A plea for tolerance?

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Not sure quite what to call this - it's a comment I made on an earlier thread, where it was pretty deeply buried. I'm posting it as a separate comment because it's something I feel pretty strongly about.

Yes, I know - this is a sporking community. We are making fun of the Harry Potter books, and, at times, some of us can get quite irate in our discussions. But - please, please, can we refrain from getting irate towards J.K. Rowling?

Here's what I mean: I'm really not comfortable discussing the character of an actual human being just because I find her books frustrating. I'm a bit of a structuralist. The author is dead once a book has been published, and that cuts two ways. The author is no more privileged in his/her interpretation than any other reader, because the work belongs to the readers now. And there are limits to what we can extrapolate about an author's belief, personality, etc, based on the work s/he has written.

As angry as I get at the awful, mixed messages in these books, I think we must never forget that a real, vulnerable human being wrote them. It isn't right or fair to trash her while trashing the books. (Though I like to think we're not trashing them, but subjecting them to rigorous criticism!) And I'm really not comfortable with speculating about her family life and personality based on the words she's written. Though I do believe all real art is "true" in a deep sense, and reveals the heart of its creator, I still think the art has, and must have, its own validity. You see what I mean?

I hope to be a published author one day. Though I neither want nor expect Rowling's level of fame, I wouldn't like it if anyone psycho-analyzed me on the basis of my stories. I don't think any of us would - and many of us do some type of creative work. Would we like to be called "stupid cows" because a reader found our work stupid? The person is not the work.

So I think it's fine to discuss the image of God in Rowling's stories. I think it's fine to question the heavy use of Christian symbolism given the non-Christian content of the stories. Heck, I've done this myself, repeatedly! It's fine to discuss the mixed messages about race, bullying, authority figures, and so much more. But I'd rather not discuss the psychology and personal life of the woman who wrote the stories. J.K. Rowling is a woman trying to write, and raise a family, and live, in this real world. We shouldn't forget that, no matter how angry her books make us.

Comments

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Madderbrad, try this: There's a great Hermione-centric fic out there on Archive of our Own, "In Loco Parentis" by Dolores Crane. If you go to AO3 and search for "In Loco Parentis" and Hermione it'll come right up. It's a sixth-year AU in which, among other things, Hermione is sent to Azkaban for having an unauthorized abortion.

And even after she's released and is back at Hogwarts, she has to deal with being slut-shamed. Coming mostly from the other girls. Graffitti in the girls' loo- Hermione is a slag, Hermione is a baby-killer. Whispers at night in her dormitory. Comments, jeers, taunts.

The fiction makes it very clear how the slut-shaming Hermione endures from her peers after her return is a part of the same continuum of attitudes about women's sexuality as that decision by three old men to sentence her to Azkaban.

Since you like Hermione, when you read about her being punished and shamed for having dared to have sexual longings and to have acted on them, and how she's harmed by this shaming, maybe it'll sink in that denigrating a female (or a female character) specifically for acting on her desires for sex or for romance, is an expression of the same culture that threw Hermione in Azkaban. Because they thought it was THEIR business what SHE did with her body. (Or didn't do--when you, Madderbrad exculpate Ginny on the grounds that, well, in your opinion she didntt actually sleep with her unseemly parade of boyfriends, you are reiterating and reinforcing the view that for a girl to have sex with a boy she's dating is bad. Or at least bad if they are casual partners, if he's not her One True Love whom she plans to marry and stay with forever. Otherwise it wouldn't strike you that "not sleeping with them" would liessen the "offense" of her dating multiple partners.)

Also, everybody everywhere should read the story because it's fantastic, and has some wickedly, wickedly funny scenes and lines.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Terri, I'm not sure that story would be of any help in clarifying my discussion with annoni_no. She's detailed the 'rape culture' and sexist mindsets and such that exist in the real world; *I accept this*. So I don't need to read a fictionalised account of the same problems.

They simply don't relate to my beliefs about Ginny Weasley and how she is the Girl Who Dates in the Harry Potter novels.

I understand how annoni_no can leap to the assumption that I'm progressing from those mindsets, or driven by same. But it's just that - her assumption. With one or more dominoes inserted by annoni_no necessary in order to complete the chain from "Brad calls Ginny 'The Girl Who Dates'" to "Brad's calling Ginny 'The Girl Who Dates' perpetuates rape culture" or "Brad is a sexist". "Kinda looks the same" isn't good enough when you're throwing around insulting accusations.

That story doesn't sound like my cup of tea - does Hermione marry Harry in the end? That might make it worthwhile. :-)

Also, everybody everywhere should read the story because it's fantastic, and has some wickedly, wickedly funny scenes and lines.

Well, maybe I'll read it after all. Thanks!