Vladimir Putin backs J.K. Rowling in "cancel culture" row

Link, please?

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The article is updated with Rowling’s response.

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Ah, the bare minimum; color me shocked.

Thx

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I was referring to her response embedded above:

It doesn’t excuse any of the bad things that Rowling has said or done but it demonstrates that even terribly flawed people are able to recognize what an asshole Putin is.

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Pretty weak stuff for someone who pushes words around for vast amounts of money.

Let’s see…

“Fuck off! Unlike you, I don’t need any help to fight my battles.”

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I’m glad she threw it back in the gaslighting monster’s face, proving that even if she’s a garbage person for her terrible views, she has some nuance. Unfortunately rather than seeing this as a sign to reexamine her transphobia, it appears her supporters are saying “Putin supports this and Putin is bad, therefore he is only doing this to smear Rowling’s name, just like her critics!”

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Well sure, or they wouldn’t be her supporters. The hope would be that each time, there are a few more of them who aren’t.

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Maybe she would develop some empathy if she read a book about a pre-adolescent child who is sad because he is living in a toxic family environment where people fear and resent him for being different but then gets an opportunity to thrive in a community of peers who encourage him to embrace and share who he really is.

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I wish, but I’m not holding my breath.

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Or it’s her PR team. She hasn’t shown any empathy before.

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Yeah, I saw after commenting; sorry.

Still, it’s straight up weak sauce

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So much so. “I’m only asking for fascism level two and you’re an eight, so leave the criticism to me.” Pretty much anyone other than an MT Greene type would say the same.

(Edit: This felt maybe dismissive so to be clear, by levels I was thinking a Niemöller-type progression. She’s trying to hurt and erase people all the same.)

This term got me thinking. Is it really nuanced to think the government should be brutal and cruel to these people but not those people? And if so, is that even a positive thing? I mean, then the least nuanced opinion would be that maybe we should let people live their lives and not try to oppress anyone. Simplistic, I know, but sometimes the right answer is.

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She hasn’t dropped support for other far right TERs before now, but they hadn’t invaded another country at the time.

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Thing is, I finally got around to reading those books (well, listening on pirated and library audiobook versions) and for a group of best friends, Harry and his companions act pretty horribly to each other. The series was entertaining enough, but Hogwart’s seems to be just packed with selfish, cruel, petty assholes just looking for the slightest excuse to turn on each other. Combine that with the strict, conformist boarding school environment and other issues (such as treating a campaign to free house elves from slavery as a ludicrous idea played for laughs) and I don’t find Rowling’s world view to be as starkly opposed to her fiction as some people seem to.

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And there are Tucker’s talking points for his next show.

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Plus, for some reason, a pic of Navalny, which is her just straight up taking the piss.

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jurassic park mind blown GIF by Spotify

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Not so fast, Rowling. I bet Putin and J.K. could have a nice cozy chat about persecuting trans people.

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I was comparing her to America’s batshit right wing, who are so uniformly evil in every aspect that they’re practically cartoon supervillains at this point. Rowling’s a bad person but at least she’s not wrong on literally every issue in every possible way. It’s a good point that nuance isn’t always the optimal path though- I hadn’t considered it from the other side, where simplistic views can actually be used positively.

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Precisely why her position on trans rights is so sad and disappointing. Before her views became widely knows I think a lot of kids were reading those positive messages into the potter books. Even if they are a bit lacking in direct LGBT representation, it feels like a parable, kinda like how the X-men is a sort of a take on the theme of equal rights struggles of the 60s. I still enjoy the potter books but I prefer to pretend the author doesn’t exist and maybe focus on the characters and actors who gave life to the characters who have denounced her views… not ideal… I still feel a bit queasy about it.

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