of a children's book used "descriptive" names, to hammer home a degree diversity to her readers and she likes to use alliterations. What a monster.

Seriously.. criticism for her positions on trans people seems appropriate, but the way people dig through her books to over-analyze every little thing with maximum hindsight is cringe.
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People have been talking about these things since the books came out.
 
maniak said:
One of the weirdest things for me watching the films as a young lad. Everyone going around being ok with slavery, even the heroes.
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It gave Harry and Hermione a nice character arc when they eventually emancipated some of them.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Well yeah, that would be antisemitic. But they didn’t do that. So what is the basis for the antisemitism in depicting bankers as goblins? Would orcs be ok? Or Trolls? Or have we already decided that goblins and Jews are basically interchangeable before Rowling made that choice in her book!? Because that really is antisemitic.
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Well I wasn't saying it was conciously and deliberately anti-Semitic. As someone else pointed out John Stewart has come out and said he wasn't claiming that either. I also take the point that the movies seem to have gone a bit further than the books did and again not likely to have been intentional but it's not a good look.
 
Cascarino said:
You can tell when someone spends too much time on Twitter
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I’m guilty of that. If only on the basis that any time on Twitter is too much time. But I do limit my usage to an hour or less each week and have the good sense to steer clear of any debates about trans rights (or character assassination of mediocre kids books authors) on that platform. I get my fill of the latter on here.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I’m guilty of that. If only on the basis that any time on Twitter is too much time. But I do limit my usage to an hour or less each week and have the good sense to steer clear of any debates about trans rights (or character assassination of mediocre kids books authors) on that platform. I get my fill of the latter on here.
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Ok fair response :lol: I was expecting something worse to my snide remark but that was pretty good
 
do.ob said:
Yeah.. the author of a children's book used "descriptive" names, to hammer home a degree diversity to her readers and she likes to use alliterations. What a monster.

Seriously.. criticism for her positions on trans people seems appropriate, but the way people dig through her books to over-analyze every little thing with maximum hindsight is cringe.
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Agreed. I'm East Indian and seeing the names Parvati and Padma Patil in the books felt...I dunno, cool. Or something. It's hard to find a good word for feelings I'm trying to recall 20 years after the fact, but it definitely made a positive impression on me. The only weird part was when they dressed both in saris for the Yule Ball (in the movies) when the books have them dressed like all the other kids in wizard "dress robes". While that seemed jarring to me, I'm sure that whoever made that decision was intending to highlight diversity in some way.

My point here being that one can look back, edit out some points, emphasize some others, and create an unreasonable narrative about racism.
 
Mike Smalling said:
As I understand it, the objective/plot of the new game is to quell an uprising by the goblins, who are seeking more equal rights. That is certainly an interesting way to go, but clearly in line with J.K. Rowling's political views as already expressed in the Harry Potter series, such as they are.

Whether it's intentional or not, it sure is hard to not see the goblins as a stand-in for every anti-semitic trope ever conceived. Hooked noses, runs the banking world, greedy, scheming, untrustworthy, etc. It's kind of hilarious that it made it into these movies for kids. I mean, look at what they decided to put on the floor of the bank in the first movie. Link.
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I'll be shocked personally if the story doesn't have the main character end up doing an about face and siding with the goblins.
 
do.ob said:
Yeah.. the author of a children's book used "descriptive" names, to hammer home a degree diversity to her readers and she likes to use alliterations. What a monster.

Seriously.. criticism for her positions on trans people seems appropriate, but the way people dig through her books to over-analyze every little thing with maximum hindsight is cringe.
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I mean, wasn't the problem with Cho Chang that they're a chinese character but their names are Korean? It's lazy and a problem in a lot of tv shows/movies/books though of characters of certan groups having stereotyped names that are ultimately wrong and thus problematic.
 
SilentWitness said:
I mean, wasn't the problem with Cho Chang that they're a chinese character but their names are Korean? It's lazy and a problem in a lot of tv shows/movies/books though of characters of certan groups having stereotyped names that are ultimately wrong and thus problematic.
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So we have come full circle and the thought that Chinese and Korean parents may have a daughter together is offensive?
 
do.ob said:
So we have come full circle and the thought that Chinese and Korean parents may have a daughter together is offensive?
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Both are surnames and seeing how ignorant Rowling is on many other issues I don't think it's a reach to suggest that she was lazy and plucked names thinking they were Chinese and ran with it.
 
Some of this just feels like people grasping at anything that could in any way be perceived as negative to jump on Rowling for, whether it has any basis in reality or not.
 
nimic said:
Do you really think that is what has happened here?

Actually, of course you don't. You know nobody is saying that. You're resorting to arguing in bad faith.
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I responded to complaints that a character had a Chinese and Korean name. So I have to assume the point was that it should be either purely Korean or purely Chinese? And thus mixed ethnicity characters are problematic? I don't think anyone means anything racist by it, but I think some people are caught up in looking for reasons to be offended they lose sight of the bigger picture.
 
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balaks said:
Some of this just feels like people grasping at anything that could in any way be perceived as negative to jump on Rowling for, whether it has any basis in reality or not.
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I don't think she did stuff intentionally but I think it's also your job as a writer to make sure things are accurate and it's a problem when you use lazy stereotypes consistently or give a chinese character two korean surnames. Simple research would solve this.
 
do.ob said:
I'd expect these topics to show up on my search engine if they were indeed always there?
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Remove the time constraint and Redcafe is still nowhere to be seen, yet here we are talking about it. Which 95-05 foras and message boards would you expect to show up on a 2023 duckduckgo search?
 
balaks said:
Some of this just feels like people grasping at anything that could in any way be perceived as negative to jump on Rowling for, whether it has any basis in reality or not.
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Well, of course that's what it is.

She's been declared as being on the other team in the culture wars, so if you can come up with some new and interesting ways to be offended, you can get some good gotcha points on her.
 
SilentWitness said:
I don't think she did stuff intentionally but I think it's also your job as a writer to make sure things are accurate and it's a problem when you use lazy stereotypes consistently or give a chinese character two korean surnames. Simple research would solve this.
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Ok but I'm sure you could say the same about literally thousands of writers. What's the big deal?
 
NotThatSoph said:
Remove the time constraint and Redcafe is still nowhere to be seen, yet here we are talking about it. Which 95-05 foras and message boards would you expect to show up on a 2023 duckduckgo search?
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You wrote: "People have been talking about these things since the books came out.", not Redcafe specifically. And if I do remove the time constraint plenty of articles about antisemitism show up. Hence my point of hindsight.

Also: here's an original hate thread on Harry Potter from our very own Redcafe:
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/harry-potter-is-gash.161403/
 
balaks said:
Ok but I'm sure you could say the same about literally thousands of writers. What's the big deal?
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Because it's just a made up name of a character of Asian descent which isn't a particularly good look for a white writer? Because it exemplifies laziness and reverts to stereotypes of names of people from that region? It's objectively a wrong name. If there are writers doing the same then call them out because it's lazy and poor. It's commonly thought that 'Cho Chang' is a Chinese character but even that is dubious because of the name being so unfortunately wrong and I think that is a problem. It's difficult to identify with a character that has such a confused heritage/origin because well, there isn't really one due to the made up name. In regards to the overall point then as @phelans shorts says it all adds up. One or two things you can perhaps forgive the laziness but when it becomes 2 or 3 every single book then it's clearly an issue.
 
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balaks said:
Some of this just feels like people grasping at anything that could in any way be perceived as negative to jump on Rowling for, whether it has any basis in reality or not.
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It’s more straws and camels backs. If there’s one of these things it’s not good, but oh well. Two, ok, you need to do better. Three and it starts to get real difficult to defend.

Add that and her now known horrible opinions on certain sections of the population and it paints a picture that isn’t complimentary of her. It’s all context.
 
phelans shorts said:
It’s more straws and camels backs. If there’s one of these things it’s not good, but oh well. Two, ok, you need to do better. Three and it starts to get real difficult to defend.

Add that and her now known horrible opinions on certain sections of the population and it paints a picture that isn’t complimentary of her. It’s all context.
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Would any of this matter if you didn't know anything about her opinion on trans (which you don't agree with clearly)? Or would many people care about it?
 
do.ob said:
You wrote: "People have been talking about these things since the books came out.", not Redcafe specifically. And if I do remove the time constraint plenty of articles about antisemitism show up. Hence my point of hindsight.
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No, not Redcafe specifically, but we are here now on Redcafe talking about it and places like this won't show on searches. I said that people have been talking about it since the books came out, which they have, but because it's ordinary people duckduckgo won't notice. Jon Stewart and Pete Davidson will show on those searches, random people won't.

Here's a 2011 article, predating Rowling's heel turn by about a decade: https://www.jta.org/2011/08/26/ny/is-harry-potter-anti-semitic

The Rabbi concludes that the depiction isn't antisemitic, just like tons of people today conclude, but he didn't invent the question. He was asked. He also references another article about the same topic, because it was and has always been a thing.

If you like you can do a similarly restrictive search about Harry Potter and nazism, where you'll find few relevant hits. That doesn't change the fact that Voldemort and the death eaters are obviously inspired by Hitler and the nazis, and that this has been acknowleged since the books came out as well. This was something we talked about in like 6th grade at school, but DuckDuckGo doesn't seem to register that.
 
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