Holy dread
A Canadian trans artist is taking JK Rowling’s name off Harry Potter books and reselling them without it following the debate about the writer’s views on trans issues.
Is a trans artist someone who claims to be an artist but isn’t actually a literal artist?
More to the point, what a childish and spiteful little hobby. Some observers are saying it’s a violation of copyright, but we can say for sure it’s childish and spiteful.
Artist Laur Flom is now removing her name from books about the boy wizard, before giving the books new covers and selling them for £140.
It has been reported that some of the proceeds are then donated to transgender charities.
Some. That’s still quite a hefty profit.
Yeah, I’ve been following this on Ovarit threads for about a week. It’s not only infuriating, but beyond that, it’s hilarious and ridiculous. And seriously, “Laur”? Clearly a Laura who thinks she’s a man.
But the real question is: Can we show a picture of J. K. Rowling in an art history class?
I know it’s not new.
I can’t get over how pathetic it is. There are so many fantasy novels out there that they could read, including ones by trans authors and with trans characters, yet they’re hung up on this one. It would be so easy to move on and read a different book. I used to love the music of the Smiths, but Morrissey turned out to be such a prick that I haven’t been able to listen to them anymore. That’s OK, plenty of other bands out there. Conversely, I know Jewish opera fans who enjoy Wagner, feminists who love James Brown, CSA survivors who still listen to Michael Jackson. They accept that you can enjoy the music without signing off on everything the artist did and believed in.
But this “I can’t move on and let go of these books so I’m going to steal the credit for writing them” routine is bullshit. As long as they keep reading those books, they’ll know that JKR wrote them and got the royalties for them, and it will torment them because you can never completely lie to yourself. You can’t half-ass a damnatio memoriae, so move on from reading Harry Potter. Hell, JKR herself has moved on from writing Harry Potter – her other projects are selling very nicely thank you very much, because she is a genuinely creative person, while all they can do is plagiarise and imitate and rebrand and steal. Pathetic.
As if doubt could be cast on who authored the Harry Potter books. What an utterly futile endeavor.
[…] a comment by Piglet on Holy […]
@3: So pathetic that it’s funny. Laughable.
“I started this project out of spite, and out of boredom.” – what the “artist” had to say about this silly business, an exact and perfect summation of the entire anti-Rowling project.
Standard copyright claim printed in every book I checked, usually on the back of the title page: